{"id":458077,"date":"2026-09-09T08:28:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/458077\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T08:28:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:28:38","slug":"sfsu-president-to-retire-next-year-marks-latest-in-string-of-departures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/458077\/","title":{"rendered":"SFSU president to retire next year, marks latest in string of departures"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco State University\u2019s president Lynn Mahoney will retire next summer<\/a>, she announced Tuesday \u2014 marking the latest leadership vacancy to plague the California State University system in the last year.<\/p>\n

Mahoney has served as San Francisco State\u2019s president since 2019 and was the university\u2019s first woman president. She has worked within the California State University system for 18 years, previously serving in leadership roles at the Los Angeles and Long Beach campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a deeply and solely personal decision,\u201d Mahoney said in her announcement Tuesday. \u201cWorking with the best colleagues anywhere in service to our deeply engaged and talented student body has been a joy, but supporting my growing family, especially my beautiful granddaughters, calls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahoney is the latest in a string of executive leadership departures since January.<\/p>\n

In May, Cal State East Bay President Cathy Sandeen announced that she will step down at the end of December<\/a>, while CSU Monterey Bay President Vanya Qui\u00f1ones announced in March she would be leaving the campus to fill Cal Poly Pomona\u2019s vacant presidency beginning in July.<\/p>\n

CSU Channel Islands and Dominguez Hills campuses also have interim presidents after the departure of their leaders in August 2025 and January 2026, respectively.<\/p>\n

The turnover comes after\u00a0the Cal State system approved more than half a million dollars in pay raises last year<\/a> in an effort to improve recruiting for executive-level candidates. The policy approved salary increases ranging from $22,000 to more than $100,000.<\/p>\n

Cal State faculty have criticized CSU trustees<\/a> for approving the hefty pay hikes amid\u00a0widespread layoffs, tuition increases and a staggering $2.3 billion budget shortfall.<\/p>\n

A legislative effort to overhaul CSU\u2019s Board of Trustees<\/a> and \u201cdemocratize\u201d the university system amid the system\u2019s major budget challenges stalled in the state legislature earlier this year. The legislation was authored by Assemblymember Alex Lee, a Democrat who represents Milpitas.<\/p>\n

Under university policy<\/a>, it is the responsibility of the California State University Board of Trustees to recruit, select and appoint CSU campus presidents. The chair of the Board of Trustees and the university chancellor, Mildred Garc\u00eda, will also\u00a0select a committee comprised of campus and community stakeholders to lead the search, the university system said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Interim presidents are selected to serve as campus leaders until the board completes a national search for the next regularly appointed president.<\/p>\n

CSU Long Beach also welcomed Loren J. Blanchard as the newest campus president in May, while CSU San Bernardino welcomed Terri Gomez as the next campus leader in August.<\/p>\n

In a statement Tuesday, CSU Chancellor Mildred Garc\u00eda praised Mahoney for her success in raising the campus\u2019s four-year graduation rate for first-time students, the two-year graduation rate for transfer students and the first-year retention rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Mahoney has served the university with great distinction through a tenure marked by extraordinary challenges, including an unprecedented global pandemic and significant and interrelated challenges of declining enrollment brought on by demographic shifts and severe budget constraints,\u201d Garc\u00eda said Tuesday. \u201cThanks in large part to President Mahoney\u2019s extraordinary service, the future of San Francisco State is indeed bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahoney said Tuesday her tenure as San Francisco State\u2019s president has been \u201cprofound but not easy,\u201d pointing to the global pandemic, the campus\u2019s demographic decline and enrollment shifts and the \u201cdramatic and detrimental changes in federal support and oversight,\u201d as well as \u201cyears of declining state financial support.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the campus starts the school year with new student enrollment up more than 10% as well as a healthy state budget, which she credited to joint advocacy from students, faculty and alumni.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not done yet,\u201d Mahoney concluded in her retirement announcement Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward this year to working together to bring greater intentionality to our work to create pipelines to internships and careers, to achieving even greater fundraising success, and to continuing the work to reimagine our academic programs and administrative structures to meet the needs of current and future SFSU students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco State University\u2019s president Lynn Mahoney will retire next summer, she announced Tuesday \u2014 marking the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,7,8,5529,15,2306,1533,181,23,100,395,182,101,396,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-458077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-california-state-university","tag-education","tag-higher-education","tag-keywee","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-peninsula","tag-pm-report","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458077","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=458077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}