State University Chancellor Saves the Day : Education: Munitz criticizes Day’s tactics but tries to quell angry faculty demands for the ouster of the SDSU president.

Barry Munitz pulled San Diego State University President Thomas Day off the hook.

The California State University chancellor gave Day as much line as possible Wednesday to angle for support from a majority of the SDSU faculty, which has demanded Day’s resignation for the way he has handled budget shortages.

In a delicate diplomatic minuet, Munitz alternately praised and chided the embattled president during a CSU trustees meeting in Long Beach.

“The solution to the (tension) at San Diego State is not to change presidents,” Munitz said in giving the board’s official response to an unprecedented vote of the SDSU faculty last month. Almost 56% of professors asked trustees to remove Day after he announced without consultation plans to fire 146 tenured- and tenured-track professors.

Rather, Munitz said Day must re-establish “traditional consensus-building” on the campus. He said the board will monitor Day’s progress, “to be as confident as possible that the traditional values of an academic institution are being honored and maintained.”

By ordering Day last week to rescind the letters of dismissal intended for the spring semester, Munitz said that both Day and the faculty “will have a half-year of building this academic family . . . and hopefully wind up with a more healthy sense of togetherness than (we’ve had) with a number of the faculty (members) on the mission and budget issue at San Diego.”

Day was visibly uncomfortable Wednesday in being singled out for special public attention while sitting among his 19 colleagues, and later said it was “very painful.”

But Day knew what was coming, having been called up to Munitz’s office last week for a private meeting with the chancellor and three key trustees to discuss the SDSU situation. And Munitz deftly mixed both support and criticism to assuage Day and to placate the more than 50 professors, who traveled to CSU headquarters for the meeting.

“We will support the presidency,” Munitz said. But he added that he has been “extraordinarily impressed and overwhelmed by the large number of thoughtful, articulate, heartfelt, and sophisticated analyses” he has received from SDSU professors regarding campus tension.

Munitz believes that a majority of SDSU professors--including many who voted to request Day’s removal--are angriest about the lack of consultation by Day and may not disagree with the need to make cuts of some tenured positions.

“Look, this is such an unusual occurrence and my remarks were such an unusual presentation because I’m trying to make sure this campus stays healthy,” Munitz said later. “While I was not blunt, believe me, my message is clear to everyone that (continued tensions) will destroy the institution.

“I have confidence that all sides will make a good-faith effort, but I’m not naive about this--it won’t turn around overnight. Time will tell.”

Day said later that the statement by Munitz during the meeting “stands by itself.”

“I’ll certainly carry out the wishes of the board,” Day said, “and rescind the outstanding layoffs . . . but I do not feel I’m being held to a higher level of scrutiny.”

Munitz will provide the necessary funds to forestall layoffs until June.

Day said he wants the faculty to “explore the academic consequences” of the budget cuts now that Munitz has ordered a transition year of planning before tenured layoffs will take place.

Day said his own plan for laying off 146 professors, eliminating nine academic departments, and severely cutting several others was “one statement of one way of handling an 8% cut . . . an instant response to an immediate problem” when he announced it in May.

Professors at the Wednesday meeting said later that Munitz is “Pollyannish” in believing that Day will sincerely consult with the faculty before deciding how to downsize the university and make the layoffs that both Day and Munitz consider inevitable after June, 1993.

“Day is perceived by many faculty (members) as a bully,” said Prof. Michael Seitz, head of the SDSU chapter of the California Faculty Assn. “And he hasn’t changed yet. If he does, then maybe the campus can get back together.”

“The action by Munitz was predictable,” Seitz added. “Are we satisfied? No. Munitz doesn’t understand why we are so dissatisfied. Day’s management style is very ineffective for this time and place and we don’t believe it will change.

“We don’t believe he has the capacity to change. Tom Day didn’t withdraw the (termination) letters. The chancellor has forced him to pull them back.” Seitz said he doubted Munitz can ensure that Day “will really change” but promised that “all of us will try our best to act in good faith.”

Prof. Irving Gefter, a member of the SDSU religious studies department--one of nine which Day earlier proposed for elimination--told trustees that campus morale is at a historic low and that classrooms “are like houses of bereavement . . . with students dismayed, disoriented and bewildered.”

The 22-year SDSU veteran thundered: “We have a president who could not find any time before May 12 to discuss his (layoff) plans with the faculty” before summarily announcing them but last week “did find time to go to Lindbergh Field to greet his football team after its victory over BYU.”

Gefter scolded Munitz for a “distressing disregard of the views of faculty” members despite the chancellor’s statements of admiration for their input. “There’s not the slightest chance for consultation, shared objectives or mutual trust under the present administration,” Gefter said.

State CFA President Pat Nichelson lectured trustees not to disregard the SDSU faculty because the situation “bursts through all scales of measurement” compared with past disputes between professors and campus presidents throughout the CSU system.

“Something has snapped down in San Diego,” Nichelson said. He later told a reporter that, in the past, he thought Day often has considered himself above following board orders he doesn’t like.

“Some other presidents have been abrasive to the chancellor in the past as well, but they have fallen into line this past year,” Nichelson said. “But this man (Day) thinks he is king in San Diego.”