Diverse leadership at California State University

“The last five campus leaders picked at Cal State have been women, and recent hires have doubled the number of Asian-Americans who will be campus presidents,” Insider Higher Ed reported in an article “Diversifying the Presidency” on June 3, 2016.  Here’s an excerpt:

The California State University System has named women to lead campuses in five straight presidential searches in 2016, nearly doubling the number of women presidents at the 23-campus system in what some hope signals an accelerating trend toward diverse higher education leadership.

The latest hiring for the 475,000-student university system came May 25, when it named Ellen N. Junn the next president of California State University at Stanislaus. Junn is currently at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where she is provost and vice president for academic affairs. She will take over at Stanislaus State after President Joseph F. Sheley retires at the end of June.

Junn’s appointment comes after Cal State named four other women to presidential roles starting in January, three of whom will be replacing retiring male presidents. It also means the Cal State system will have women presidents at 11 of its 23 campuses. That’s a significant difference from the end of the 2014-15 academic year, when just six of its presidents were women.

Also of note is that Cal State will go into the next academic year with four Asian-American presidents, up from two last year. The change comes at a time when many Asian-Americans have worried they’re underrepresented in administrative ranks despite broad success in higher education. The Cal State system also has five Latino and three African-American presidents.

Read the complete article on the Inside Higher Ed website.