Black Student Success Initiative

Advancing Black Student Success and Elevating Black Excellence

In fall 2023, the California State University's Black Student Success Workgroup was convened with the charge to draft recommendations to position the CSU as a nationwide leader in Black student outreach, recruitment, enrollment, persistence, success and graduation. After consultation with stakeholders within and outside of the CSU, in June 2023 the workgroup published recommendations designed to advance Black student success and elevate Black excellence across the system.

Read the full system-wide report.

Campus Inventory Highlights

As a continuation of the Black Student Success report, the CSU completed a system-wide inventory to gain a greater understanding of how the 23 universities are currently supporting Black student success.

Some highlights from SF State include:

  • Faculty Affairs at SF State led sessions specifically focused on cohort hires that would support Black students and created a faculty task force to develop eight criteria for faculty hiring that focus on Black and Latinx student success. All applicants are required to meet a minimum of two of these eight criteria.
  • A campus-wide team has focused on Black student retention, with partners including Enrollment Management, Undergraduate Education, the division of Equity & Community Inclusion, Africana Studies, International Education and others.
  • SF State established a Bias Incident Education Team in spring 2021 that works through an educational lens, in collaboration with the Office of Title IX and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation, the Office of Student Conduct and the Office of Faculty Affairs, to address unprofessional conduct that does not rise to the level of Title IX.
  • Another campus-wide team has focused on Black student retention, with partners including Enrollment Management, Undergraduate Education, the division of Equity & Community Inclusion, Africana Studies, International Education and others.

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