(Emailed on Aug. 17, 2022)

Dear Campus Community,

Welcome back! 

I am excited to join as the fourth president of this great institution serving a diverse student body, enhancing the lives of young people on the central coast, and enriching the community around us. The more I learn about how the local community led the charge to start this university and what we aspired to be, the more I am honored and committed to be a part of the CSUMB story.

I will be spending a lot of time within the campus community so we can build on our foundation:  advancing bigger goals around enrollment; growing excellent academic programs; expanding residential life offerings; enhancing our efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and furthering all of the issues that our institution addresses head-on. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the weeks and months ahead and learning about why you love CSUMB.

When a new president joins a university, the most common questions are, "What is your vision?" and "Where are we headed?" 

I aim for CSUMB to become a role model to other CSU campuses and a pillar to our community.

Generally speaking, my aspirations for CSUMB are — in a very short amount of time — to make us a nationally- recognized model as a comprehensive university for our ability to expand access, enhance learning, increase student outcomes, push the frontiers of knowledge, and better serve our communities — even when facing tough fiscal conditions and public health emergencies. 

As an institution that draws strength from our collective knowledge and effort, I value your input and perspectives. I look forward to hearing your hopes for CSUMB as we move toward achieving these aims. 
 
Today, we're returning to campus at a pivotal moment. We had a very successful past academic year, but we know a more contagious variant of COVID-19 is spreading, and we know we're still at risk. Last year, CSUMB demonstrated that we can do this. Our community showed we could be a disciplined, committed, responsible group of students, faculty, and staff, and we proved that we're able to take the appropriate precautions to deliver a safe and responsible educational experience. We can leverage what we have learned in the past year through the pandemic to forge that future with demonstrated resilience and community care. 

I remain very optimistic for our community. We have changed some guidelines and policies as we prepare for this academic year. For more information about the university's response to COVID-19, including recent exposure information, visit our COVID-19 webpage.
 
As the new academic year begins, we're counting on you to recommit to wearing your face coverings, keeping your distance, and washing your hands — remaining disciplined is the best way to protect ourselves from the new variant. We're counting on you to do what's necessary to keep our community safe, including limiting unnecessary travel. We also continue to provide community testing available to all students, faculty, and staff. By being responsible, we'll keep our community safe, our campuses open, and our students on track to achieve all their goals. We'll have a careful semester but a productive one. We'll look out for each other and continue our tradition of being a community committed to care.
 
I hope you enjoyed some rest and relaxation through the summer. Now it's time to get back to the important work of expanding minds and contributing to enhancing our communities. I look forward to seeing you at welcome events and around our lovely campus.

Make All Otters Proud!

Vanya Quiñones
President
California State University, Monterey Bay