Get to Know the CSU Board of Trustees Part 3

On Tuesday, CFA members, Students for Quality of Education (SQE) interns, and our union siblings demanded accountability from the CSU Board of Trustees.

We called on the trustees to take on the 0% interest short-term loan from the state, protect immigrant communities, reinstate department cuts, and protect higher education.

As we continue to make these demands, it is critical to know the CSU trustees who oversee the university system.

The majority of trustees who adopt rules, regulations, and policies have very little experience in higher education and have made decisions that have harmed our faculty, students, and staff.

Over the last two weeks, we provided an overview of nine members of the CSU Board of Trustees here and here. We will now introduce four more trustees.

Yammilette “Yami” Rodriguez

Yamilette Rodriguez is the Chief Government Relations Officer of the Central Valley’s Youth Leadership Institute and advocates for the inclusion of youth in community issues such as policy-making and sustainable social change. She holds a bachelor’s degree from CSU Fresno. 

Rodriguez was appointed to the board in 2021 and is the chair of the Governmental Relations Committee.

In July 2022, she voted to increase salaries for most CSU executives by at least 7%. Rodriguez said she voted yes because of tentative agreements CSU management had made with staff and faculty, but she failed to elaborate on why negotiations with rank-and-file employees should affect pay for the highest-compensated executive positions.

Rodriguez added the board needed to make the commitment to pay equity across all CSU stakeholders.

In September 2023, Rodriguez voted to increase systemwide tuition by 6% per year for five years. She said she did not have clarity on how non-DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students would be impacted, but voted yes anyways.

“Know that I do not take this decision lightly and just acknowledge what dire straits that we’re in,” Rodriguez said.

Mark Ghilarducci

Mark Ghilarducci has worked in public safety and government management as well as crisis management in the private sector (as CEO and President of Emergent Global Solutions, Inc.). He was director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) for 11 years.

He was appointed to the board in 2023 and had no ties to the CSU prior to that. Ghilarducci is chair of the Collective Bargaining Committee.

In March 2024, Ghilarducci voted to approve misguided changes that imposed General Education updates developed for transfer students on all CSU students. Known as the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC), it removed one Arts and Humanities class and the Lifelong Learning and Self-Development course General Education requirements.  

At the time, he said that having separate requirements for transfer students and first-year students put the CSU system at a disadvantage. But he failed to acknowledge faculty concerns over how the updates would discourage students from exploring different disciplines and would harm student success. 

In November 2024, Ghilarducci voted to approve the restructuring of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Maritime campuses despite months of CFA members, students, and others expressing their concerns. He cast his vote without making a single comment or asking any questions.

Raji Kaur Brar

Raji Kaur Brar is the Chief Operating Officer for her family business, Countryside Corporation, a real estate acquisition, construction, and retail development firm, employing over 500 workers throughout Kern and Tulare Counties. Prior to that she worked as a chemist in the health care industry. 

Brar holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from CSU Bakersfield. She was appointed to the board in 2023 and has no experience working in higher education.

In September 2023, Brar voted to increase systemwide tuition by 6% per year for five years. Brar said “tuition increases are hard and difficult,” but stated that as a private business owner, she “understands how important it is to have funds to keep an operation going.”

She said that the frustration students expressed during public comment was also about whether the board saw them as people.

In November 2024, Brar voted to approve the restructuring of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Maritime campuses despite months of CFA members, students, and others expressing their concerns. She cast her vote without making a single comment or asking any questions.

Sam Nejabat

Sam Nejabat has significant experience in real estate, as the Founder of SJN Properties, which acquires, rehabilitates, and manages apartments, and SJN Consulting. He previously served as a senior advisor of business affairs at the California Department of Justice.

He was appointed to the board in 2024 and had no ties to the CSU prior to that. Instead, he has ties to private capital, as a Partner and Head of US Public Policy and Public Affairs Consulting at Tanto Capital Partners, a boutique investment firm. He also enjoys an annual income exceeding $600,000 from six rental properties he owns in San Diego.

In November 2024, Nejabat voted to approve the restructuring of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Maritime campuses despite months of CFA members, students, and others expressing their concerns. He cast his vote without making a single comment or asking any questions.

Between January and July 2025, Nejabat had a troubling meeting attendance record. Out of the recordings for eight plenary sessions during those meetings, Nejabat can be heard saying he’s present in only two of them. That means he missed or was at least late for sessions for public comment and full board votes.

Showing up to meetings on time or at all should be the bare minimum expectation for trustees. But Nejabat struggled to do so.