The California State University has selected 11 CSUs to receive 2024-25 Advancing and Expanding Ethnic Studies grants to help increase the number of credit-bearing programs that link ethnic studies concepts to gender and sexuality studies. The grants will benefit 12 programs at these universities: Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma.
The awards were made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation announced in 2024, as well as the dedication of the Advancing and Expanding Ethnic Studies Workgroup, a faculty-led committee comprised of ethnic studies disciplinary experts who reviewed more than 25 proposals from across the CSU system.
The Advancing and Expanding Ethnic Studies Awards Program recognizes the crucial roles that Ethnic Studies faculty play in providing high-quality instruction and underscores the importance of accelerating momentum toward intersectional goals.
The awards are granted to individual faculty members or teams of faculty who are intentionally advancing Ethnic Studies and linking Ethnic Studies to other content areas like Women's Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies (GSS) and Trans Studies. Awardees are also recognized for facilitating collaborative engagement between the CSU and community college partners to strengthen transfer processes and infuse Ethnic Studies pathways with experiential learning and undergraduate research opportunities.
The winning proposed projects creatively seek to enhance existing Ethnic Studies programs and pathways through the creation of new concentrations, transfer pathways, minors and certificates, and revised curriculum—and by strengthening student understanding of intersectionality between Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Trans Studies.
They also aim to increase the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in these areas, shorten time to degree completion, reduce equity gaps and advance belonging, diversity, equity and inclusion across the system.
About the California State University
The California State University is the nation's largest four-year public university system, providing transformational opportunities for upward mobility to more than 460,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. More than half of CSU students are from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, and more than one-quarter of undergraduates are first-generation college students. Because the CSU's 23 universities provide a high-quality education at an incredible value, they are rated among the best in the nation for promoting social mobility in national college rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Monthly. The CSU powers California and the nation, sending nearly 125,000 career-ready graduates into the workforce each year. In fact, one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree earned it at the CSU. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU newsroom.
About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation's largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.