CSU Selects New SDSU President

SAN DIEGO, CA – The California State University Board of Trustees has chosen a new president for San Diego State University.

Adela de la Torre has been appointed president of SDSU, becoming the first woman to serve in the role. She currently serves as vice chancellor, student affairs and campus diversity at the University of California, Davis.

"Adela is a skilled, student-success focused administrator, and most importantly is a visionary leader," Adam Day, the chair of the SDSU search committee and the vice chair of the CSU Board of Trustees, said in a statement. "She emerged from a deep pool of candidates as the perfect person to lead the university."

De la Torre will succeed Elliot Hirshman as the ninth permanent president of SDSU. Longtime SDSU executive Sally Roush has served as interim president since Hirshman left the campus to become president of Stevenson University in Maryland.

De la Torre will start in late June 2018.

"SDSU boasts a robust and dynamic variety of academic offerings taught by world-class faculty as well as a commitment to serve a brilliant and diverse population of students. It is an incredibly prestigious university and a wonderful point of pride for San Diego," de la Torre said in a statement.

"I am excited to join the vibrant university community that exists both in San Diego and the Imperial Valley, and I look forward to meeting and working with faculty, staff, students, alumni and supporters to further the SDSU mission."

In addition to various leadership roles at UC Davis, de la Torre has served as director of the Mexican American Studies and Research Center at the University of Arizona. She has also served in the management fellows program at the CSU Office of the Chancellor, chair of the Chicano/Latino studies department at Long Beach State University, and as a professor of health care administration at LBSU.

She holds a bachelor's degree in political economy of natural resources and a master's and Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Image via SDSU