10-Month Honeymoon May Be Ending for CSULB Chief

When Curtis L. McCray took over as president of Cal State Long Beach last summer, some administrators and faculty members thought he was too good to be true.

He promised an open-door policy, then kept his word. He converted the lavish office of his predecessor into a conference area and moved into a modest room equipped with a personal computer, a telephone and a desk adorned with seashells.

Following a tradition dating from the early years of his administrative career, he began teaching a class on Chaucer. And he still spends occasional half-days working alternately as a campus secretary, custodian, groundskeeper and admissions clerk.

“The president has to be seen,” said McCray, 51. “The point is to speak to people one-on-one.”

Praised for Openness and Energy

Now 10 months later, the new president, with some notable exceptions, is still getting generally high marks on his performance. Praised for the energy and sense of inclusiveness he has brought to the campus, McCray is seen by the faculty, at least, as a breath of fresh air compared to his predecessor, Stephen Horn, with whom their relations were often strained.

“It was a one-man show under Horn,” said Bob Winchell, president of the 1,900-member university faculty union. In contrast, Winchell said, McCray listens to faculty members and includes them in the decision-making process. “It’s a multi-university show under McCray,” he said. “He’s brought a spirit of true collegiality to the campus.”

Yet the president remains largely untried, both his admirers and detractors agree. Although he has moved to streamline his administration by announcing a top-level reorganization effective July 1, they say McCray has not yet faced the hard decisions that can make or break a presidency.

That is about to change.

Entering the final week of his first academic year at Cal State Long Beach, McCray is facing a budget crunch of potentially dramatic proportions.

“The honeymoon is over,” said one program administrator who asked not to be named. “Now he’s going to have to make some real tough decisions. I’m afraid of things falling apart.”

Students May Be Turned Away

The president already has taken the unusual step of requesting permission from the state chancellor’s office to turn away as many as 3,000 qualified students in the fall.

The looming crisis is attributed to a number of factors.

Historically CSULB has been under-funded compared with other campuses in the California State University and Colleges system, McCray said. While the average campus received $5,376 per full-time student last year, the Long Beach campus received only $4,583--about 85% of the average. The same general pattern, McCray said, has existed for years.

He said state funding formulas are outdated, assuming that large campuses can educate students more cheaply than smaller campuses. Thus, large Cal State campuses such as Long Beach, San Diego and Northridge receive considerably less per student than do smaller campuses such as Stanislaus, Bakersfield and Humboldt.

In Long Beach, McCray said, the financial problem has been compounded by rapidly growing enrollment that has consistently exceeded expectations. The university is required by law to accept all students who qualify for admission, McCray said. When the university accepts more than the number of students budgeted, it effectively receives a lower allocation per student, he said.

Loss of $3 Million

The university’s financial resources also would be affected by Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposed fiscal 1989-90 budget that, among other things, would reduce the state university system’s funding by about $45 million. The Long Beach campus alone would lose $3 million next year under the governor’s plan, McCray said. The university’s budget this year totals $136.4 million.

McCray says he plans to tackle the problem on several fronts. First, he said, he has asked Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds, who heads the state university system, to review what he considers archaic formulas by which the state determines how money is distributed among the system’s 19 campuses. Funding is based on a complicated set of factors including the mix and variety of programs, type of faculty and environmental setting of a campus, McCray said, and the formulas have not been examined in a number of years.

He also has asked Reynolds to declare CSULB “impacted”--a legal maneuver that would allow the campus to turn away as many as 3,000 otherwise qualified applicants for fall admission. Thus, McCray said, the university could limit total enrollment to about 23,600, the level for which he expects to receive funding.

“It’s a ticklish situation,” the president said. Rather than sacrifice quality in favor of expedience, he said, the university ought to stop trying to do a job it is not being adequately funded to do and hope the resulting furor will send a message to the state capital. “The pain is created by public policy,” he said. “What we have to do is begin inflicting the pain on the public-policy makers, and the way we do that is by not accommodating students.”

