In a marathon five-hour forum, Sonoma State University leaders, faculty, staff, students and surrounding community members testified and answered questions from the region’s leading lawmakers about controversial cuts on the Rohnert Park campus to close a $24 million budget gap.

Legislators described the session, held in a packed campus ballroom Friday, as an opportunity to hear from those most impacted by the news that rocked the SSU community last month, but also to secure a commitment to the institution’s longevity and a plan for a path forward.

“We tell the whole world Sonoma State is in crisis,” state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, co-chair of the meeting, said to interim SSU President Emily Cutrer. “How are we not ending up in a spiral from which we cannot escape?”

Both Cutrer and California State University Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Steve Relyea reaffirmed SSU will not close. Cutrer also agreed to submit a written turnaround plan within 30 to 60 days.

Cabaldon, D-Yolo, as well as the other lawmakers present — Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael; Senate President Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg; Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters; Assemblymember Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa; and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena — made their support for SSU clear. Several touted their credentials as SSU graduates or former teachers at other CSU sites.

The 23-campus CSU stands to lose $375.2 million under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal, and SSU’s share of those reductions makes up roughly a quarter of its projected deficit. Legislators acknowledged the uphill battle to preserve that funding given the strain on state coffers from the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires and threats to federal funding under the Trump administration.

Still, they vowed to fight, pointing to past instances of overturning proposed cuts and recent historic investments in state higher education. A revised budget from Newsom is due out in May before approval by legislators this summer.

They also emphasized that state support is contingent on a comprehensive and convincing strategy from SSU and CSU leadership to turn around the long suffering university.

Without a “plan for recovery,” Thompson said, “I’m not interested in getting a single penny to this campus.”

SSU is far from the only CSU campus struggling, but it has seen the steepest enrollment decline — 38% — over the past decade. In addition to external challenges like shifting demographic trends affecting higher education, pandemic-era shifts in where and how students attend college and Sonoma County’s repeated bouts with catastrophic wildfires, SSU has also endured repeated scandals that toppled leadership, accusations of mismanagement and recruitment failures.

After years of smaller but still significant budget reductions, and facing a mandate from the Chancellor’s Office to balance the budget, Cutrer unveiled the nearly $24 million in cuts Jan. 22 to an astonished campus, which is set to lose more than 100 staff, coaches and faculty, six academic departments, two dozen degree programs and all intercollegiate athletics.

Cutrer justified the cuts as a painful but long overdue and necessary move to get SSU back on track. “We’re putting the university on a firm financial base,” she said. “We’re moving forward where our revenues more closely match our expenses.”

She noted, too, that SSU still has 48 major degree programs, “our largest (and) highest demand,” she added.

Looking forward, she detailed some of the next steps: bolstering recruitment, a revamped marketing plan, better alignment between university offerings and the needs of the North Bay workforce and clearer pathways from local high schools.

But, students, faculty and staff continue to question the process by which cuts were decided and the way they were first communicated — in a campuswide email that caught many by surprise, without articulating a clear vision.

Legislators echoed those concerns.

Distributed by Tribune News Service.