December 13, 1994
Another semester is gone, and many students at SF State are still questioning President Robert A. Corrigan's administration and leadership.
This is Corrigan's sixth year as SF State's president, and he is now undergoing a mandatory review by the California State University's Chancellor's Office. Vice President of Academic Affairs Marilyn Boxer is undergoing her four-year evaluation, which was delayed from last year.
The evaluation is conducted by a CSU review committee, but it does not ask students about Corrigan and Boxer, according to Associated Students President Cristina Lopez.
"Student input was going to be limited or even excluded from the evaluation," said AS Vice President Cedric Cheng.
To compensate for the lack of student input, Lopez developed an administrative evaluation based on concepts she learned in a business administration class along with suggestions from the Board and Legislature.
The 18-question evaluation asks students to rate Corrigan and Boxer's accessibility and effectiveness on a scale from "very efficient" to "unsatisfactory."
The results reflect student dissatisfaction with the administration. Overall, both Boxer and Corrigan were rated "unsatisfactory" by 79 percent and 85 percent respectively, according to Lopez's assistant Stephanie Ervin.
AS officers circulated a total of 1287 copies of the evaluation among students in their classes, said Ervin. The form was also available at the AS Information Counter on the mezzanine level of the Student Center.
AS planned to complete the evaluation by the end of November, but extended it through the last week of classes to allow more students to respond, said Cheng. But, soliciting student input was not an easy task, he said.
"The general consensus is that the majority of students don't know who Corrigan and Boxer are," Cheng said. "That sends a message that something is wrong."
Ervin said AS will present the results to Boxer and Corrigan.
Some SF State students found it difficult to believe that the president and vice president were being reviewed without student input. None of the students asked had seen the AS questionnaire.
"Basically, the university is here to educate students and meet their needs," said senior botany major Katie Bode. "Any review of anybody should include student's reviews, especially at a place like State where we're always filling out questionnaires and evaluations of teachers. I'm appalled."
Kathy Ayabe, vice president of the Hospitality Management Society, said she encourages the anonymous evaluation because it is something that needs to be done.
The hospitality management department has had some trouble with upper administration that makes them seem inaccessible, Ayabe said.
"Our department was working with students, which should be the goal (of the university), but unfortunately the president and the vice president had other agendas," Ayabe said. "It is politics, whether on local, state or national level. This is just a stepping stone for them."
Ben Duggan, the education and outreach coordinator for ECO-ACT and the Recycling Center, said Corrigan has a tough job because he has limited time and money, and he can't do everything.
Duggan said that Corrigan has "no strong vision on how to save the school, and that is disappointing.
"I don't think they (Corrigan and Boxer) are accessible because they don't have to be because students don't have any say," Duggan said.
Paul Neuhaussen, one of the students who had worked with the Conflict Resolution Center before its funding was cut, said, "It's an irony he can have so much power and be so inaccessible. It is like taxation without representation. He's taxing us and we're not getting represented."