For immediate release:

Cal State L.A. Professor Appointed to
L.A. Mayor’s Council of Education Advisors

Los Angeles, CA – California State University, Los Angeles’ Professor of Curriculum and Instruction Gay Yuen (L.A.-Chinatown resident) was recently appointed to the Los Angeles Mayor’s Council of Education Advisors. She is one of only two CSU professors appointed to the 30-member council, whose focus will be on ways the city can help the Los Angeles Unified School District. The advisory group has already begun its effort to lower dropout rates and truancy, and to make schools safer.

A professor of language and literacy in the Charter College of Education at Cal State L.A., Yuen teaches reading, writing and ESL methodology courses in the elementary teacher credentialing program, and graduate courses in second language development and multicultural education. She also coordinates a state grant that supports more than 150 university interns in the completion of their California Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials.

Yuen serves on local, state and national educational committees and task forces on minority education, and is often invited to consult in China, Korea, Singapore, and other Asian countries. A co-founder of the Los Angeles Accelerated Schools Center, she has spearheaded several education reform movements.

In 1997, Yuen headed a five-year Annenberg reform partnership with LAUSD and CSULA. The project focused on the training and continued professional development of classroom teachers during all stages of their careers, enabling them to be betters teachers and increase student achievement.

Yuen received her B.A. in Oriental languages and her elementary teaching credential from UCLA, her M.A. in urban education from Cal State L.A., and her Ph.D. in language, literacy and learning from USC. She taught first grade at Castelar Elementary School as one of the first certified bilingual Chinese teachers in the state. She joined the CSULA faculty in 1990.

Additionally, Yuen is deeply committed to ensuring equal opportunities for immigrants in the United States. She serves on the boards of many community-based, non-profit organizations, including the Chinese American Museum (CAM), East West Players (EWP), and the Asian Youth Center (AYC). She was chosen as one of the phenomenal women of the 32nd Congressional District, in celebration of Women’s History Month 2004.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 170,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds--reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Among programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include a noted alternative energy technology initiative; an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, to be housed in the Los Angeles Regional Crime Lab now under construction. www.calstatela.edu

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