Interim President Susan Martin is pretty much an outsider to the students of San Jose State University. She hails from Eastern Michigan and lives in CVA with her husband and her really cute golden retriever. Besides that, people don't really know much about her. Everyone is skeptic after President Mo Qayoumi took off and left to work for the government of Afghanistan.
During his time as president, we had a hate crime and multiple incidents of actual crime happen in and around campus with completely deficient blue poles (leaving no way to call for help). He preached change, and Susan Martin preached very similar sounding "change" at her Fall Welcome Address on September 3rd. Will she really practice what she is preaching?
President Martin started her address by thanking all of the right people and talking about our university's accomplishments, which is admirable. We have plenty to be proud of. We have some of the most interactive upper division classes and highest hiring rates post-graduation in Silicon Valley.
Our school is booming with technology and diversity, and those are some of the things that make San Jose not only an intellectual learning place, but a personal, self-growth establishment. While it was totally right to acknowledge these things, it seems that Martin spent a lot of time talking about "our great legacy" and "looking back" and didn't seem to spend as much time on acknowledging what's gone down at State in the past few years.
One thing I will definitely give President Martin is she's trying to be approachable; something President Mo rarely did. She does more than just attend some student events: she lives at the school, she talks about skateboarding and "Spartan swag." She's trying her absolute best to be personable in a large population of students/faculty who are willing to be much less than that. While many may question what she will accomplish in her time here, no one can deny that she wants to reach out to students and faculty. She wants to show her human side.
But then we hit it. "The work last year of the President’s Commission on Diversity was excellent and it will continue. This is an ongoing, continuing conversation on this campus and much work remains to be done," President Martin said. The most I heard about the President's Commission was receiving email invitations to attend meetings that talked about diversity. It was really general, and I feel like if anything beyond those meetings happened, students had no idea about them. Diversity is a beautiful thing, but at San Jose State University, it's also an ever-growing problem.
The first year I attended this school, a group of boys called their African American roommate racially derogatory names and put a bike lock around his neck, among other things. No milestone improvements have happened since then, and it's been two years. Two years, San Jose. Something needs to happen to address this absolutely terrifying incident, and President Martin did not hit this enough.
Martin talks about her goals on what to improve on this academic year. She talks a lot about student success, but topics like "updating classes/classrooms" and "adding classes" as bonuses of this year's work so far are not at all apparent in the SJSU community. For example, some buildings or programs have been deemed more important and have been given more funding than others. Silicon Valley promotes the STEM approach (science, technology, engineering and math) but this has left SJSU to neglect other programs that don't fit that category.
For example, the Journalism and Mass Communications School has been cutting teachers and sections since last year, leaving most classes to have one section with one teacher. While it's good that Martin and the university as a whole are trying to improve on those things, they should consider all of the programs, not just the ones that will get people tech jobs in Santa Clara. Every student should have the potential to be successful in their desired program.
Lastly, there is one blurb about crime on campus. I must get at least a few alerts per month about how burglaries have happened in one of the garages. It's probably our biggest issue on campus, and meeting with the UPD captain and making an initiative about that would truly win over the student population at SJSU. We live in a huge city with an open campus. There is poverty and violence on every side of State. We have to have some system to combat that, to protect women walking home.
I think everyone, male or female, is tired of having to be extra aware when walking around campus at night. Having a safer campus in turn will improve campus environment and up our pride. I'm sick of being ashamed of my school in that aspect.
I will acknowledge that President Martin had a time limit for this speech, but there were certainly things that should have been stressed more about that were not. I get building morale for the school by highlighting how many awards we have won, but if I was truly interested in that, I would Google it. Take time to identify with us and what we've been through as a campus community, Martin. I want to see our interim president walk the walk. I'll bet someone a bagel from Hobags that this is going to be a rough one for President Martin, but I really want to see her work on these things and not just bide her time until our permanent president gets here.
