Dean’s Letter

Dear reader,

I’m happy to bring you the inaugural issue of Aspire, the magazine for the CSULB College of Liberal Arts. We launched this project last spring to celebrate the exciting things our faculty, students and staff have accomplished in the past year — and to take a look at what’s on CLA’s horizon.

With 29 departments, 10 centers and institutes, and 20 graduate programs, CLA is easily the biggest college on campus. It’s even larger than some small universities. It can be hard to keep up with everything that’s happening — and that’s where Aspire comes in.

In this issue, you’ll learn the story behind the CSU’s new ethnic studies GE requirement and how the chairs of our ethnic studies departments worked together to develop the course. You’ll also get the scoop on some of our college’s newest programs — the Equity Scholars Initiative and CLASP — as well as a progress report on one of our popular existing programs, Transfer Learning Communities. And you’ll get to meet the new tenure-track faculty members starting in our college this fall.

It’s been a challenging year, to say the least. But as we return to campus for the first time in more than 18 months, I hope these stories will encourage and inspire you. Thank you for reading, and let us know what you think!

All the best, Dean David Wallace 1.0

ABOVE: Photograph by Emily Chen.