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On Feb.8,  CSUB hosted an open forum for all students, faculty, staff, and others in the community to chime in on what they want in the next Chancellor for the CSU system.  

The Chancellor will be overseeing nearly half a million students throughout 23 different universities in the state of California. 

CSUs throughout the state will be holding three different forums at different locations. The CSU Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach, CSUB, and San Francisco State University, as well as having two different committees, the Implementation Committee and Assessment Committee which will help narrow down the search for a qualified chancellor. 

These open forums are being taken into consideration when creating the profile they want the next chancellor to fulfill

One of the first speakers at the forum was the Mayor of Bakersfield, Karen Goh who emphasized the importance of transformative leadership. 

We also got to hear from Elizabeth Bowen. Who is a staff member at Project Rebound, and an attending student who is on ASI as the Director of Student Support. 

Bowen continues by saying she wants a chancellor who will care about equity and inclusion, which is a theme that appeared by members of the community significantly throughout the forum. 

That there is a lack of diversity and support for students with disabilities as well as students of color.

Student Ludy Ortega also brought to light the importance of campus safety. Bringing up the incident that occurred at CSUB not too long ago with an email being sent out to all students of a potentially armed individual on campus. Ortega gave kudos to how University Police handled the situation but said how scary the situation was regardless of knowing there were police at the university. 

Many also talked about wanting CSUB to be more accessible for students saying that there are too many incidents of students attending the university being homeless, and this affects the quality of their education. 

Many shared their voice at this forum, and we will continue to wait 12-15 months until the next Chancellor is selected 

Reporting for Runner News Network, I’m Ernesto Leon