SF State Presidential Search Committee to hold first meeting

The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees is beginning the search for a new president of San Francisco State University to succeed Dr. Leslie E. Wong, who is retiring in July 2019. The first meeting of the Trustees' Committee for the Selection of the President will be held in an open forum from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 5 in the McKenna Theater in the Creative Arts Building on the San Francisco State campus. The open forum will be followed by a closed meeting.

The open forum will be live-streamed (and web-archived) on the Presidential Search webpage, where individuals may also provide their input.

CSU Trustee Rebecca Eisen will chair the committee. The other trustee members include:  Wenda Fong, Larry Norton and Lateefah Simon as well as Trustee Chairman Adam Day and CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White.

Board policy requires the chair of the CSU trustees to appoint an Advisory Committee to the Trustees' Committee. The Advisory Committee is composed of representatives from faculty, staff, students and alumni, as well as a member of a campus advisory board, all of whom are selected by the campus' constituency groups. Also on the Advisory Committee is an administrator from the campus and a president of another CSU campus — both selected by the chancellor. Both committees function as one unified group.

Members of the Advisory Committee for the Selection of the President include:

• SF State faculty members Robert Keith Collins, Ph.D., associate professor and chair, American Indian Studies, and Mary Beth Love, chair and professor of Health Education and executive director of Metro College Success Program
• Nancy Counts Gerber, chair of the SF State Academic Senate and professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Shae Antonette Hancock, executive assistant, University Enterprises (staff representative)
• Nathan Jones, president, SF State Associated Students (student representative)
• Janice Gumas, CSU Alumni Council (alumni representative)
• Taylor Safford, chair, SF State Foundation Board (campus advisory board representative)
• Alvin N. Alvarez, Ph.D., dean, SF State College of Health & Social Sciences
• Community representatives Ramona Tascoe, M.D. and Joaquín Torres, director, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, City of San Francisco
• Joseph I. Castro, Ph.D., president of California State University, Fresno

The purpose of meeting in an open forum is to: review the role of the committee, explain the search process and confidentiality, and receive input from the campus community and public regarding preferred attributes of the next president.

Over the next several months, the committee will review candidates and conduct interviews.