A new president will oversee Cal State Long Beach beginning in May, after a protracted search by the Cal State University Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n
Loren J. Blanchard, the current president of the University of Houston-Downtown, will succeed Andrew Jones, an alum of CSULB, who served as acting president after Jane Close Conoley retired<\/a> last summer.<\/p>\n \u201cCSULB is renowned for being a student-centered university that fosters a culture of holistic support, community engagement and inclusive excellence,\u201d Blanchard said in a news release<\/a>, expressing that he is honored and humbled to be selected to lead the institution.<\/p>\n The search committee appointed by the CSU chancellor and board of trustees previously said they expected to have a replacement by July, but the process dragged on for another six months, culminating in the announcement of Blanchard\u2019s appointment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe committee was impressed with Dr. Blanchard\u2019s demonstrated strategic and inclusive leadership style and strong commitment to student success,\u201d said Christopher Steinhauser, a CSU Trustee who led the search committee.<\/p>\n Blanchard comes to the role with over three decades of experience in higher education. He has worked in senior roles in academic and multicultural affairs at several Louisiana universities.<\/p>\n Most recently, during his five-year tenure at University of Houston-Downtown<\/a>, he oversaw a strategic plan that improved graduation rates, increased merit pay to faculty and staff and doubled the university\u2019s annual fundraising portfolio. During Blanchard\u2019s time at UHD, the Wall Street Journal ranked<\/a> the university highest for diversity among Southern colleges.<\/p>\n Last February, Cal State Long Beach students demanded that their next president prioritize student mental health, support Latino students and have a deeper understanding of the local and regional community, according to the Long Beach Current<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blanchard already has experience in the CSU system, serving as executive vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for six years. During that time, he developed CSU\u2019s decade-long effort to improve educational outcomes, which doubled graduation rates across the system for first-year, first-time students<\/a>.<\/p>\n As president, Blanchard will have to contend with lower than projected funding from the state<\/a>, capacity issues impacting<\/a> CSULB\u2019s ability to fulfill promises to Long Beach high schoolers and concerns over transparency, corporatization and academic freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new president will oversee Cal State Long Beach beginning in May, after a protracted search by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-153987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}