News Releases

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 29, 2018) – Long Beach State University awarded the second-most bachelor’s degrees in the United States to minority students during the 2016-17 academic year, according to the latest issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

The rankings signify an upward trend for the campus, which placed third in the magazine’s 2017 analysis.

The Long Beach campus awarded 6,100 bachelor’s degrees to African American, Asian American, Hispanic and Native American students during the 2016-17 academic year. That number signifies an 11 percent increase from the previous year, according to the magazine’s annual report on the United States’ Top 100 institutions awarding degrees to minority students.

“These rankings affirm our commitment to both inclusion and degree completion,” President Jane Close Conoley said. “As we welcome the largest class of students to ever attend Long Beach State, I want to commend our faculty and staff for helping students from all backgrounds access a quality education.”

How Long Beach State ranked in other categories:

• Bachelor’s degrees awarded to Hispanic students – 3rd place
• Bachelor’s degrees awarded to Asian American students – 10th place
• Bachelor’s degrees awarded to Native American students – 73rd place
• Master’s degrees awarded to Hispanic students – 14th place
• Master’s degrees awarded to minority students – 34th place
• Master’s degrees awarded to Asian American students - 36th place

The rankings are the product of the sole national-level analysis of its kind for the U.S. Department of Education’s most recent data for the 2016-17 academic year, according to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

“That ranking is very well-deserved, and it makes me proud to be the student body president of a student population that represents students of color, and that we’re actually getting those students of color to graduate,” Associated Students President Genesis Jara said.

Associated Students President Genesis Jara speaks to Long Beach State’s culture of inclusive excellence.

In July, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education published a ranking of the United States’ top degree producing institutions for STEM fields. Those rankings included the finding that Long Beach State University ranked in 14th place for the number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering awarded to minority students.

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About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 29, 2018) – Fresh produce grown on the campus of Long Beach State University awaits students and faculty members who are returning to campus for the fall semester.

Long Beach State’s Forty-Niner Shops introduced 20 hydroponic systems onto campus. The systems sit on a platform between the bookstore and Nugget Grill & Pub and are currently growing leafy greens and herbs among other produce typically featured in the “dirty dozen” list of produce that are most susceptible to pesticide contamination.

“We’re trying to go a step further,” said Donald Penrod, general manager and chief executive of the non-profit Forty-Niner Shops on campus. “We really want to grow as much food as we can locally because you know where it comes from.”

The new vertical gardens are expected to supply enough produce for the on-campus salad bar at the Chartroom restaurant and more hydroponic systems are being considered for other locations on campus, said Long Beach State alumnus Caleb Wood, who graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in human geography. Wood works for Lettuce Grow, a Playa Vista-based startup, which will oversee the produce on campus from seed germination through cultivation.

The new pilot program is expected to run at least a year, until it can be assessed for economic feasibility.

Lettuce Grow has 100 clients in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

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About the campus:Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.About Lettuce Grow: A local startup based in Playa del Ray, Lettuce Grow employs 20 people and is an arm of The Farm Project, a business started by actress Zooey Deschanel and her husband Jacob Pechenik.

Photo(s) attached. Please credit “Long Beach State University” for each photo.

Suggested caption: Lettuce Grow employees Alberto Superchi (L), Caleb Wood (center) and Niels Thorlaksson (R) install a new hydroponic system on a platform near the dining area at Long Beach State University. The initial goal is to harvest enough fresh vegetables from the hydroponic system to provide for one salad bar on campus.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 28, 2018) – A faculty member at Long Beach State University who has studied the monetary bail system in Southern California is available to speak about Gov. Jerry Brown signing into law Senate Bill 10, which eliminates monetary bail in California.

Earlier this month, Scott-Hayward published a paper with then undergraduate student Sarah Ottone about the decision-making process judges make when mulling whether to grant defendants bail.

Christine Scott-Hayward is an assistant professor of law, criminology and criminal justice at Long Beach State University. She teaches classes on corrections, criminal courts and judicial procedures, and delinquency and juvenile justice. Scott-Hayward can be reached at Christine.Scott-Hayward@csulb.edu.

Scott-Hayward has a paper on pretrial detention. She also has a Stanford Law Review essay "Punishing Poverty."

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 27, 2018) – Long Beach State University researchers and federal wildlife officials have begun to see encouraging results — growths of green Pacific cordgrass — after undertaking a pilot program to rebuild a threatened salt marsh with sediments dredged up from a local harbor.

The project site encompasses about eight acres of salt marsh within the boundaries of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. The effort to rebuild the marsh has potential to restore habitat for the light-footed Ridgeway’s rail, an endangered bird. It also promises to show whether similar projects can protect coastal marshlands from being lost to a double whammy of rising sea levels and sinking land.

