Go Teach!

If you attended a Long Beach school from the 1950s to the late 1990s, there’s a chance you encountered Bob or Barbara (Seelgen) Ellis as a teacher or administrator.

Bob and Barbara Ellis pose in front of the CSULB building na

They remain longtime supporters of their alma mater, and their desire to help the next generation of teachers recently resulted in a $1.4 million bequest to the College of Education (CED) to create a scholarship endowment for credential students, so on Sept. 16, CSULB’s College of Education Building 1 was renamed in their honor.

Bob and Barbara Ellis speak at a ceremony dedicating a CSULB

“I think the thing that Barbara and I want to emphasize is education is our passion. Barbara spent 36 years in Long Beach School District and I spent 37-and-a-half, and we loved every minute of it,” Bob said. “We think that public schools are the warp and the woof that hold together our democracy, so we’re very anxious to promote the public schools. Our contribution will go to scholarships because we want it to go directly to students who will be filling these classrooms and hallways that Barbara and I filled for a long time.”

“It has been, and I think having a building named for us is kind of overwhelming when we heard about it,” Barbara said. “It was certainly not anything that we had thought about, but we’re very excited. I have to admit that I’ve been driving by this building, looking at those letters up there and feeling so proud that we’re making a difference.

“This is the only university I’ve ever gone to,” she continued. “I graduated from Lakewood High School and lucky for me, this college was available. I just traveled further down Bellflower [Boulevard]. I worked in the Placement Office and I was able to live at home and get a quality education at a very reasonable amount of money. There’s no amount of money that we could give in return that makes up for what that education has meant.”

“No one does educator preparation better than we do here at CSULB,” College of Education Dean Marquita Grenot-Scheyer told guests. “As you may know, educator preparation is central to the mission of the CSU and at the heart of what we do at our university. CSU prepares 10 percent of the nation’s teachers and the CSU system continues to prepare the majority of teachers for California. At CSULB, we prepare the largest number of elementary teachers and the second largest number of secondary teachers in the system.”

President Jane Close Conoley at the dedication ceremoney

CSULB President Jane Close Conoley added, “This gift from the Ellises is one of the most important gifts we’ve had in the Declare campaign because it touches exactly on a core mission of access for students and that students can focus on their studies while they’re here.”

Bob received an M.A. in secondary education, Barbara earned a B.A. in social science, and both earned teaching credentials from the campus. He was a teacher and counselor and served as principal at seven LBUSD elementary, middle and high schools, while Barbara taught English and was department chair at Hughes Middle School and Lakewood High School.

They are active in the California Retired Teachers Association and Bob serves on the Long Beach City College Foundation board. At CSULB, they are members of the CED Dean’s Development Committee and the university’s Legacy Society, Carpenter Performing Arts Center Director’s Circle, Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden, College of the Arts Medici Society, and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Learn more about the Ellises here.

Written by Anne Ambrose