News Release| President James M. Rosser; 100 Black Men; CSULA; Cal State L.A.; Los Angeles; CSU

October 1, 2008

Note to editors and news directors:

For a photo of Cal State L.A. President James M. Rosser, call the CSULA Public Affairs office at 323-343-3050.

Cal State L.A. President garners Lifetime Achievement Award 

James M. Rosser to be feted at
The 100 Black Men of Los Angeles’ gala dinner

Los Angeles, CA – Distinguished for his illustrious career committed to diversity and excellence, James M. Rosser has been serving as president of California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State L.A.) for three decades.

In recognition of his outstanding leadership and contributions to the greater Los Angeles community, Dr. Rosser will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by The 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, Inc. during its 27th anniversary gala, Friday, Oct. 3, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

The gala, themed “Honoring Contributions to Humanity, Diversity and Visionary Leadership: Taking Our Mission to Higher Levels,” will also honor Democratic President Nominee/Senator Barack Obama, California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Black, Aerospace Corporation President Dr. Wanda Austin, and The Annenberg Foundation.

Rosser, the University’s sixth president, also holds the rank of professor of health care management and professor of microbiology at Cal State L.A.

A native of East St. Louis, Ill., Dr. Rosser earned academic degrees in health education and microbiology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (Ph.D., 1969; M.A., 1963; B.A., 1962).  In 2003, his alma mater awarded him an honorary doctorate, citing his pioneering efforts to advance the opportunities and contributions of African Americans in science and health care, which included his service on the National Board of Governors of the American Red Cross, the National Institutes of Health National Advisory Council on Aging, and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources Advisory Committee. He previously received SIU’s Alumni Achievement Award (1982) and Distinguished Alumni Award (1999). In 2005, Pepperdine University awarded him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws.

Prior to his appointment at Cal State L.A., Dr. Rosser served for five years as vice chancellor of the State of New Jersey Department of Higher Education and served as acting chancellor in 1977. Earlier in his academic career, he was senior associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where he was also a tenured faculty member in pharmacology and toxicology and higher education.

 

 

 

Educational leadership and community service

Dr. Rosser has served on the boards of many state and local community organizations, including the California Community Foundation, the Fedco Foundation, California Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Community Television of Southern California (KCET), Los Angeles After-School Education and Child Care Program—LA’s BEST, the Music Center Performing Arts Council/Education Council, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and Americans for the Arts. He was the first African American to serve as president of the Los Angeles Area Council of Boy Scouts of America. His civic contributions also include service on the City of Los Angeles’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Theatre, the city’s Economy and Jobs Committee, and the Rebuild Los Angeles task force. He also served on the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Budget Reform; the Los Angeles County Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools; the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP), a nonprofit educational reform organization; and the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN). In 2001, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts presented Dr. Rosser its Community Builder Award.

Dr. Rosser’s other educational, professional and business board affiliations have included the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the American Council on Education (ACE), Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Edison International, United California Bank and FEDCO, Inc. He also served on the Board and the President’s Advisory Committee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In 2005, he was named a distinguished member of the honor society Phi Kappa Phi.

Access and diversity

For more than three decades, Dr. Rosser has championed increasing access to higher education among underserved communities—doing so in Congressional testimony, in presentations at national meetings, moderating a White House forum, in service on key commissions, and by promoting programs that increase diversity in education and in the scientific community. He currently serves on the CSU Presidents’ Council on Underserved Communities, the CSU-Public Schools Outreach Advisory Committee, and the AASCU Committee on Economic and Work Force Development.

His efforts have been acknowledged by numerous honors, including the National Science Foundation’s Educator Achievement Award, the Los Angeles Urban League’s Volunteer Service Award, the Brotherhood Crusade’s Pioneer of Black Historical Achievement Award, the Golden State Minority Foundation’s Medal of Excellence, the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce’s Humanitarian Award, and the Alumni Group’s Education Award at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference and the Frank W. Hale Jr. Diversity Leadership Award by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, both early in 2008.

Science and technology

For three years early in his career, Dr. Rosser was a research bacteriologist for Eli Lilly and Company. Over the ensuing decades, he actively promoted science and engineering education; and he sought ways to galvanize the synergies between science and engineering education, research, technology and industry. He has influenced state and national science policy as a member of the California Council on Science and Technology, the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Congressional Caucus for Science and Technology, ACE’s Committee on Science and Technology, and several NSF and National Academy of Engineering panels and forums addressing diversity in the science and engineering workforce.

He is one of six university leaders on the 22-member National Academies Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable Council, serving with the directors of the National Academies, the heads of major federal research agencies, and industry leaders. He also serves on the CSU Presidents’ Commission for CSUPERB (California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology); and he recently championed new collaborations between CSUPERB’s eight Los Angeles-area campuses, the Southern California Biomedical Council (a life-science industry trade association), and the Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative. The formal agreements strengthen the alignment between biological education and the biotechnology industry, thereby bolstering opportunities in life-science education, innovation, and workforce development.

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The 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, Inc. is a non-profit organization comprised of professional men in business, education, industry, public office, government and other professions. Members of 100 Black Men in the greater Los Angeles area are dedicated to improving the quality of life for African Americans and other minorities. For more about The 100 Black Men of Los Angeles or the 27th annual awards gala, go to www.100bmla.org.

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 205,000 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. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu