PD Editorial: Changing the face of Sonoma State

Ruben Armiñana transformed Sonoma State University.

When he arrived as president in 1992, in the midst of a state budget crisis, Sonoma State was nicknamed “Granola U,” students commuted to a campus that was mostly open space and nondescript buildings, and the school’s survival wasn’t guaranteed.

As Armiñana prepares to depart, much has changed.

Sonoma State is a well-regarded public university, if not the Ivy League proxy that Armiñana once promoted. The possibility of closure is a distant memory, even if state budget crises are not.

The university’s endowment has grown to about $37 million, and its Wine Business and Lifelong Learning institutes exemplify the depth and breadth of its ties to the greater community.

Nearly a third of the 9,400 students live on campus in housing far superior to most college dorms. A new student center opened recently, and a state-of-the-art library and an environmental technology building also were built on Armiñana’s watch. So was the Green Music Center, a concert hall modeled on Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony.

These achievements aren’t Armiñana’s alone, but they are a clear reflection of the ambitious agenda he has pursued since arriving at Sonoma State almost a quarter-century ago. Along the way, he established himself as the public face of the North Bay’s university.

Interviewed for a newspaper profile a few years into his tenure, he summed up his vision of Sonoma State: “Once we wore sandals. Now we wear Armani suits.”

The Birkenstocks to Brooks Brothers transformation also fits the life story of Armiñana, a Cuban refugee who worked his way through college and graduate school as a TV reporter and training consultant before rising up the ranks of university administration.

But his re-engineering of Sonoma State didn’t come without conflict and controversy, including a stinging no-confidence vote from the faculty in 2007.

Critics say Armiñana isn’t a collaborative leader, and many faculty members complain that he steered too much money to new buildings, especially the Green Music Center, and not enough to academic programs.

Conflicts between university administrators and faculty members are practically cliché, but they aren’t always without merit. As they search for a successor, California State University’s trustees should take faculty relations into consideration.

But don’t expect an apology from Armiñana, a seasoned veteran of bureaucratic warfare.

“If you don’t have detractors, and you don’t have criticism, it means you didn’t do much. You didn’t push the envelope,” he told Staff Writer Derek Moore after announcing his retirement plans last week. “Therefore, I’ll take the sense of doing over the sense of inaction.”

Even some detractors concede that, on balance, Armiñana will leave a positive legacy when he steps down at the end of the 2015-16 academic year.

“Did he leave the place better than he found it?” asked Bob Karlsrud, a retired professor who sparred with Armiñana over the years. “I think the answer is yes.”

We do, too.