Sonoma State Faculty Senate Puts Forth Resolution of No Confidence in the Chancellor and Campus President

Sonoma State’s Academic Senate has become the first campus senate to pass a resolution calling for a referendum of no confidence in Chancellor Mildred García. This resolution also names Sonoma State interim President Emily Cutrer and Provost Karen Moranski as two other administrators whom the senate will hold a vote of no confidence.

In the resolution, Sonoma State’s Academic Senate has asked the CSU Board of Trustees to terminate García, Cutrer, and Moranski’s positions and appoint new leaders whose values truly align with the CSU’s mission to provide students with a high-quality, accessible, and affordable education—and that leadership actively involves faculty and staff in planning and decision-making processes.

The senate offered several reasons why the vote needed to be called. Among them are the administrators’ pattern of financial mismanagement, which has severely harmed Sonoma State’s fiscal health and led to the unnecessary program cuts and layoffs.

Further highlighting the administrators’ poor financial practices are their increasing reliance on external consulting firms, which manufacture austerity, recommend faculty and staff layoffs, and weaken tenure protections.

In haste, García pursued a multi-million dollar A.I. initiative with private, for-profit corporations, and did so without first consulting the faculty, staff, and students who would be most impacted. She also did so without considering the potential harm A.I. could have on education.

These underhanded actions are inherently tied to violations of shared governance, in which faculty and staff are systematically excluded from participating in matters of curriculum, workload, hiring, and commitments made to follow policies and procedures set by university committees.

When Cutrer and Moranski both failed to gain approval for program cuts by a recognized representative faculty body, the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), they turned to the University Budget Advisory Committee (UBAC). This committee, which is neither an elected body that represents faculty nor has any jurisdiction to participate in shared governance, was used as an alternative means to propose program discontinuations. This was viewed by the senate as an attempt to bypass the established policies and create the illusion of shared governance and faculty consultation.

Ultimately, the resolution asserts that the actions of these three individuals have caused nearly irreparable damage to Sonoma State and the erosion to its core mission. Protests, rallies, campaigns, and lawsuits continue to emerge in opposition to the layoffs and program cuts, and legislators will reconvene for a second hearing at Sonoma State to hold CSU management accountable for their actions.

This resolution follows a similar move made by Dominguez Hills’ Academic Senate a couple of weeks ago. Their Academic Senate passed a vote of no confidence in their university president, Thomas A. Parham. They cited his failure to uphold the principles of shared governance (he even went so far as to personally attack stakeholders with dissenting views), his lack of transparency around potential layoffs, and a decline in enrollment under his leadership while neighboring campuses have experienced growth.

Contrary to Parham’s assertion, the vote of no confidence was not led by CFA members, though we strongly support our faculty colleagues who have courageously moved the resolution forward, despite their fear of retaliation from the president and the CSU administration.

Throughout her role as chancellor, García has shown a troubling disregard for working collaboratively with faculty, staff, and students. Instead, her nearly $1 million in compensation suggests that her interests align with private corporations that intend to restructure the university into a for-profit business model. In this view, students are viewed as paying clients who receive a service from the university in exchange for the revenue from their tuition payments rather than as individuals who could be empowered by an education system designed to cultivate the very people who will strengthen our communities.

The Sonoma State Academic Senate resolution is not the first to call a vote of no confidence in the chancellor. In May 2024, the Academic Senate of the California State University (ASCSU) passed a resolution expressing it had lost confidence in both the chancellor and the CSU Board of Trustees for their lack of shared governanced around the implementation of a new CSU General Education curriculum known as Cal-GETC.

More recently, during a legislative hearing at the Capitol, García made it clear that involving anyone other than administrators and third-party consulting firms in their plans to restructure Sonoma State was never part of the agenda. When asked by one legislator whether stakeholders would be included in discussions about the changes, García replied that they would only be told what the plan would be once it was completed.

The resolution vote will take place next week with results likely by April 17. We urge other campuses to support a similar resolution that would hold the chancellor accountable for her behavior.