Q&A; : McCray’s Learning Experience

Q. Is the job of the president of this university the same today as it was when you first took it four years ago?

A. The quick answer is yes. But, in the end, I found that California--not the job--is different than I had anticipated. I grew up as a Midwesterner, and Midwesterners always look west. We always orient ourselves toward the setting sun, and this move was to be a fulfillment of an expectation that had always been there.

California had always seemed to be a place of extraordinary opportunity and a place that appeared to me to be sophisticated, and I had those expectations. Maybe it existed once, but I don’t think it is here now. This may sound trite, but I think the core that was once California after World War II, and what I came to anticipate, is no longer here.

Q. What specifically did you expect that you did not find?

A. Probably sophistication. When I first arrived, I expected more sophistication in the then-chancellor’s office. Under (former chancellor) Dr. (D. Ann) Reynolds, the office had become a huge bureaucracy, really getting in the way more than it was helping. I expected more sophistication from the trustees than was there. They are good people, but many of them have never made these kinds of decisions before. I had thought that in a state as alive as this one, things would really move fast. And then I got here, and nothing happened.

Q. Will the university have to change its focus in the future because of all the changes this state is going through?

A. The fundamental purpose of this institution will remain providing high-quality undergraduate education in terms of its liberal arts content. This university is well placed to meet those needs of California by providing high-quality education. Fundamentals, such as good writing and math skills, and all the things that are needed to enter a fairly complex and industrialized high-tech society. The second thing is in regards to the graduate programs. Let Berkeley offer master’s degrees in Chaucer, for example, and medieval studies--things I love personally. But what we have to focus on here are the critical state needs: economics, environment, health and education.

Q. When you first came to Cal State Long Beach you said the surrounding economic environment should dictate what is taught on campus, and you used high-tech and defense industries as examples. Now, you don’t even mention them. With those industries going through tough times, is the university going to shift away from them?

A. No, I don’t think so. Will we still graduate hundreds of engineers a year? I doubt it. But that statement still stands. The relationship between what universities do and what communities need is very lean here. Folks didn’t dislike the institution, but neither did they embrace it. And when that is happening, the influence of the general community on how we do business and what we focus on at the university is very weak.

Q. Another goal you stated when you first arrived was making the university a critical part of the community. Did this happen?

A. Well, it was a critical element here, but no one would say so. I wanted people to say to me, “Man, I’m really glad you’ve got that engineering program. You guys are doing so well in the sciences,” or at least, “Keep up the good work” or something! Well, I didn’t get that far, and I think it’s going to take another five years with the same kind of effort. There is no substitute for the president throwing her time or his time totally into the community. If we continue to build that community support, I think people will realize that educational institutions are not something that are removed, but that they participate in how the whole society evolves.

Q. Maybe your frustration is simply that Long Beach just isn’t a college town. There is a whole city out there apart from the university.

A. Yes, that was a shock. I had a lot of experiences here where I thought the university would have been represented or called upon as a participating member, and it just didn’t happen. I had to kind of force it. Generally, the city government, and most of the power structure here, sees the university as something separate. We’re not a key issue in this city, and that needs to change.

Q. What was your biggest accomplishment here?

A. Three things. There was considerable unease in the faculty before I arrived regarding the administration. The chancellor told me that one of my tasks was to make the faculty feel better about their institution. The morale was horrible and it needed to be rebuilt, and I think we succeeded in that.

Secondly, it appeared to me quickly after I arrived that state resources were going to be a problem. I had been very good at fund raising in Florida and decided to get into it here in a big way. Now, we are the top fund-raiser in the CSU this year. We were raising about $3 million in 1988, and we closed out this last fiscal year close to $15.5 million. What I didn’t realize was that the money was going to be used to supplement. I had thought it would be used to increase the quality of education here, with student scholarships, chairs for faculty and that kind of thing.

Third, I had promised myself that no year would go by that we didn’t have a building coming out of the ground. Now, we have buildings committed through 1995, using both state and private money.

Q. Don’t you get criticized by people asking why money is being spent on buildings when staff is being laid off? What is the benefit of new buildings?

A. There are many benefits. Despite the contradiction--building when one can’t get operating budget dollars--there is an excitement in building that suggests opportunity. New space is always good.

Plus, we are going to have to get ready for a population surge. The demand is there. The CSU estimates it will double by the year 2005. If the state would support it, we could be at 40,000 student population. So my contribution was to get ready for it.

