Embattled Head of San Diego State Gets Qualified Support of Trustees

The embattled president of San Diego State University was given qualified support by his bosses Wednesday in the face of a demand by faculty that he be dismissed.

California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz alternately supported and chided SDSU President Thomas Day for proposed cutbacks that have brought the system’s largest campus to an uproar.

But CSU trustees meeting in Long Beach on Wednesday gave Day as much breathing room as possible to try to gain the support of SDSU faculty members who have demanded his resignation for the way he has handled budget shortages.

“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 SDSU faculty last month. Almost 56% of professors asked for Day’s removal because he announced plans to fire 146 tenured and tenure-track faculty members without consultation.

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