The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees has appointed Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes to serve as president of California State University, Los Angeles. Eanes currently serves as president of York College, City University of New York.
“I am honored to join this outstanding university and its vibrant and diverse campus community,” Eanes said. “I look forward to engaging and collaborating with Cal State LA’s talented students, staff and faculty to continue the institution’s journey to new heights in student success, research, scholarship and creative activity, and community engagement.”
Eanes will become the university’s first woman president. She succeeds Interim President Leroy M. Morishita, who has served in the role since the retirement of President Emeritus William A. Covino at the end of July 2023. Eanes will be Cal State LA’s ninth president.
“A champion of diversity, equity and inclusion, Dr. Eanes is the ideal person to lead Cal State LA and continue to drive its powerful engine of social mobility,” said CSU Trustee Jack B. Clarke, Jr., chair of the Cal State LA Presidential Search Committee. “Her leadership experience and stalwart commitment to student success will serve the university and its diverse community well.”
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Eanes has served as president of York College since 2020 following a one-year interim appointment, where she provides strategic leadership and council to approximately 1,100 faculty, staff and administrators, while overseeing a $91M budget, including endowments, fundraising and centrally administered resources. Eanes has also served as a professor in the Department of Social Work since 2019.
Her appointment as president of Cal State LA marks a return to the CSU for Eanes, who previously served as vice president for Student Affairs at California State University, Fullerton (2012 to 2019), where she delivered leadership and oversight for myriad student success programs, as well as new campus infrastructure and the university’s strategic plan. In 2018, Eanes received the CSU’s Wang Family Excellence Award for achieving transformative results in her role as a member of the CSUF president’s cabinet and as vice president.
Eanes is an acclaimed scholar widely published in the field of social work and has served as a faculty member or administrator at various institutions, including Columbia University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Morehouse College, Georgia State University, Clark Atlanta University, Hamilton College and Teach for Africa, Ethiopia.
Eanes earned a bachelor’s degree in public health from Dillard University, a master’s in social work from Boston University and her doctorate in social work from Clark Atlanta University.
Eanes will assume the university presidency on January 8, 2024.
