By Donald R. Gerth
President, CSUS

Welcome to the Fall 1998 semester. While walking around campus, talking with students and faculty, and listening to the many exciting plans for the coming year, it is clear this will be another exceptional year. Over the summer, a number of improvements were made to the campus that should make it more convenient and safer for students. We are all looking forward to the formal dedication of the expanded University Union later this fall.

As we move toward the new millennium, the campus community can look forward to many new efforts that are clearly evolving from the University's Strategic Plan. Copies of the second edition of the strategic plan will be available this fall.

CSUS is committed, as one of its primary goals, to helping the region and the state fill the need to educate more people effectively. Throughout the university, efforts are underway to widen the pool of those interested and qualified for teaching. There are also discussions taking place on how to improve quality in the schools. We have expanded our efforts to increase access to the university and provide students from a broad array of backgrounds with the opportunity to attend this university. These issues stretch across departmental boundaries and will be helpful to our students as they move through their university years.

I am delighted that you are at California State University, Sacramento. I encourage you to get acquainted with the many opportunities -- both in and outside of the classroom -- which will fill your lives with new ideas, new people, and new dreams and opportunities.

Hello, and welcome to both new and returning Hornets! I hope your summer was as productive and exciting as ours. A lot has been happening around the ASI office over the summer. After having advertised our Board vacancies last semester, we were able to interview candidates and make several key appointments.

What exactly does this mean to you? We have just added three months to each vacant term, which means that we have been working hard over the summer so that we are ready to represent you and ensure that 1998-99 is a success for the students of Sac State!

What have we been working on? This is going to be the year of the student-friendly student government. We are working on a “Know Your Director” campaign to ensure that you know who your representatives are. We have built an ASI booth which will be placed at various locations on campus. Several of the Board members will serve their office hours in there in order to be more accessible to you. This will be an opportunity for you to keep updated as to what ASI is doing throughout the semester. Clear, effective and result-oriented communication is what we want.

Other activities that we have been working on over the summer include: addressing the issues surrounding the WPE, alleviating our parking problem, upgrading our campus computer labs, creating an English literary journal for students, implementing a polling system to obtain students' opinions at any time on any issue, introducing a strong ASI awareness campaign, planning another ASI Community Service Day, providing clubs and organizations with resources to become more effective, building an on-campus recreation center and arena, as well as providing a means for advocating student issues.

The bottom line here is that ASI is going to be very visible this year. We are already at work attacking some problems you have told us to investigate, and we are preparing solutions for your consideration.

It is my personal mission to serve you (both as an individual and as a member of the CSUS community) and make possible the highest-possible return on your investment. Remember, we all pay $94 out of our tuition to support ASI. Every student on campus is a shareholder. If you don't know what services and funds are available, you won't be able to get a return on your investment.

Get involved! Let's make a difference together! Being involved in ASI doesn't require a lot of time. However, the more that you put in, the more you will get out. We are giving it 100 percent and hope that you take the opportunity to let us know what you think. Good luck this year!

The State Hornet has moved

Not only has the Hornet acquired a spacious new office complete with a view of the picturesque Library quad (and its own bathroom!), but the staff's Macintosh computers have all been upgraded to System 8.0 and installed with Quark Xpress. We guarantee that our new desks and equipment will make the Hornet the best ever-- and this time around, technical difficulties won't get in the way of solid reporting, thorough coverage and professional design.

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