photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
Vivo Cunningham leads the small column of students, faculty, and staff 
delivering hand written "messages of hope" to new SSU President Michael 
Spagna's office on 27 January, 2026.

It's been a year since students and faculty at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park were blindsided by a major budget cut. 

In January 2025, then-president Emily Cutrer rolled out plans to shrink Sonoma State's nearly 24 million dollar budget deficit by doing away with over 20 degree programs, six academic departments, and Sonoma State's entire NCAA athletics program.

It was a painful move for students like Vivo Cunningham, a Students for Quality Education intern with CFA, the California Faculty Association.

"It was a bummer really to see the school that I've been going to for a couple years get, I don't know, not decimated, like triple decimated," Cunningham said.

To mark the anniversary, faculty with CFA, school staff, and students like Cunningham gathered in the buzzy atrium of SSU's Stevenson Hall Tuesday, to write out short messages for Sonoma State's new President, Michael Spagna.

"I really hope that going forward there can be a better relationship between admin and the students, especially after last semester," Cunningham said.

Sonoma State Theater Studies director and professor Scott Horstein, said, while there's still lots of grief on the campus, "we also want people to be able to have some hope for the future with a new president coming in as well."

Horstein is one of Sonoma State's professors on an extended teach out plan.

Hortsein's theater arts program was eliminated in the budget cuts, and while he said there's talk he, and other faculty in similar situations could get folded in to other departments, Horstein's in line for a layoff once his remaining students graduate.

The future looks different for others at the Rohnert Park campus though.

Jack Pieper joined Sonoma State's grounds crew about 4 months ago, after the initial shock of the budget cut last year.

"It was kind of hectic when I got here, but now we're starting to get to the point where we can like focus on group projects and we have enough people to do that," Pieper said. "So, it's getting better. It's slowly getting better."

Enrollment at SSU has fallen by almost 40% since 2015, but last summer, after the budget cut, state legislators secured $45 million for the school from Sacramento, and the CSU system has promised another $45 million for Sonoma State's turn around plan.