On Thursday, Sept. 21, the president held an open forum for the 2023-2024 academic year to provide updates about CSUB.

It was the last open forum held by President Dr. Lynette Zelezny due to her retirement. However, she will have more forums this semester like the Budget Forum on Monday, October 16. 

At the beginning of the forum, Zelezny emphasized that her engagement in the campus community will continue even though she will retire at the end of this year. She also said that she is really proud of the class that will graduate this December. 

The new Interim President, Vernon B. Harper Jr., presented the academic initiatives of the prior year. 

These include the launch of the faculty sabbatical symposium and the increase of CSUB’s expertise related to energy and innovation, for example. New and continuing academic initiatives include goals such as considering a new cluster hire and an important focus is investing in campus infrastructure to support teaching, scholarship, and navigating systemwide changes related to general education. 

“CSUB should become one of the best institutions in this country,” Harper said.  

Zelezny expresses how proud she is of all the academic initiatives. 

“I feel overjoyed by the good works that are happening as I transition and I’m able to pass it off to the President select because we’re going to leverage all of the good works that are happening now so that he can carry on,” Zelezny said.  

According to President Zelezny, initiatives that are happening right now are bringing data from high school students that will help to support students to have a seamless transfer. Zelezny also announces some gifts they have been working on. There will be a celebration in about a month.  

One of the forum’s speakers, Marcus Brown, the Director of Equity Inclusion and Compliance in the Office of the President, mentioned that he is excited for the Native American initiatives.  

“Build and repairing relationships with our local tribal native tribes here, that’s an exciting enterprise,” Brown said. 

One of the updates presented at the open forum is about the wellness suite foundation. The new wellness suite should increase the student’s wellbeing and meet the physical and mental health needs of students. It will also offer small workshops such as meditation courses.  

The wellness suite should “create a cohesive, inviting, and warm space for students to destress and find calm within the chaos,” according to Leah Bank. The grand opening is on Wednesday, Oct. 4th at 10 am. 

One last update is about the information technology services. The analog phone system needs to be replaced as the system has been down a lot in the past. This new project will move all campus technology to Zoom Phone, including all classrooms, elevators, emergency phones, conference and office phones.