Interview with CSULB President

Robert Maxson

Reporter R.J. Piatti: This is your fourth semester at CSULB?
President Robert Maxson: Right, I'm just about to finish my second year.

For the long term, do you foresee holding this job for ten years?

Maxson: Yes, when they talked to me about this job I was asked if I would make a 10 year commitment to the presidency and the answer is absolutely yes. As long as the university community is happy with my leadership, I fully intend to make a 10 year com mitment to the campus.

And as an administrator, what one moment stands out?

Maxson: Oh gosh, I don't know if any one moment stands out, but I really wanted to come to Long Beach State. I had been 10 years at UNLV and I knew that I was going to spend the next 10 years as president somewhere else. Several universities where talkin g to me, but this was a job that from the first day I walked on campus, I knew this is where I wanted to come. I've often explained to people, which is true, I didn't leave UNLV - I came to Long Beach State.
In other words, I didn't come here to get away from UNLV. I came here because I wanted to be president of this institution. I came out and spent some time here, and I just knew this was where I wanted to be president. I stopped all other conversations an d ot her visits to other places and when I met with the board of trustees, which was in a private session, the first thing I told them was if you offer me the job, I'm going to take it. I don't guess I was very good at bargaining; I wasn't coy at all, I told them.

Are you still teaching this semester?

Maxson: Yes, I'm teaching in the graduate school. I've taught every semester for two years. Last semester I taught a business masters course; a graduate course in the business college; it was an MBA course. This semester I'm teaching the graduate course in the college of education and in the fall semester I'll be teaching in the honors program again, undergraduate. They are all organiza tional behavior classes. It's essentially the same class, designed and tailored for its audience.

You've had an extensive outreach program to recruit high school students going now. How successful would you say that program has been.

Maxson: It's just been overwhelmingly successful; more successful than we ever thought it would be. This campus had lost enrollment for about five straight years. We certainly have enough students, and I try to impress on people. . . we've got 27,000 students and I don't want more students just for the sake of having more students.
There's nothing more prestigious about being president of 29,000 students than 27,000 students; certainly my ego is not caught up in it. But I didn't think it was healthy that the campus continued to lose enrollment each year because if you take that to its logical extreme, when do you start losing that critical mass of students where you can't offer all the degree you want to offer? If you keep losing students, sooner or later you have to shut down degrees and programs.
I felt like we needed to stop the steady decline in enrollment and I felt that there were an awful lot of very talented high school students out there that if they knew more about Cal State Long Beach they would come, so we targeted going after the best and the brightest. We're going after the very top high school scholars.
These are the kids who frankly had the grades and test scores to go to any university in the country and we started wooing them here, especially valedictorians. We recruited 10 last year and it look now like we may even double that amount for this fall. I mean it's been overwhelmingly successful. Now what we've found is that these students have very broad coattails.

The CSU still seems to be a system where those people who didn't necessarily succeed at that level still have a chance to work their way into the system and do very well. What words of encouragement who some may sarcastically call "the dense and duller" students?

Maxson: Let me tell you what has been sort of interesting. We've found that our competition for these brightest students is not coming from other CSUs. It is coming from UCLA, USC, UC Irvine. When these students now, these freshmen applying to us, when you look at the other schools they are applying to it is these universities. That's good company. That speaks well for the university. We know we're getting their attention. And let me tell you, the admissions standards haven't changed.
Students, historically, whom this university has served, this university will continue to serve, but we don't want a single youngster to leave this area because they feel like they have to get their education. we want to become the school of choice for a critical mass of freshmen every year. I believe will all of my heart, you've probably heard this before, that if you're always the second, third or fourth choice for students, you'll never be a very good university. If the only reason students are here is because they can't go anywhere else, you'll never be a great university.
Now, we're going to cheerfully take an awful lot of students who can't go anywhere and cheerfully take an awful lot of good students, who we weren't their first choice, but to really be the university we what to be, every year we feel we have to recruit a critical mass of freshmen who can go anywhere they want to go - they have the academic ability to go to any school in the country - but they want to come to Long Beach State. We must become the school of choice. And not just freshmen, but junior college transfers and others. That's what we're doing in our recruiting.

Any action toward a Long Beach football team?

Maxson: You know what, you never say never. The decision to eliminate football here several years ago was strictly a financial decision. It wasn't a bias against football or that the university didn't need to play it. It was simply that the athletic department and the university couldn't afford to play the sport. It was just too expensive. I do not see any hope of it unless there is a resurgence of funds from the private sector. It would have to be shown it could be completely supported from the private sector. You never say never but based on budgets we have now I'm not overly optimistic.

I talked recently with Coach Jo Redmon and since she's retiring next year and she said that the fencing program is in its last year. Are there any plans to continue the program or new sports?

Maxson: I don't know what the plans are, but what a marvelous job this woman has done through the years. I happen to know some of the fencers and I'm really quite fond of them and I've gone out to watch some of their matches, but I don't know what the future of that program is.

How about women's sports in general? Any new programs coming up?

Maxson: We must pay attention on this campus to the gender equity issues and I think that any new sports you see in the very near future will be women's sports. Now just which ones those will be I don't know but I think that any new sports that you see in the next year or two - football, you never say never, but I don't want to do is dangle hope in front of people but I never want us to take the position that it will never be again because in the right financial climate, anything is possible - but over the next year or two any new sports will definitely be women's sports.