Dr. New School

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By Mark Larson

    When Alexander Gonzalez took over as president of Sacramento State in June 2003, he saw an underappreciated local institution.
    He commissioned an economic impact study to help make his case in fund-raising efforts, and even he was surprised by the study’s findings: Two years ago, the university annually churned three-quarters of a billion dollars into the local economy. And it was doing it pretty much anonymously.
    “We have to start thinking of this as a campus of the 21st century and the future,” he says, sitting forward. “That’s what I’d like to do.”

A Look, Then A Leap
He’s off to a good start.
    A Los Angeles native, Gonzalez is a social psychologist who for many years was on the faculty at Fresno State University. The last six of his 18 years there, he spent as its provost, the second in command, after being convinced to make the jump to administration by the school’s then-president, Harold Haack. He discovered he could do it, and he liked it.
    “Ninety-five percent of what I do is dealing with people,” he says. “It is a highly people-centered business.”
He moved on to the presidency of Cal State San Marcos in San Diego County, and from 1997 to 2003 helped transform an underdeveloped school into one poised for growth. He raised private funds to build a track-and-field facility there, a field house for athletes, more student housing, three classroom buildings and a 200,000-square-foot library.
    Three-and-a-half years ago, Gonzalez, 61, took the reins at CSUS, following the retirement of Donald Gerth.
    When Gonzalez first took a look at the 60-year-old, 28,000-student university, all he could see was its limitless potential to be a large, much higher-profile component of Sacramento’s cultural landscape. He saw a commuter school that could work better as a campus-as-resident of the city, a university set up to invite the community at large to its grounds. “I came here with a pretty broad background,” says Gonzalez. “I could see some of the things that needed to be done.”

The Name Game
One big thing that needed doing was to show people the place exists. When he first drove to the university, Gonzalez says he didn’t know how to exit Highway 50 to get to the campus. “I used to look for SMUD.”
    Since those early days he has branded the university as Sacramento State and selected a new logo — the old one was a generic-looking state seal — to create the campus’s own identity. Now, after years of being referred to by a handful of different tags, the university is known officially as either Sacramento State or Sac State. Helping with the branding efforts is a prominent Sacramento State sign mounted atop a multistory campus building facing the Highway 50 freeway. Gonzalez also set into motion a campus development theme called “Destination 2010.”
    As of November, Gonzalez had rounded up $25 million in pledges for projects planned or in the works, including more on-campus student dorms (1,000 students now live on campus; he’d like to see 1,700), a new bookstore, a $10 million athletic field house at the south end of the football stadium, a student recreation and wellness center and a large parking garage.
    He still sees a need for an 8,000-seat special events center, primarily for basketball games and commencements and as an entertainment venue. With a parking garage and light rail close by, he figures it could be a well-used community venue. But with construction costs so high, it has been tagged as a long-term project.
    Meanwhile, Gonzalez is seeking development of 25 acres of university-owned land south of Highway 50 for faculty housing to attract more academic talent and provide some additional student housing, as well.

Thinking Green
Ultimately, he envisions Sacramento State as a “green” campus that would employ various environmentally friendly modes of transportation such as a tram/people mover. The system would loop around the campus and connect it with the 65th Street light rail system, reducing motor vehicle traffic in the area.
    Meanwhile, he says, a Placer County satellite campus is needed because of the huge population growth there. It’s a matter of bringing the school to large regional populations of students to keep them from having to get in the car to commute to the main campus.
    Gonzalez gets email from students and answers promptly. He says he gets mostly positive feedback from them, while some long-time campus officials think he’s putting the school through too much change.
    Angela Arriola, Associated Students president at the university, gives Gonzalez high marks for working with students instead of excluding them from the administrative process.
    “His emphasis has been on accessibility to students, which has been a distinct difference,” she says. “As a student, I appreciate it.”
    Arriola sees Gonzalez as an agent of positive change for the university. “The changes he wants for the campus are coming to light right before our eyes,” she says. “Students should see their campus get better. It adds value to our degrees.”
    “I have passion for Sacramento State,” says Gonzalez. “I see the students, and I see the potential. This should be one of the destination campuses of the West.”
    While Sacramento State doesn’t necessarily need to be an athletic powerhouse to put the school on the map, Gonzalez says he learned from Fresno State the value of developing respectable sports teams as a component of student pride. And donors to athletic program improvements, he says, are often the same people who donate to improve academics at the school.
    But he emphasizes that the programs are for students who happen to be athletes, not the other way around, and stresses the need for Sacramento State to provide a quality education. “The academic programs are pretty good,” he says. “We’ll have our first independent doctorate in education by next year.”
Gonzalez sees Sacramento State having the potential to be a community asset in the arts, letters, athletics and social services.
    It’s already happening. One weekend last fall, the campus was the site of homecoming ceremonies and a homecoming football game, hosted a debate between gubernatorial contestants Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides, gave a theatrical performance of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and hosted an appearance by the U.S. ambassador to Rwanda.
    “We’re trying to get the community to come back in,” Gonzalez says. “This is something the region can really be proud of.”

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