Protecting coastal lands is not only important for wildlife, but humans who live and own property near the seaside.

“Wetlands provide a lot of protection and buffering for the communities that are behind the wetlands,” said Christine Whitcraft, associate professor of biological sciences and director of Long Beach State’s Environmental Science and Policy program.

Associate professor Christine Whitcraft explains why wetlands are important.

Whitcraft manages the campus’ Wetlands Ecology Lab, where researchers are helping the project team's work.

Workers sprayed a 10-inch layer of dredged materials from the bottom of Huntington Harbour to the Seal Beach project site during the first half of 2016. The sediments have since settled to a lower elevation, and some Pacific cordgrass has since sprouted along the edges of the project site. Another plant species, called pickleweed, also grows throughout the project site.

Cordgrasses are important, Whitcraft explained, because plant cover shades the sand, preventing the surface from becoming hard and salty. A cooler and less saline environment benefits invertebrates, such as earthworms. Those creatures are important food sources for birds.

Associate professor Christine Whitcraft explains the restoration project.

Success in Seal Beach could also provide new insights to conservationists working to preserve other coastal habitats.

“Our primary mission here is to protect what’s left of the coastal wetlands in California,” said refuge manager Rick Nye of the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.

Besides the fact that many people enjoy living near the kind of green spaces that coastal wetlands provide, wetlands also play a role in filtering pollutants, absorbing storm flows and storing carbon, Nye said.

Rising sea levels are a widespread concern in the Golden State. State government’s fourth Climate Change Assessment, published Monday, called attention to several dangers emerging from a warning climate. On the subject of sea level rise, the assessment warns 31 to 67 percent of Southern California beaches may vanish by the year 2100 unless people take significant steps to halt erosion.

Researchers monitoring the Seal Beach site compare how plants and animals are faring at the augmentation site and a nearby control area, student researcher Chloe Van Grootheest said. They do so by analyzing photosynthesis activity among cordgrass at either site, measuring temperature and salinity, as well as taking sediment samples back to the Wetlands Ecology Lab to see what kind of creatures are living below the surface.

“It’s slowly but surely coming back,” Van Grootheest said. “We have the low plant cover coming in and we have the larval insects that are here.”

In addition to Long Beach State University personnel, the research team also includes members from the U.S. Geological Survey, UCLA, Chapman University, Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy and Friends of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.

Funding and other support comes from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Coastal Conservancy, OC Parks, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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About the campus:Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

New student overcomes drugs, foster care and imprisonment to pursue dream of studying business administration and economics.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 24, 2018) –The first day of school at Long Beach State University is Monday, August 27, 2018. Taryn Williams is a President’s Scholar with a unique story. Williams, 31, is a mother of twins who has overcome drugs, homelessness, prison time, and the foster care system. She has decided to go back to school to pursue her dream in logistics and operations management. Williams will be available for interviews on campus from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Her contact number is 562-528-1300.

This year’s freshmen class is the largest incoming class in Long Beach State University history. There are 4,850 new students and 4,400 transfer students as well. Only 30 of the incoming students are President Scholars: A competitive prestigious scholarship that waives tuition for all four years, discounts housing, and provides mentors to students selected.

About the campus:
Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society. 
 

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 23, 2018) – Computing experts at Long Beach State University will work with Google and faculty from three University of California campuses to offer a research-focused workshop experience intended to encourage young women to study computer science.

Google awarded the $35,000 exploreCSR grant, which will fund work by faculty at the Long Beach campus, UCLA, UC Irvine and UC San Diego to implement the program.

“Helping young women who are interested in computer science to find role models, receive encouragement and obtain more information related to the subject and potential research careers can reduce the existing gender imbalance within the field,” said Shadnaz Asgari, an associate professor who oversees the Google grant. “Through these workshops, our students will work on exploratory computational problems with clear real-world applications in teams that led by expert faculties from four exemplary institutions.”

Asgari holds an appointment at the Long Beach campus' Computer Engineering & Computer Science Department and also chairs its Biomedical Engineering Department.

Google announced the grant, as well as similar awards for other universities across the United States, Thursday. Nationwide, the grants may fund workshop opportunities for some 1,200 undergraduates.

Encouraging more women to study computer science has been an ongoing effort in the tech industry and academia. Women earned fewer than one-fifth of computer science undergraduate degrees and about one-quarter of computer science master’s degrees in 2016-17, according to the Computing Research Association’s Taulbee Survey That was up slightly from the previous year.

