10/30/2020 President Joseph I. Castro
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Joseph I. Castro, Ph.D., M.P.P.
President, California State University, Fresno
Joseph I. Castro is the first Californian to serve as president ofCalifornia State University, Fresno. He is the grandson ofimmigrants from Mexico, son of a single mother and the first inhis family to graduate from a university. Dr. Castro is aProfessor of Educational Leadership and a gifted scholar in thefields of leadership and public policy who has mentoredhundreds of other scholars and practitioners, including manyother university presidents and senior officers.
Fresno State is a national leader in recruiting, supporting andgraduating students from diverse backgrounds. In 2020, FresnoState was ranked No. 26 in the nation by Washington Monthlyand recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the topthree best public national universities for graduation-rateperformance five years in a row. The University was also rankedNo. 40 in Money Magazine’s Best Public Colleges and No. 7 forMost Transformative College, described by the magazine as aschool “where students beat the odds by doing better than wouldbe expected from their academic and economic backgrounds.”
Prior to his appointment as President in 2013, he served for 23years in the University of California system. He was ViceChancellor of Student Academic Affairs and Professor of Familyand Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2006-13. UCSF iswidely recognized as the leading health-sciences university in the nation. Dr. Castro led UCSF’sprograms that served the academic and health-care needs of its talented and diverse students. Earlierin his career, he held faculty and/or administrative leadership positions at four other University ofCalifornia campuses – Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Barbara.
Dr. Castro received a B.A. in political science and an M.P.P. in public policy from the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in higher-education policy and leadership from Stanford University.He has also successfully completed three advanced seminars on presidential leadership at the HarvardUniversity Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Castro serves on a number of boards, including the Lumina Foundation Board, WASC SeniorCollege and University Commission, Mountain West Athletic Conference Board, Stanford UniversityGraduate School of Education Advisory Council, James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award SelectionCommittee, College Football Playoff Board, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’Governing Board, and Jumpstart National Board.10/30/2020 President Joseph I. Castro
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Dr. Castro’s leadership has been recognized by many different organizations. In 2019, on behalf ofFresno State, he received a fifth Excellence and Innovation Award from the American Association ofState Colleges and Universities since the awards program began in 2013. In 2018, he was named asCSU President of the Year by the California State Student Association and City of Fresno District 4Man of the Year. In 2017, he received the Mayor of Fresno’s Community Partnership Award. In 2016,he received the Alumni Excellence in Education Award from the Stanford University Graduate Schoolof Education and the Ohtli Award, which is the highest honor granted by the Government of Mexico toleaders in the United States. In 2014, he was selected as Alumnus of the Year by the UC BerkeleyRichard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy. Dr. Castro received the University of CaliforniaStudent Association’s Administrator of the Year Award and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award fromUCSF in 2010. Dr. Castro was born and raised in Hanford, CA. He and his wife, Mary, have threechildren, Isaac, Lauren and Jess.
September 2020
Dr. Castro's bio (PDF) (/president/documents/2020.9.28%20CastroBio2020.pdf)
