When the CSU Board of Trustees announced Dr. Joseph I. Castro as chancellor-select, news outlets reacted swiftly. Take a look at some of the top news stories from around the country.

Inside Higher Ed
‘The CSU Will Look Different’
The next Cal State chancellor is in a unique position between continuity and change. Castro was one of the first presidents appointed by the system’s current chancellor, White. He says he wants to build on White’s tenure and names as one of his top priorities a key effort to increase graduation rates instituted under White. But he also says changes will be necessary to adapt to a world forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Los Angeles Times
Cal State gets its first chancellor of color: Fresno State president Joseph I. Castro
In an interview, Castro recalled how, through the Berkeley admission program, he was invited to bring a filled-out application to a meeting with a counselor, who stamped it “admitted” on the spot. "I had no idea that was going to happen — it changed my whole life. That’s a gift that I continue to try to pay back," Castro said, his voice breaking with emotion. “There’s no way I would have been able to even imagine that, without the initiative of the leader of that campus at the time and their interest in more students from the San Joaquin Valley."

Cal Matters
Cal State chooses first Mexican American chancellor
Raised by a single mother and the first in his family to graduate from a university, Castro blazed through academe, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UC Berkeley and his Ph.D in higher-education policy and leadership from Stanford University. Since 2013, he’s been president of California State University, Fresno, which has received national recognition for graduating a high rate of low-income students.

The Washington Post
Next chief of California State University will push to raise graduation rates
It will be Castro’s challenge to lead the system to a return to full classroom teaching. He said Wednesday that the pandemic highlights the public university’s key role in social mobility. "Especially during covid, the CSU system is more consequential than ever before because of the students that we serve," Castro said. "We want to make sure they have the opportunity to get a degree and become part of the leadership of California and the country."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Cal State picks an 'unflappable' new chancellor to lead in an uncertain time
Castro will face the immediate difficulty of steering the system through the upheaval and uncertainty of COVID-19, but beyond that, he said his biggest challenge would be to continue to make progress on the system’s effort to improve its graduation rates. The system hopes, for example, to raise its six-year graduation rate for nontransfer undergraduates to 70 percent by 2025. In 2019 that rate was 62 percent. "I want to achieve those 2025 goals, and then set some even-more-aspirational goals for the future," he said, "because California and the U.S. need the CSU to be successful, especially during this consequential time."

Inside Higher Ed
Cal State names new Chancellor
"Dr. Castro is a passionate and effective advocate for his students, his campus and the CSU — in his local community, in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C.," Lillian Kimbell, chair of the Cal State Board of Trustees, said in a statement. "Above all, he is a leader that inspires greatness in students, faculty and in the broader community. He is the right leader for the California State University in our current circumstance and for our future."

EdSource
Joseph Castro, Fresno State's president, selected as new CSU chancellor
Gov. Gavin Newsom said, in a statement, that he is thrilled to welcome Castro as the CSU chancellor and looks forward to working closely with him. "His extraordinary record as a leader in higher education will serve him well as he assumes this role at a pivotal time for students, faculty and staff," Newsom said. "I know he has the experience, wisdom and respect of many that he will need to build on Chancellor White's progress on graduation, retention and diversity and inclusion."

The New York Times
Meet the new Chancellor of the Cal State System
Once we remove the stress of the pandemic, I actually believe we’re going to be in a new place where we’re offering more courses virtually because students will want that and faculty will want to teach the courses that way. So I don’t see us going backward to where we were in March. I see us going forward to a new place — an exciting place.