The Long Beach State University Computer Engineering & Computer Science Department has helped encourage more inclusiveness by sponsoring female students to attend the annual Grace Hopper Celebration for female technologists, and by holding networking events for incoming female computer science students.

The College of Engineering also provides a dedicated webpage where students and faculty can remain current on the issues, and sponsors outreach programs such as Future Girls @ the Beach and Engineering Girls @ the Beach.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 23, 2018) – A new collection of industrial-grade 3D printers at Long Beach State University will help students and faculty shape the futures of art, science and engineering.

“Now, you are part of the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution,” Christiane Beyer, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, said during a Thursday gathering to celebrate the arrival of the new technology to the campus.

Digitally-connected devices that compose the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles and 3D printers are among the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, she said.

The Gerald M. Kline Innovation Space, funded by a donation from the Gerald M. Kline Family Foundation and Student Excellence Fees, is housed within the University Library. Available technology includes 3D printers capable of processing information contained within digital design files to form, layer by layer, objects composed of plastics, carbon fiber and other materials.

"This is the future," University Library Dean Roman Kochan said.

The Innovation Space also houses a laser-cutting system, and a 3D Printer capable of forming objects composed of metal is expected to arrive in the near future.

More than 200 people, including campus President Jane Close Conoley and other leaders, attended Thursday’s celebration.

“I am so delighted to see this as yet another example of our library continually reinventing itself to better serve our students and our faculty,” Conoley said.

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About the campus:Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 16, 2018) – Long Beach State University faculty are able to speak to media covering issues related to freedom of the press and journalism as newspapers across the United States are expected to publish editorials defending their missions.

Faculty members in the campus’ Department of Communication Studies and Department of Journalism and Public Relations are available to provide comment to reporters covering the editorials and related topics.

Dr. Christopher Burnett is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Public Relations. He teaches media law and politics, and previously covered the news as a Washington correspondent for the Columbus Dispatch and other publications. He may be contacted via email at chris.burnett@csulb.edu or by telephone at 562-508-5562.

Dr. Christopher Karadjov is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Public Relations. He teaches classes in global news media, investigative reporting and other topics. Karadjov was born in Bulgaria, lived in the Soviet Union during his childhood and spent part of his journalism career in his home country about the time the Cold War ended. He has also worked as a journalist in the United States. He may be contacted via email at chris.karadjov@csulb.edu or via telephone at 562-291-8013.

Dr. Jose I. Rodriguez, professor of communication studies, is available to speak to reporters on topics related to political culture, polarization and disinformation campaigns. He can provide perspectives on political actors’ use of fear to manipulate behavior and opinions. He may be contacted via email at jose.rodriguez@csulb.edu or over Twitter, @JRodriguez_PhD.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 14, 2018) – The Supreme Court is likely to be at the center of upcoming news cycles, and Long Beach State University faculty are available to speak with reporters covering the judiciary.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley recently announced plans for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing to commence on Sept. 4. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would become the second associate justice to ascend to the court on the basis of a nomination from President Donald Trump. The hearings are scheduled to precede what promises to be a closely-watched midterm election.

“Given the timing of the confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh, I think it is clear that both Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell want to get the process over with before the midterm elections and likely believe they have the votes to do so, “ Dr. Jared Perkins, assistant professor of political science at Long Beach State University, said.

“This timing will likely force swing-state senators, like Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Joe Manchin in West Virginia, and Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, to take a firm stance on a judge that may go on to vote in cases on issues like abortion, immigration, and religious freedom that resonate with many voters in their states,” Perkins added.

Perkins is available to speak to reporters covering issues related to Kavanaugh’s nomination. He is available for perspective on the nomination process itself as well as the future of landmark cases, particularly Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges, which respectively concluded with the Supreme Court affirming rights to abortion and same-sex marriage. He may be contacted via email at Jared.Perkins@csulb.edu.

Dr. Jason Whitehead, associate professor of political science, is also the director of the campus’ Legal Studies Certificate Program. He is available to speak to reporters on the Supreme Court nomination process and judicial politics.

“What seems particularly significant to me is the way that the Kavanaugh nomination, if successful, would represent the long-term success of the judicial conservative movement,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead placed current events in the context of past conservative opposition to the decisions of the Warren Court and liberals’ success in blocking the Reagan Administration from appointing Judge Robert Bork to the high court. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy held the seat Reagan had sought to give to Bork.

“Now, after more than 30 years of work, the judicial conservative movement is finally poised to reverse that failure by replacing that very same justice with a movement conservative,” he added. “It's quite an amazing story of a determined and resourceful political movement refusing to be sidetracked, maintaining its vision, adapting through failure, and finally achieving an unlikely goal.”

