Sonoma State Charts Its Path Forward After Huge Cuts. Some Staff Are Skeptical

Months after slashing dozens of academic and athletic programs, Sonoma State University officials are planning to increase enrollment by shifting focus to what they call career-oriented degree tracks and emphasizing community engagement, but some staff say the proposal is at odds with the cuts the school made.

Sonoma State announced in January that it would cut all NCAA Division II athletics, more than 20 degree programs and six academic departments in the face of a $24 million budget deficit, prompting outrage from students and faculty.

Interim President Emily Cutrer said at the time that the cuts, which will predominantly impact liberal arts departments, were necessary to offset declining enrollment and rising costs across the CSU system, which a reduction in state funding has exacerbated. Sonoma State’s enrollment has decreased by 38% since its peak in 2015, according to Cutrer.

“Our recent budget decisions now need to become investment decisions,” the school said in a statement outlining the new plan. “Those investments are going to help recruit students, retain them, prepare them for careers, connect them to on-campus and regional employment and business opportunities, and keep them in the North Bay.”

The new plan, dubbed “Bridge to the Future,” aims to increase enrollment by 20% in as few as five years, introduce four new career-oriented degree programs in the next three years and make huge gains in campus participation among students and surrounding neighborhoods.

The school said it plans to forge new dual and concurrent enrollment partnerships with high school districts and community colleges, create guaranteed and direct admissions pathways and increase marketing across the state.

It is also turning attention to the degree tracks that it offers, aiming to add at least four new “career-oriented” degree programs in the fields of health, clinical lab science, data science, computer engineering, business or social work.

Don Romesburg, the chair of the women and gender studies department, which is set to be cut, said that increasing trades-based degrees and cutting liberal arts ones doesn’t help Sonoma State differentiate itself with “unique” programs, as the plan states.

“You could have basically picked these categories out of a hat of the buzzwords of careers today,” he said. “It’s very generic, this vision, and I don’t think it speaks to Sonoma State’s strengths, and I don’t think that it shows any particular innovative vision.”

He said that since finding out the women and gender studies department would be eliminated, alumni and professors have made a point to prove to the university that it is a career-focused program — especially for people who pursue social work in the region.

He believes this contributed to the university adding social work as a degree focus area, but is disappointed that women and gender studies courses won’t be a part of that program.

The campus plan is also focused on increasing school spirit and community “through a comprehensive array of clubs and organizations, campus events, club sports and recreational activities, artistic endeavors, and community service initiatives.”

Sonoma State said it will increase campus participation by 20% with an expanded weekly events calendar, revitalization work on its central outdoor plaza and development of a new outdoor park for working out and relaxing.

Benjamin Ziemer, who heads “Save Seawolves Athletics,” a group launched in January to fight against the elimination of the school’s entire athletics department, said the move will hurt efforts to improve community engagement.

“They’re going to cut [athletics], and then at the same time, they’re proposing a future plan that will build a campus environment, a college feel,” Ziemer told KQED. “It just doesn’t add up, and for us, it’s short-sighted. It’s reactive.”

The plan also hopes to increase revenue by renting out sporting fields and bringing back summer camps the school used to run for local kids. Ziemer said a lot of the student-athletes at the school worked those camps, and his brother Marcus, who is losing his job as the men’s head soccer coach, coordinated major tournaments.

“We had at one time one of the largest soccer tournaments, a six-a-side tournament, in the country,” Ziemer told KQED. “If you look at the camps and clinics, the number of players that come into the region to go to school and then stick around and get involved in coaching and mentoring and teaching — absolutely there’s a connection between the sporting community and athletics at Sonoma State.”

The “Bridge to the Future” plan also consolidates some administrative operations between Sonoma State, Cal State East Bay and San Francisco State to cut costs and reduce the cost per student on campus. But it comes with its own significant price tag: $10 million.

The school said some of that will be one-time money, but that “costs linked to the hiring of faculty and staff require recurring funding.”

“It’s hard to see this administration take an ax to so many programs that have worked incredibly well at Sonoma State, only to come around and say that now they need $10 million for these new ideas,” Romesburg said. “It seems like this administration has an agenda to remake the curriculum through its own priorities and not necessarily in consultation or consideration of what the faculty think.”