Cal State gets its first chancellor of color: Fresno State president Joseph I. Castro

Joseph I. Castro, the grandson of farmworkers and a first-generation college student who rose during a career in higher education to lead Cal State Fresno, has been named chancellor of California State University, the largest four-year system in the nation, trustees announced Wednesday.

He will be the first person of color to lead the system, with a life story that will sound familiar to many of the Cal State system’s 480,000 students, 43% of whom are Latino and nearly half of whom come from low-income families.