TO: Campus Community
FR: Emily F. Cutrer, Interim President
As Sonoma State University continues to develop the plan that will shape our future, it is essential that it reflect the aspirations of our community. I am reaching out to you – students, faculty, staff, alumni, boards, and others – to solicit your valuable input as the plan enters its final stages. A map for SSU’s journey in the coming years is of keen interest, especially to the community that cares so deeply about this institution.
SSU’s draft “Bridge to the Future” document can be found here. It has taken shape over the past few months with input from students, faculty, staff, the communities we serve, our elected officials, and the CSU itself.
The plan itself goes into more detail, but the overarching goals in “Bridge to the Future” are:
- Increasing the number of full-time-equivalent students.
- Engaging the region even more fully as a partner in increasing social mobility, developing informed citizens, and meeting regional workforce needs.
- Ensuring sustainability by bringing cost-per-student in line with the California State University’s average cost per student.
- Enhancing financial resources through administrative cost and functioning improvements in the Network with SFSU and CSUEB, along with increased entrepreneurial uses of university facilities and infrastructure.
- Creating and marketing additional reasons for students, parents, and community members to come to the Sonoma State University campus and use its facilities.
As “Bridge to the Future” reads: “Our recent budget decisions now need to become investment decisions. Those investments are going to help recruit students, retain them, prepare them for careers, connect them to on-campus and regional employment and business opportunities, and keep them in the North Bay to reduce the region’s ‘brain drain’ and create a ‘brain gain.’”
I encourage you to fully review “Bridge to the Future” and to offer your feedback by emailing bridgetothefuture@sonoma.edu. As time is of the essence, comments will be received through Monday, April 21.
My thanks for all that you do in service to Sonoma State University.