Chico State President Dr. Stephen Perez gave the annual Fall Convocation speech on Aug. 17. It's the first time he addressed the entire university since becoming its president last month.
NSPR's Alec Stutson spoke with Perez before the speech about his goals for Chico State.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
On enrollment
We've lost a lot of students during the pandemic and over the last five to six years. I'm very excited and proud to say we've turned that enrollment loss around, and we're projecting to have a small increase in enrollment this coming year. That's monumental for us. We will continue doing what we've been doing, which is increasing our marketing, increasing our creative ability to look at our academic programs, and what we provide to students both in the North State and across the state of California. And we'll get out and tell our story, what we're about and what we provide for our students, which is a unique higher educational experience.
On students facing food or housing insecurity
Today is a special day. It's the second day of our move-in. Yesterday was the first day of moving. We're moving 1,700 students into our residence halls here on campus. Yesterday, I spent some time walking through the residence halls, having our students move in, talking with their parents and sharing the message I've shared for years.
But particularly important to share with parents and students — we’re here to help their students be successful. We want them to learn, we want them to grow and we want them to do all of these wonderful things.
I can't imagine how you do that if you don't know where you will sleep at night and if you don't know where your next meal is coming from. I can't envision how you sit in class, pay attention and learn if you're hungry. And if you don't know how you're going to satisfy your basic needs. So, while there may have been a debate over the years about whether those are roles that universities ought to play, that debate is over.
It's very clearly part of our responsibility. Again, if you look at our mission, it's for our students to be successful and grow into what they want to be. We need to make sure we can provide what we can to help them meet their basic needs, be it a food bank, be it emergency housing, trying to find affordable housing, affordable housing opportunities for our students. We will work every day to look at those things outside of specifically focusing on students.
On making students feel safe after faculty misconduct or abuse
There's a basic need on campus or at any campus. But here in particular, as with everywhere else, one of those basic needs is our people need to feel safe. Our students, faculty and staff need to be able to come to a safe working environment and know that they're both taken care of and welcomed. We're going to have an inclusive campus, or we're going to have a safe campus as well.
We've got reasonably good systems. They can always get better. We will implement policies and procedures to ensure that we're following through on providing a safe working environment, a safe learning environment, and a safe living environment because we've got a lot of people living on campus as well.
We've got a lot of communication going out. We've got student forums on safety. Part of my experience has been that often, people don't know where to go when they're in crisis. They don't know what resources are available to them. We want to make sure people know up front what's available to you. Here's how to report something, here's how to follow through on it, and here's what we're here to provide for you.
On communication between the university and students
We're always trying to increase our ability to communicate with our students. It's also an ever-changing environment. There was a time, a long time ago, I was walking across the campus with a student and the student said, 'I don't even know when there are football games,' and we were walking past the sign that said there's a football game this Saturday. Now, that wasn't the student's fault. That was our fault for not communicating in a way that that person would be able to receive it.
We're always trying to figure out ways that we can better get information to our students. We've got to evolve as communication methods change continually.
On working with community organizations
I don't know all the community organizations, but I anticipate wanting to be a part of all of them. Part of what we do is very special. Again, as I said, we're here for our students. But part of our mission is to make sure that our community and our region is also successful.
We play a big role in that. Here at Chico State, we may play the largest role of any CSU in the success of its region because we're a pretty diverse, spread out, rural area. Our service region is only a little smaller than the state of Indiana. Our goal is to be embedded in our community, it's to be part of those community organizations. Our faculty, students and staff are already doing it. We want to amplify that. It's one of the things that makes us really happy to be part of this organization.
On outreach in rural communities
We'll be everywhere we possibly can be. Anywhere somebody could potentially want to be a Chico State student, and maybe even places where they don't realize they want to be Chico State students. We're going to be there too. We've got to figure out ways to do that and what it means to go to our rural areas. If that means me driving there, I'll be there. If it means us advertising there, we'll be doing that too.
On Chico State’s school spirit
I plan to boost school spirit. I promise you that. If you see me walking around campus, I will often wear Chico State gear. I will be at every event I can because I love it. I love being part of the university. It is a better experience for our students. It's a better experience for the community. It's a better experience for everybody involved when we have high school spirit.
Welcome back to a new academic year. It is an unbelievably exciting time for us. We get to start fresh. I enjoy the academic seasons. I like that we have starts and stops to semesters, that we get to renew ourselves every year and then again every spring, and this is that time of year.
There's a lot of excitement around. We've got people moving in, and we've got classes starting. We've got people seeing each other that we haven't seen in months. Thank you to everybody for getting us ready, and welcome back to a new academic year. I couldn't be more excited about it.