Cuts in Three Programs

CSULB’s anticipated $3 million decrease in the state allocation, he said, presents a challenge; one that is bound to draw blood. To meet the governor’s proposed bare-bones budget, McCray said, he is considering major cuts in three areas: athletics, the University Art Museum and KLON, a jazz-oriented public radio station associated with the university.

Earlier this month, McCray said, he asked the heads of those programs to examine how they could operate on about three-fifths of their current budgets. Other options under consideration, he said, include eliminating the programs entirely.

Already the mere specter of such solutions has led to a flurry of angry petitions and phone calls, McCray said. And even if the proposed cuts are carried out, he said, they would make only a dent in the problem. A remaining shortfall of about $2.1 million would have to be eliminated by a hiring freeze and reductions in such academic support items as new library books, travel, paper or laboratory supplies.

“A lot of people are upset,” McCray said. “The difficulty is that none of the letters have suggested (alternative) ways of finding funding.”

So far, the impending cuts--which McCray says probably will be finalized next month--do not seem to have seriously tarnished the new president’s image. Of more concern on campus, it seems, are the implications of his planned administrative reorganization.

In essence, according to McCray, the number of administrators reporting directly to the president will be reduced from about 12 to 4. A new provost position will be created. It will be filled by John Beljan, vice president for academic affairs, who will be second-in-command to McCray.

Financial Administrator

A vice president for administration and finance will assume responsibility for budgeting. William Griffith, a former accountant who was business manager 11 years at Northeastern Illinois University, has been selected.

The other two officers reporting directly to the president will be Robert Bersi, vice president for development, and June Cooper, who will become vice president for student services. She currently is vice president for faculty and staff relations.

The announced changes have created concern in some quarters.

One lower-level administrator expressed discomfort at the prospect of Griffith, a new force on campus with whom few are familiar, exerting such major control over the university’s purse strings.

And student leaders say they are wary of Cooper’s ability to oversee student services--which include counseling, student activities, housing and food services--after spending so many years representing the interests of faculty and staff. That wariness has been increased, they say, by recent perceptions that McCray has been less than hospitable to student input and concerns.

Student Leader Comments

“When there are valid student issues that need to be brought up, they are put off,” said Roger Thompson, who has been Associated Student Body president since last summer. After meeting regularly with student leaders during his first semester on campus, Thompson said, McCray has recently become so difficult to get an appointment with that Thompson has been unable to see him in two months. “The perception,” Thompson said, “is that we aren’t getting his ear.”

McCray blames Thompson’s recent inability to see him on miscommunication, and says he is “stunned” by the student leader’s perception that students are ignored. McCray says one of his major goals is to foster good communications with all sectors of the campus including students, faculty and staff.

He recently initiated a special program under which a major campus walkway is named after an outstanding staff member each month.

During a recent luncheon, McCray casually discussed issues ranging from the anticipated budget crunch to his ideas on recruiting minority students with about 10 new teachers over a relaxed meal of vegetables and spinach crepes.

“I think this is very valuable,” said Everett Murdock, a computer education professor. “There’s contact made. What he’s doing is establishing communications for the future and it’s fostered a good climate.”

Scout Event Chairman

McCray’s schedule for the rest of the day, which he described as typical, included teaching his Chaucer class, meeting with faculty union president Winchell, attending a meeting of Boy Scout leaders to discuss the coming Scout-O-Rama of which he is chairman, and meeting with soon-to-be student services czar Cooper.

He generally begins his days with an early morning jog near his eastside home and ends them at one of the numerous social or cultural gatherings he is often called upon to attend. Unlike Horn, who traveled a great deal, McCray says he prefers to stay close to home and involve himself in local activities.

His energy and enthusiasm, in fact, has been noticed by Chancellor Reynolds, who in the past has often been unwilling to comment publicly on the professional performances of campus presidents.

“I am absolutely delighted with his administration,” Reynolds said in a telephone interview last week. “He’s proved to be a very caring manager of the campus and he’s a pleasure to work with. We work very well shoulder-to-shoulder. He has not made a misstep in my opinion, and that’s very unusual on a campus of this size and complexity.”