For seven years, Ashley Gebb told stories of Chico State’s community as the publications editor for Chico State Today. Before that, she worked for many years in local journalism. Then, in 2022, she stepped into the role of executive director of University Communications. For the past several months, she’s also been interim chief of staff to the Office of the President.
Now, the president’s office is recommending she permanently assume the role of chief of staff.
An email was sent to the campus community for an intent to hire on Nov. 6. “For the last 11 months, Ashley has served as the interim Chief of Staff with distinction as a valued member of the President’s Cabinet and managing the operations of the President’s Office,” the email stated.
In her time as interim chief of staff, Gebb has advanced President Steve Perez’s ideas, such as the qualification for the Great Colleges to Work For program, the community agreements and budget transparency.
She graduated from Chico State with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies with emphasis in communications and public administration, and she’s gone on to work for newspapers such as Chico Enterprise-Record, Appeal-Democrat and Red Bluff Daily News.
After which she began to tell stories for Chico State Today, focusing on all aspects of the community. But for her, the most memorable work she did was in the aftermath of the Camp Fire.
“Continuing to tell the story of our campus’s impact and response for years to come was probably one of the most memorable things I’ve been engaged in during my time on this campus,” Gebb said.
Then, a few years later, another crisis occurred that shook the foundations of the university. During an incident involving a professor named David Stachura, there was concern about campus safety after he allegedly threatened to shoot two faculty members in the department where he worked. This concern was exacerbated when many in the campus community felt that University Communications failed to inform the community about the risk.
“With every crisis — and yes, we’ve dealt with many of them in my 10 years here — we’ve learned from every single one and we work to improve,” Gebb said. “Part of that is really listening to the campus and what they need at the moment, and the feedback they have for us and how we respond. We always strive to do the best we can.”
When asked what Gebb would have done differently, she said, “I’m not going to point to specifics, but I think we definitely learned some things as we do in every incident on how we can improve.”
But when asked what they learned from the handling of the incident involving Stachura, Gebb said that, “I think one of the things that we know that has utmost importance to this campus, and it’s something we hold very dear, is the community’s need to feel safe. And whatever we can do to provide those assurances and to put practices in place to have safeguards as our moral imperative as a campus, and it’s something we strive to do on a daily basis.”
Her responsibilities as executive director of University Communications are only one part of her job now. She stepped into the position of interim chief of staff in March, and she said the duality between the two positions works well to strengthen her insight into the university.
“University Communications has been my heart on this campus, and communications is integral to the work of this role as chief of staff,” Gebb said. “And so there’s natural synergy between the two.”
The university is seeking input about Ashley Gebb’s potential implementation as chief of staff from the campus community until Friday. The emails can be sent to [email protected].
The anticipated start date is Dec. 1, according to the email.
“I have so much pride as an alum of Chico State, and I enjoy coming to work every day, even on the most challenging days.”
Chris Hutton can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]
