Dear Editor,

Thank you for each mention of Cal State HAYWARD whenever it is year-appropriate in your articles.

The large “Letters to the Editor” box on your editorial page in recent issues encourages me to write again.

All CSUs founded before WWII have city and/or county place names. This place-naming pattern continued after WWII.

Among all CSUs founded between 1945 and 1965, the CSU in Hayward is an anomaly. Its place name was CSC Hayward/CSU Hayward for 42 or 43 years. But five years ago, the university in Hayward changed its name from local to regional—Hayward to East Bay– unprecedented at the time. It remains unprecedented and unimitated.

Four CSU contemporaries of CSU in Hayward changed their place names from regional to local: Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, and Northridge.

Almost six years later, CSU East Bay is a bit of an oddity among CSUs, a bit of an orphan in its host city. No other CSU has taken a regional name. In fact, the CSU Chancellor in Long Beach has yet to establish criteria for comparing the regionality of the 23 CSUs with each other, and the CSU in Hayward has yet to separately establish criteria or to present evidence that it is as regional or more regional than any of its sister universities in the Bay Area, Northern California or statewide. Meanwhile, five CSU contemporaries of the CSU in Hayward retained their city and/or county place names: Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Sonoma and Stanislaus.

CSU Monterey Bay (1994) references a county place name. CSU San Marcos (1989) bears a city place name. CSU Channel Islands (1996) has a pseudo regional place name, islands uninhabited by human beings.

And, of course, all ten UCs, several younger than CSU in Hayward, bear county and/or city place names.

To the best of my knowledge, the CSU in Hayward waited longer than any other CSU founded between 1945 and 1965 to open its first on campus housing and its first dining commons, the twin foundations of building a student life community on campus.

Four factors explain almost all of the CSU in Hayward’s failure to reach its projected enrollment targets since its founding. It did not open campus housing until well into its third decade and a campus dining commons until late into its fifth decade. In turn, those delays explain the absence of student life community with all its attractive power in comparison with other CSUs. And, it did not offer majors and minors unique to the CSU in Hayward not available at nearby San Francisco State and San Jose State, nor did it match majors and minors available at San Francisco State and San Jose State, not available at CSU in Hayward.

In all probability, by any criteria of regionality, San Francisco State and San Jose State are as regional as or more regional than the CSU in Hayward. SFSU kept its host city and county place name, SJSU kept its host city place name while the CSU in Hayward divorced its host city place name.

Sincerely,
Peter D. Reimer
A resident of Hayward since August 1968
Life-Time CSUH Alumni Member