Joseph Castro was right for Fresno State — and he’s the right choice to lead CSU system

In choosing Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro to become the next chancellor of the California State University, CSU trustees identified the right person to lead the 23-campus system at the right time.

In its news release, the CSU noted that Castro will be the first native Californian and Mexican American to be the chancellor. He takes over from Timothy P. White, himself a Fresno State graduate.

The grandson of Mexican immigrants, Castro’s life story is one that many of the 480,000 CSU students will relate to and be inspired by. He was raised by a single mother who worked in a beauty shop in Hanford. He went on to get a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley, the first in his family to complete college. After adding a master’s at Cal, he then earned a doctorate from Stanford in higher education policy and leadership.

He took over Fresno State in 2013 from John D. Welty, who had been president for 22 years. Castro embarked on setting a new course around the theme “Be bold,” and has been keenly focused on making sure Fresno State grew its diversity and graduation rate.

Strong diversity

Fifty-three percent of the student body is Hispanic, with 19% white and 12.6% Asian. Black students comprise 2.6% of the enrollment.

Fresno State has been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the best public universities in the nation for graduation rate performance.

That is not the only distinction Fresno State has received under Castro’s lead.

Washington Monthly has ranked Fresno State in the top 30 of nearly 400 private and public universities as best serving in areas of social mobility, research and civic engagement. Fresno State was the only CSU school in the most recent listing’s top 30.

And Fresno State was ranked seventh on Money magazine’s list of most transformative colleges on the basis of affordability.

Enrollment has grown under Castro from 23,000 in 2014 to nearly 25,000 now. While that may not seem much, enrollment is directly tied to how many faculty can be hired, and that is linked to growing the budget from the state, something Castro has lobbied for every year.

Sixty percent of the undergraduates are eligible for Pell Grants, which are given to those from low-to-medium income backgrounds.

And 65% of students are the first in their families to graduate from college.

Other initiatives

Beyond academics, two years into his tenure Castro announced that men’s wrestling would return to the athletics department — a program that had been cut by Welty in a cost-saving move but a sport that remains immensely popular in Valley high school ranks.

In 2014 Fresno State launched its Student Cupboard, a program that provides food and personal-care goods to students in need. An average of 5,500 students utilize the cupboard each month; 43 percent of Fresno State students say they experienced food insecurity in the past year.

In addition to Castro’s role internally as the campus leader, he has been highly involved externally in promoting Fresno State and the Valley as a region. Castro was proud of his Valley roots and never failed to make that clear to the hundreds of groups he has spoken to over the years.

That visible role has paid dividends to the university: Total gift commitments to Fresno State have risen a whopping 94 percent from Castro’s initial year to now, to a total of almost $138 million over his tenure.

New challenges

By leaving Fresno, Castro will move into the chancellor’s office in Long Beach in January and immediately face 23 university presidents with their own ideas of how things should be run.

Then he will have to contend with Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature, seeking their support for budgeting at a time when revenues are dropping due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But Castro is a smart, focused leader who has shown the capacity to listen to others and chart new initiatives. His background makes him right for an education system that is racially and socioeconomically diverse.

The best parting words for Castro are his own: “Be bold!”

This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 2:05 PM.