The expense of a four-year degree was the original rea­son for founding the College, and it is even more press­ing today. With increased wealth inequality, skyrocketing university tuition, and fewer career opportunities for those with only a high school education, CSM offers very much the same sort of lifeline to today’s student as it did to Mar­jorie Brace and her classmates in 1922.

Who our students are, what they want, and what they need, continually changes. Over the last hundred years, the College has frequently found itself adapting to the needs of a new student population: veterans, women, undocumented students, high school students, students with disabilities, students of color. The next decades are likely to see more changes. Assembly Bill 705, the chang­es wrought by information technology and social media, developments in mental health needs and awareness of those needs, a post-pandemic world — all these will re­quire us to continue to adapt and change going forward.

Beginning with the pivot towards the community in the 1950s and the introduction of career and technical ed­ucation, to our current participation in the Strong Work­force program, CSM strives to align our curriculum with evolving economic and employment trends. The College can expect to build curriculum, in the coming decades, to meet employment trends driven by a changing economy responding to the pandemic, technological innovation and climate change.

Student support in the 1920s consisted chiefly of some ac­ademic counseling. Today, CSM reaps the benefits of de­cades of investment in student support inside and outside the classroom. Along with more extensive instructional support (the Learning Center, discipline centers and labs), there has been a growing emphasis on coordinated curric­ulum and integrated personal support: Guided Pathways (Academic and Career Communities), Promise Scholars Program, Dual Enrollment, learning communities, well­ness counseling, the SparkPoint program, student clubs, and programs for different groups (veterans, Dreamers, and more).All of these, in different ways, emphasize a shift away from the cafeteria model of higher education, to something more like an integrated, collaborative ap­proach to education. What advantages will this more struc­tured approach bring? What might the College lose? The next decades will raise these questions and more.

From the College Readiness Program, to the many learn­ing communities, to the Solidarity Statement, CSM has long articulated a commitment to equity and diversity. We are focused on antiracism and antisexism. In the past, CSM has worked to seek out and bring underserved and marginalized students into the college community, espe­cially students of color. Efforts have been made to diver­sify not only the students, but the faculty, staff, curriculum and campus culture. Today’s antiracism and antisexism work is an extension of this effort. How well are we doing? What more should we do? What strategies work? These are some of the questions around which our work will focus.