Whitehead may be contacted by email at Jason.Whitehead@csulb.edu or by telephone at 310-748-4076.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 13, 2018) – Long Beach State University is among the top U.S. universities awarding engineering and other STEM degrees to minority students.

The Long Beach campus issued the 14th-most bachelor’s degrees to minority students among U.S. universities during the 2016-17 academic year, according to the July 26 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

“We appreciate the recognition for the work of our colleges’ leadership and faculty as they continue strengthening our STEM-related education offerings,” said Brian Jersky, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs. “The campus has a long history of success in educating a richly diverse population of students. It is because of our focus on inclusive excellence that we can provide a transformative education for all the outstanding students who come to us. This, in turn, benefits the many communities we serve.”

The magazine’s rankings are based on preliminary U.S. Department of Education data. The July 26 issue listed the nation’s Top 100 universities for awarding bachelor’s degrees to minority students in engineering; computer and information sciences and support services; and mathematics and statistics. The issue also listed the Top 50 institutions producing bachelor’s degrees for minority students in the physical sciences.

“The College of Engineering is committed to providing educational services to a diverse student population,” College of Engineering Dean Forouzan Golshani said. “Our dedication to the success of all of our students has resulted in a significant increase in the number of our graduates. Current projections indicate we should be able to continue our success in this area.”

The Long Beach campus awarded 426 bachelor’s degrees in engineering to minority students during 2016-17, according to the publication. That figure represented 62 percent of all students who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

“It gives me great pleasure to see how highly we rank nationally in producing underrepresented STEM graduates,” College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Dean Curtis D. Bennett said. “We have wonderful faculty that are highly committed to helping all students succeed. These faculty seek out grants that provide students with the chance to work one-on-one with faculty on cutting edge research. In addition, our commitment to first-year learning communities helps students succeed in the early years of college. While these results are wonderful, we aspire to do even better in the future.”

The campus’ College of Business Administration also helps STEM-minded students reach their career goals. The college’s Department of Information Systems offers courses in such subjects as e-commerce, business application programming, and systems analysis and design.

“All of our students work hard to achieve success in classrooms and in careers. I am so proud of them because they know that they will have to earn any success that they will achieve,” College of Business Administration Dean Michael E. Solt said. “Our students don’t ask anyone to give them anything except the opportunity to compete and excel.”

The magazine’s annual Top 100 Degree Producers rankings, assessing degrees awarded to minority students at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels, is scheduled for its August 23 issue.

How Cal State Long Beach ranked in other STEM fields:

• Mathematics and statistics – 20th Place
• Physical sciences – 22nd Place
• Computer and information sciences and support services – 56th Place

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About the campus:Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 13, 2018) – A Long Beach State University student working toward a teaching degree is the 2018 recipient of the Future Science Teacher Award from the California Science Teachers Association.

Erik Perez, a current student earning a multiple subject credential and special education credential, received the recognition after being nominated by his professor Laura Henriques, who is the chairwoman of the university’s Science Education Department.

"I was completely blindsided and just absolutely honored," Perez said of his winning the award. "It really validated all the hard work I've been doing in my science education. It's so honoring and I couldn't be any more over the moon."

During the summer of 2017, Perez worked at the campus' Young Scientists Camp, teaching middle school students during a two-week STEM Makers Challenge in which students learned about electricity and magnetism.

In preparation for the camp, Perez spent hours of his own time creating prototypes of motorized bubble blowers, troubleshooting motor speeds and working out synchronization issues to create the perfect machine that students could recreate at the camp.

Perez was initially drawn toward education because of a desire to reach students who are on the margins and make subject material more accessible to students.

"One of the main reasons I was pushed toward education was my own educational experience," Perez said. "It was almost a loop I was caught in. I was put in remedial courses because of testing anxiety. I was forced to believe as I went through elementary, middle and high school that I wasn't a good student. When I went to college I met a teacher who really inspired me."

Perez will graduate from Long Beach State University in May 2019.

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About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Aug. 10, 2018) – “Sun Forces,” a Long Beach State University mural painted by Rita Letendre for the historic 1965 California International Sculpture Symposium, will be a part of campus life for many more years to come, thanks to a grant that will finance the mural’s conservation.

The Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association provided a grant to conserve the large 22-by-21 foot mural, which the University Art Museum will undertake with the help of partners at The Getty Conservation Institute and RLA Conservation of Art & Architecture as part of the University Art Museum's Conservation Initiative started in 2014.

