Cathy Sandeen Will Be the Next President of California State University, East Bay

The California State University board of trustees has appointed Cathy A. Sandeen to serve as president of California State University, East Bay in Hayward. She will take office on January 4.

California State University, East Bay enrolls more than 13,000 undergraduate students and nearly 3,000 graduate students, according to the latest statistics supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 60 percent of the undergraduate student body.

In accepting the appointment, Dr. Sandeen stated that “I am thrilled to return to the Bay Area to work alongside Cal State East Bay’s gifted faculty and staff to further the academic achievement of this wonderfully diverse group of students. My own previous experiences and future aspirations closely match Cal State East Bay’s values, and the university-wide commitments to communities of color and sustainability are particularly relevant in this time. I embrace those commitments and will work to further the university’s leadership in these critically important areas.”

Since September 2018, Dr. Sandeen has been serving as chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage. Prior to that role, Dr. Sandeen was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and the University of Wisconsin Extension. Earlier, she held leadership positions at University of California campuses at Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco.

Dr. Sandeen is a graduate of Humboldt State University in California, where she majored in speech pathology. She earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from San Francisco State University, an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Utah.