{"id":167276,"date":"2026-02-06T21:55:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/167276\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T21:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:55:06","slug":"feels-like-home-president-designate-blanchard-visits-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/167276\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Feels like home&#8217;: President-designate Blanchard visits campus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cal State Long Beach\u2019s next president, Loren J. Blanchard, introduced himself to campus Thursday with a daylong visit that began with a stop at a classroom full of aspiring teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Here and elsewhere on campus, Blanchard extolled his appreciation for The Beach\u2019s commitment to strong student outcomes. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels like home,\u201d said Blanchard, a lifelong educator who spent six years as executive vice chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs for the California State University before assuming the presidency of University of Houston-Downtown. \u201cComing back not only to the city, but also your strong influence on student success, this feels like the right place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blanchard\u2019s day at The Beach followed his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csulb.edu\/news\/article\/loren-j-blanchard-to-serve-as-president-of-cal-state-long-beach\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">late January appointment to CSULB&#8217;s presidency<\/a>. He is scheduled to begin May 1 and spent his day on campus getting acquainted with students and faculty.<\/p>\n<p>His itinerary started at a College of Education class where, with the eyes of students upon him, Blanchard affirmed that he will be attentive to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csulb.edu\/news\/article\/csulb-student-enrollment-for-fall-2025-climbs-to-record-levels\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more than 42,000 students enrolled<\/a> at The Beach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We support you and, more importantly, we are here to get you to the finish line,&#8221; Blanchard said.<\/p>\n<p>Blanchard&#8217;s tour went on to cover much of campus. He visited University Library, attended the 27th annual MLK Celebration, stopped by an Academic Senate meeting and visited student-athletes wearing gold practice uniforms at Jack Rose Track.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are the standard in the Big West,\u201d Track and Field Coach LaTanya Sheffield said while showing Blanchard around the venue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would expect nothing less,\u201d Blanchard replied.<\/p>\n<p>Blanchard\u2019s tour concluded with a celebration at the Parkside North residence hall. Taking group photos with students, he also proclaimed during a short address that The Beach is a beacon of student success with an ethos that inspires achievements \u201cbeyond excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very excited to be able to join this community,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal State Long Beach\u2019s next president, Loren J. Blanchard, introduced himself to campus Thursday with a daylong visit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1818,1820,7,1815,1823,1821,1822,1819,131,133,132,1817,1816],"class_list":{"0":"post-167276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-cal-state","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college","12":"tag-conoley","13":"tag-csu","14":"tag-csulb","15":"tag-dirtbags","16":"tag-long-beach","17":"tag-long-beach-headlines","18":"tag-long-beach-news","19":"tag-long-beach-state","20":"tag-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167276","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=167276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}