Conservation work begins Monday, Aug. 13, when conservators take microscopic samples of paint from the mural to study such properties as how the paint is layered and the chemical composition of the paint itself. The samples will go to Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles for analysis, and the information gleaned will provide the required knowledge to properly conserve the mural during summer 2019.

“Our long-term collaboration with [Long Beach State University] on the study and conservation of their sculpture park has been extremely valuable to the GCI, allowing us to utilize a balance of scientific analysis and historical investigation to help inform decisions on conservation treatments on many of its important works,” says Tom Learner, head of science at the Getty Conservation Institute. “The Letendre mural is a striking piece and we are thrilled to continue this work, building on the experience we have had in analyzing paints and assessing the condition of murals in Los Angeles.”

Letendre painted “Sun Forces” on a wall linking a building that houses College of Liberal Arts classrooms with faculty offices. Explosive splashes of black and yellow paint dominate the mural, which is situated over a walkway, allowing passersby to walk underneath it.

“It will wake people up. We go along with gently rolling fields and green grass around us, never seeing. If once a week something makes us wake up and really see, then other things fall into focus and we start living,” Letendre once said when explaining her work in the Long Beach Press-Telegram in July 1965. “I want people walking in and out of my painting. It must not be static - it must be dynamic with action and an interaction that continues in the mind of the spectator.”

The 1965 California International Sculpture Symposium was a historical event for the Southern California region, as it was only the seventh sculpture symposium of its kind to take place in the world, and the very first of its kind in the United States. The symposium added 10 artworks to the campus — nine sculptures and Letendre’s mural — which are now a part of the CSULB Outdoor Sculpture Collection.

“Sun Forces” is also the second artwork in the collection to receive conservation funding from the Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association. Another of the inaugural artworks, J.J. Beljon’s “Homage to Sam Rodia” (1965), benefited from a 2015 grant.

“Navy Memorial Heritage welcomes the opportunity to expand historic preservation grants to include the unique sculptures and mural on the campus. These historic works of art are no less essential to our community than the more typical grants to restore historic architecture and historic neighborhoods,” Renee Simon of the Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association said

Letendre’s mural is the seventh on-campus artwork to be restored through the University Art Museum’s Conservation Initiative, an effort uniting the campus with the Getty Conservation Institute and RLA Conservation of Art and Architecture.

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About the campus:

Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.

About the University Art Museum:

The University Art Museum creates exhibitions and education programs that provide space for critical interpretation of contemporary and modern art and culture. Its curatorial vision focuses on exchanges at the nexus of today’s society. It is the only Long Beach Museum that is free to the public, and the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited museum in the California State University System. Through dedication to scholarly and artistic excellence, the UAM has earned a reputation for its award-winning exhibitions and publications. The global visual arts field and local community alike research UAM exhibitions and its remarkable permanent collection. As the official steward of the CSULB Art Collections, the museum manages tours, exhibitions and activities based on its holdings. With project assistance from the Getty Conservation Institute, the museum oversees conservation of the Outdoor Sculpture Collection and its many public artworks born out of the 1965 Sculpture Symposium.

About the Getty Conservation Institute:

The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) works internationally to advance conservation practice in the visual arts—broadly interpreted to include objects, collections, architecture, and sites. The Institute serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, field projects, and the dissemination of information. In all its endeavors, the GCI creates and delivers knowledge that contributes to the conservation of the world's cultural heritage.

About the Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association:

Created in 1998, the Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association (LBNMHA) exists to preserve the heritage and historic sites of Long Beach, recognizes the contributions of the Long Beach Naval Station and Shipyard to the City of Long Beach, and honors the work of architect Paul Revere Williams. The Association is led by a nine-member board of directors representing four important historic preservation organizations in Long Beach with expertise and knowledge of the field: the Cultural Heritage Commission, Historical Society of Long Beach, Willmore City Heritage and Long Beach Heritage.

About RLA Conservation, Inc.:

RLA Conservation, Inc. specializes in sculpture, mosaics, murals, architectural elements, and three-dimensional contemporary art. Established in Los Angeles, CA in 2008 and in Miami, FL in 2009, the firm is directed by Rosa Lowinger, a 30-year resident of Southern California who is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation and graduate of the M.A. program in conservation at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts. Our team of professionally trained conservators includes Los Angeles Senior Conservator Christina Varvi, a Professional Associate of the AIC and graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation where she received an M.S. in Historic Preservation with a focus on materials conservation. Both Ms. Lowinger and Ms. Varvi have a long history of working with the UAM on such public artworks as Duet by Robert Murray, Homage to Sam Rodia by L.L. Beljon, Kosso Eloul's Hardfact, and Robert Irwin's Window Wall.