Qayoumi plans SJSU funding strategy for tough fiscal times
Originally published in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Aug. 16, 2011
By David Goll
Despite starting his tenure as the new president of San Jose State University during an era of public agency austerity, Mohammad Qayoumi is accentuating the positive.
“I think we have a lot of new opportunities to pursue,” Qayoumi said a week before he delivers his first fall semester address to the campus. Classes begin Aug. 24. He took over as president July 1.
The new president is returning to San Jose State after serving as its associate vice president for administration from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. For the past five years, he has served as president of California State University, East Bay. A native of Afghanistan, Qayoumi is a trailblazer: the first person of Afghan descent to head up an major American university.
Qayoumi’s campus has already absorbed an approximate $25 million reduction in state funding for the 2011-12 academic year after the state Legislature slashed a total of $650 million in funding from the 23-campus California State University system. If Gov. Jerry Brown’s revenue projections aren’t met, CSU faces another $100 million in funding cuts in January, or $7 million for San Jose State.
To generate the new opportunities he is touting, Qayoumi is about halfway through a five-point, 90-day plan to kick-start advanced planning. He plans to start a series of 40 “town hall” style meeting with students, faculty and university staff next month. He wants to finalize preliminary enrollment and budget figures for the 2012-13 academic year, produce the university’s first strategic plan update in many years, running through 2015, and accelerate a private fund-raising campaign that aims to raise a total of $200 million by 2014.
He is also inheriting the university’ largest-ever freshman class: 4,000 members of the class of 2015 represent a major increase over the 2,750 freshman who entered San Jose State in fall 2010. Despite the financial constraints, Qayoumi said the university will be able to accommodate the frosh influx partially through a 12 percent fee increase CSU trustees approved last month.
San Jose State’s basic registration fees for full-time undergraduate students rise to $3,414 this fall, up from $3,120. Revenue from student housing is also expected to increase, since, for the first time, all freshman who live more than 30 miles away are being required to live in on-campus dormitories for their first year.
David Goll can be reached at 408.299.1853 or dgoll@bizjournals.com.