Also, a lot of the spaces we added are those that you would expect to see on a large, mature urban campus. Yes, we have classrooms and laboratories and student unions. But what are the other things a university needs? Music studios, dance space, performance space and stages. This is a cultural addition to the whole area.

The basketball arena is going to be there for all the students for concerts, games, whatever. Our largest space now is 400 seats. So, somehow we just sort of had to grow up.

Q. Who was most affected by the budget cuts? The students? Staff? Faculty? Who bore the brunt?

A. The effect is pervasive. The most disastrous effect is on the economy. The CSU estimates every student who graduates from CSU earns on the average $30,000 that first year. So, every year we prevent a student from graduation, that is an additional $30,000 that is not generated in taxes and sales and all that is related.

So what we have done is help the economic recession in the state. Instead of students graduating in 4 1/2 years, they are taking six. They are not entering the economy. Their talents are not being used. They have to work at Wendy’s to stay in school.

But in terms of your question, those who really take it are the students, and not just in higher tuition. The damage is just getting knocked around. They are getting stuffed in classes and standing in huge lines for hours. That is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing to do to anyone and it is dehumanizing.

Q. So what would have been your funding solution?

A. What I wish my board would have said to me was, “Raise the tuition from $1,400 to $2,400.” Then I would have gone out and raised the money for the students in the forms of scholarships.

Our agreement in the Master Plan was that everyone would have access to quality education. That’s all well and good, as long as we don’t talk about resources. Now that we don’t even have the resources, how can one talk about quality and access? We set these unrealistic economic standards in California and even legislators, who should know better, get panicky at the suggestion of a tuition of $2,000. They are afraid they are going to get voted out.

Q. Will things get worse before they get better?

A. If the governor’s message in January reflects the environment that has been developing--with a $9-billion shortfall--it is going to be very dire. Because on that day, this institution is going to have to plan very seriously how it takes another $10-million to $14-million cut. We have already taken the temporary cuts: library books, equipment, temporary faculty, support staff, computers. Those are gone. So where do we go? We will have to go to tenured faculty, and that creates a tremendous chaos. The person who comes here has to be well aware of these things, has to think a lot about them.

Q. Keeping in mind the painful decisions you had to make, what kind of a person would you suggest for the job as president of this university?

A. It will probably take a fairly complex person, and that would be very difficult to read in the search process. If you go out and find someone who has done these sort of cuts, his hands are bloodied, and faculty would have a very hard time with that.

On the other hand, it would be chaos if they went out and found a romantic, a sentimentalist who doesn’t understand the budget or doesn’t know how important it is to keep things balanced.

I would think you would want a person much like myself. It sounds self-serving, but you asked the question. Namely, someone with an academic background who carries with her or him some academic values and is anchored in those. Because without that, the rest of the game is hollow. You don’t want a two-column budget administrator. There’s no soul there, and that is what this is all about.

Q. What was your biggest disappointment?

A. That I didn’t accomplish more of what I accomplished. I didn’t seem to get as much done as I wanted. I would want more scholarship money and would like to be further along on the annual fund. We need to be cranking out $20 million annually. Better community relations would have done that.

Q. If you were able to get everything you wanted in terms of budget, faculty, student population and community involvement, what would be on your wish list?

A. I’d reduce class size to 20. I would set a goal of 100% graduation in four years, and 100% retention of all students. I’d make sure that every student who leaves here has had a long conversation with a counselor. I’d make certain that all the students have a tremendous number of people listening to them, talking to them and caring about them. It’s really not too complex.

Q. And from the ‘Now It Can Be Told’ file, will the music building ever reopen? (The roof of Daniel Recital Hall collapsed in July, 1990, and the university has sued the architect and builder.)

A. Oh absolutely. In fact, the contractor is in there now, and all the old rubble has been cleaned out. It’s on its way.

Q. What is really going to happen to the campus garden? (University officials recently decided to convert a parcel of land that has been used as an organic garden into a temporary parking lot during construction on campus.)

A. I am going to sneak in there and blow it up. No, really, my father was a vegetable farmer in Indiana, and I love vegetables. But this is public land, and it is to be used for public purposes as dictated by the trustees. It’s hard to find anywhere in our mission statement that we are supposed to provide land for our neighbors to grow vegetables.

Q. Any guesses on who might be named to succeed you?

A. No, I have no idea, and it would be very presumptuous for me to say anything. But I will say to whomever that person is: I wish her or him the best of luck.