Long Beach Mayor's Welcome Reception
Introductory Remarks (as prepared)
Chancellor Mildred García
December 4, 2023
Good evening and buenas noches! This event, this season and this extraordinary opportunity I have to serve the nation's preeminent university system have me filled with gratitude – so I will begin with a long list of thank-you's. First, thank you, President Conoley, for your kind introduction, for so capably leading our beloved Cal State Long Beach and for joining in sponsoring tonight's event. Thank you to Chris Reese, from the president's stellar team, for your expert coordination. Thank you, Mayor Richardson and your team, for graciously providing this opportunity to meet all of you – the leaders of the city I have come immediately to love. My enduring thanks also go to Superintendent Baker and President Muñoz for your continued partnership in educating our next generation of leaders – as well as for your generous sponsorship of this event.
And thank you to Dr. Ramos-Rivas and her team at the Museum of Latin American Art for providing this spectacular space. This venue is a true jewel that I know I will revisit many times in the years ahead.
And I certainly appreciate all of you for taking time out during this busy season to provide me with such a warm welcome to the beautiful city of Long Beach.
I am honored and privileged to be here with all of you – the educational, community, business and cultural leaders who continue to make Long Beach such a vibrant and inclusive place – and a model in so many ways for California and the nation. We are indeed fortunate to operate the California State University's systemwide headquarters – serving almost half a million students, nearly 56,000 faculty and staff, and more than 4 million global alumni – from a building located just down the street from the Aquarium of the Pacific. In quieter moments, I think I can even hear the lorikeets!
I have also heard that Long Beach is a cosmopolitan city with a small-town feel, and I have certainly found that to be true. I look forward to exploring all this great city has to offer, and I am open tonight to hearing any and all restaurant recommendations!
Since I began my tenure on October 1st as the CSU's 11th chancellor, I have to admit I've grown a little weary of hearing myself tell my personal story. Enough, already! The story I want to tell – every day and at every opportunity – is of this remarkable university and the diverse and talented students we are so privileged to serve. But because getting to know one another is the purpose of tonight's event – and because I want you to know how closely our values align – I will indulge once more.
I am a first-generation college student, the daughter of humble and proud parents who migrated to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico. I grew up in a poor, but beautifully diverse neighborhood near the factories where my parents worked. But while my neighbors were diverse, their dreams were the same: to create a better life for the next and future generations.
Thanks to my parents' vision and sacrifice – and to the transformative power of higher education, I have lived that dream.
The ideal of social mobility drives my professional story, as well. It's been my highest honor to play a part in elevating the lives of many thousands of students through that transformative power of higher education, whether as president of CSU Dominguez Hills [our host Mayor Richardson's alma mater, by the way – Go Toros!], as president of Cal State Fullerton or, more recently, by working to advance public higher education policy and practice as president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
And now, my career has come full circle, providing me with the profound privilege and extraordinary opportunity to lead the nation's largest and most diverse four-year university system, its greatest driver of social mobility, and an engine of prosperity and progress for the state of California.
To say I am thrilled doesn't begin to capture what I am feeling. And I am equally excited and grateful to have the support and partnership of so many like-minded peers, colleagues and friends – all of you! Together, we are educating and supporting America's new majority – first-generation students, low-income students and students of color, as well as adults seeking new opportunity. And we are preparing them to be engaged participants in our future workforce, in our democracy and in our society.
I know I am among true believers in the unique and awesome power of education to lift individuals, and to prepare the thinkers, creators, teachers, innovators and entrepreneurs – from all walks of life – who will carry Long Beach, our state and our nation to their brightest future.
One of the hallmarks of the CSU – and an absolute necessity for our enduring success – is deep engagement with the communities we serve. Each of our 23 universities works closely and in partnership with the surrounding region to meet the area's unique needs and to solve its most pressing social and economic challenges, through research, service and targeted workforce development.
Nowhere – and I say this from the heart and with absolute sincerity and gratitude – nowhere is this model represented better and more authentically than right here in Long Beach.
In partnership with our Cal State campuses, high school students at the California Academy of Math and Science and at the Sato Academy are already earning college credit in high-demand fields. Together we're preparing fresh and diverse talent to serve the likes of Boeing, Northrup Grumman and Rocket Lab USA.
The Long Beach College Promise remains the gold standard for creating a seamless pathway to a Cal State degree for thousands of LBUSD grade-schoolers who go on to complete their associate degrees at Long Beach City College. Just last month, the college promise was instrumental in earning Long Beach a “Champions of Higher Education for Excellence in Transfer" award from the Campaign for College Opportunity. And we're privileged to have one of the program's key architects – former Long Beach Unified Superintendent Chris Steinhauser – on the CSU Board of Trustees.
Also last month, Mayor Richardson joined our educational leaders to create the Long Beach Housing Promise, a five-year program that will ensure quality, affordable housing plus wraparound support for students and their families.
The Cal State Long Beach campus is proud to offer numerous services to the community, including the Speech-Language Clinic, the Community Clinic for Counseling and Education Services, the Long Beach Trauma Recovery Center, and a future clinic set to open in partnership with MemorialCare.
The Cal State Long Beach Center for Community Engagement connects over 500 students each year with internships and service-learning opportunities at more than 100 organizations throughout the Long Beach community – organizations that generously provide training and paid positions, so that all students can participate – not just those who can afford to work for free. As just one example, in partnership with College Corps, more than five dozen interns are completing 450 hours of community service in the areas of climate justice, food insecurity and K-12 education.
Local business leaders have transformed the university's Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship into a driving force for economic development in the greater Long Beach community. The John & Helen Apostle Enterprise Lab and Incubator provides hands-on opportunities that connect our pipeline of talented students with the local entrepreneurial community. The campus's Marketing Business Center gives students direct experience in providing professional marketing services to our city's small- and medium-sized businesses.
In return, the CSU is proud to do its part to educate and uplift the Long Beach community. Can I please see a show of hands of the Cal State alumni with us tonight? Look at all of you! Made in the CSU!
And over the past five years, another 5,200 Long Beach Unified graduates chose to pursue their degrees across our 23 universities, from Humboldt in the north to San Diego in the south. Over that time span, 7,000 Long Beach City College students chose to transfer to a Cal State campus. And Cal State Long Beach is developing a new EOP Promise Pilot program that will provide priority admissions for local students from disadvantaged backgrounds who show promise in succeeding at the university. We're so very honored to prepare and empower your children, grandchildren, and other loved ones to live their dreams.
Together, I have no doubt that this community will continue to rise as a national model for identifying, inspiring, honing and unleashing the genius that lies within each and every one of the students we are so privileged to serve – so that they may change this extraordinary city, and change the world.
Thank you again for this lovely event, for your gracious welcome and for all that we will accomplish together in the years to come.