Office of the Provost Newsletter December 2024

Dear Faculty and Staff,

It feels like the Fall 2024 semester simply flew by. As we wrap up these last few days, I remain extremely thankful for your commitment to our students’ success, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Thank you to all our amazing faculty members for the laborious effort involved in grading final exams, calculating final grades, and ensuring they are submitted on time. Your dedication plays a key role in completing another successful semester for our students. A special thanks goes to our lecturers, whose dedication to our students and passion for teaching consistently shine through. Your hard work and commitment make a lasting impact on the academic journey of each student. We truly appreciate everything you do.

A huge Thank You to our faculty and staff for all that you do and your meaningful contributions in ensuring a productive experience for our students as they pursue their professional aspirations. This would not be possible without your active engagement and providing a culture of care.

A few updates:

We are continuing to move forward with the hiring of 42 new faculty members for Fall 2025 and are following the processes established by the Equity in Faculty Hiring initiative so that an equity lens guides our efforts.

On the budget front, Colin Donahue, CSUN’s Vice President for Administration and Finance, and I completed the town hall meetings for faculty and staff at each of the eight academic colleges and the library. Additionally, we were pleased to see a strong attendance at the recent University Planning and Budget Group (UPBG) meeting where we discussed the absorption of a 5% compensation increase for 2023-2024, and another 5% compensation increase for 2024-2025 as well as planning and preparing for an expected 8% reduction to ongoing state appropriations for 2025-2026. We appreciate the engagement, the questions, and the opportunity to provide clarifications and information.

Since our retention rate for first-year first-time (FTF) students from Fall 2023 to Fall 2024 dropped a bit from 74.2% (the prior year) to 73.8%, we are focused on improving our retention rate for the Fall 2024 cohort of FTF students. Vice Provost Joy Borah is leading a Retention Workgroup that includes a wide range of stakeholders who interact with our FTF students. Along with other efforts, the Graduation and Retention Specialist (GRS), at the college level, is teaming up with the Associate Dean and Director of College Advising in reaching out to the new students and creating community as well as a sense of belonging.

In conclusion, hope the last days of this semester are as stress-free as possible. And wishing you the very best for the approaching winter holidays and the brand-new year that is just around the corner.

Meera