Munitz’s Adept Seamanship : Amid budget crisis, Cal State chancellor ventures into rough waters

In these days of state budget crisis, class choices for students and career security for professors in the California State University system have all the certainty of a lottery. Faculty layoffs and the sweeping cancellation of about 5,000 classes statewide for the fall have severely threatened the state universities that have been part of California’s vaunted system of public higher education.

Managing this crisis in the absence of a budget solution has taxed the administrative and political skills of the system chancellor, Barry Munitz. He has proved to be up to the task of handling this unprecedented legal and administrative mess, which has included such headaches as trying to figure out how to honor Cal Grants that come as IOUs.

Into the void of budgetary leadership last week, Munitz launched what effectively was a bold challenge to the governor and the Legislature.

Buoyed by their support for a tuition increase, and armed with the governor’s signature on an early-retirement incentive for faculty, Munitz announced that he would release $15.4 million to Cal State campuses. That would enable them to restore 3,700 previously canceled classes and to rescind the layoffs of about 1,000 professors and instructors. The chancellor was deploying his ship of higher education confidently without knowing how much fuel he could count on at sea.

Now, Cal State Fullerton, one of the 20 campuses, plans to accept 600 more full-time students, and possibly to reinstate eight faculty members. Cal State Long Beach plans to restore 170 classes.

Of course, the success of Munitz’s gambit depends on a budget agreement that cuts no deeper than already agreed by the Legislature’s Conference Committee. Indeed, the chancellor announced in the middle of his high-wire act that if there turned out to be fewer dollars than expected, the system would face its nightmare come spring.

But Munitz properly sees his business as education administration, not budget resolution. With a new semester at hand, and with the state’s students to educate, he deftly moved forward and seemed to thread the eye of a needle.