Fresno State vice president of administration and chief financial officer Debbie Adishian-Astone, who oversees abeleaguered Title IX department and has a wide reach across campus, will retire at the end of the year, according to university sources.
Adishian-Astone oversees the division of administration and finance, which includes the newly-formed Office of Compliance and Civil Rights and its Title IX and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation (DHR) departments, as well as human resources, the university police, accounting services, auxiliary operations, health and safety/risk management and facilities management.
She also serves as executive director of the nonprofit Fresno State Foundation and chair of the Fresno State Association and Fresno State Athletic Corporation.
The sources, who requested anonymity so they could speak about the planned retirement, did not indicate why Adishian-Astone was leaving the university. The Fresno State graduate has worked on campus since 1983, when she was a student assistant. She did not respond to a phone message left Tuesday morning and could not be reached later before publication time.
It is unclear at this time who will handle her duties in the short term.
The university’s Title IX and DHR operations have been under a microscope for the past two years, since Fresno State was found to have mishandled sexual misconduct allegations against a former high-ranking administrator and to be deficient in its record-keeping, documentation and investigative processes.
Joseph I. Castro resigned as chancellor of the CSU following a February 2022 USA Today report detailing allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation and bullying made over a period of six years against Frank Lamas, the university’s former vice president of student affairs.
An investigation by Los Angeles-based attorney Mary Lee Wegner that was commissioned by the CSU found Fresno State officials took action to explore and address each report, but while some responses substantially complied with system policies prohibiting discrimination and sexual harassment, others did not.
Castro was the president at Fresno State at the time. Lamas, who has denied the allegations, left the university with a $260,000 settlement, as well as a promise for letters of recommendation toward future employment.
A subsequent assessment of Title IX in the CSU and on its 23 campuses by the law firm Cozen O’Connor cited a severe lack of trust in Fresno State, its leadership and processes.
Leaders of the four major unions representing CSU faculty, employees and staff questioned whether it was possible to rebuild or gain trust without major changes at the administrative level on campuses and greater oversight.
“We saw what happened at Fresno State where top administrators, including the president, turned a blind eye when faced with evidence of multiple workplace abuses against students and staff,” said Catherine Hutchinson, president of the California State University Employees Union, in a September 2023 story in The Bee.
Yet, in restructuring its Title IX and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation departments under the newly-formed Office of Compliance and Civil Rights this year, the university left the department under Adishian-Astone.
State legislators also have expressed little confidence in the CSU and its campuses to properly address sexual harassment and discrimination complaints, drafting 12 bills to hold public university’s in the state accountable for Title IX compliance in a package lawmakers are calling “A Call to Action.”
Adishian-Astone, who last year interviewed for a cabinet-level position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also was involved in the development of the Save Mart Center as project coordinator.
She oversaw the environmental impact report, the design of the facility, and selection of a builder. She also worked with legal counsel to develop contract documents and with the bond underwriter and bond counsel to develop a project financing plan, and with legal counsel to negotiate corporate sponsorship agreements, according to the resume she submitted with her UNLV application.
The university, which made interest-only payments on Save Mart Center debt for a decade, still owes more than $35 million for its multi-purpose arena, which is now more than 20 years old and was built at a cost of $103 million. In 2024-25, it must make a $10.3 million principal and interest payment on the building, according to the most recent financial documents from the California State University Fresno Association, the nonprofit auxiliary organization that oversees the Save Mart Center.
The debt is not scheduled to be retired until Nov. 1, 2031.
Adishian-Astone started working at the university in 1983 as a student assistant in the office of facilities planning. She was hired on a full-time basis in July 1988 and worked her way up from an assistant facilities planner to facilities planner, interim director of facilities planning, director of facilities planning, assistant to the vice president for administration and Save Mart Center coordinator, associate vice president for auxiliary operations to vice president of administration and chief financial officer.
She has been a VP and the CFO since 2016 after serving in an interim basis for more than one year. In 2021, she was honored by the Craig School of Business at Fresno State with an outstanding alumna award.
