California State University--Monterey Bay

Established in 1994, California State University, Monterey Bay is part of the 23-campus California State University system. It has a spectacular setting between a stunning stretch of the Pacific Ocean, coastal mountains and the rich agriculture of the Salinas Valley. CSU Monterey Bay's 1,387-acre campus is on the former Fort Ord U.S. Army base, six miles north of the Monterey Peninsula and 100 miles south of San Francisco. Its growing and diverse enrollment of about 5,000 students is large enough to support a wide range of academic and extracurricular programs but small enough for individualized instruction. The university actively reaches out to serve California's full breadth of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, and more than half of its students are the first in their family to attend college. CSU Monterey Bay is a comprehensive university with 23 undergraduate majors and 9 master's degrees, providing affordable, high-quality education to students from diverse communities and across all socioeconomic levels. Its mission is to build a multicultural learning community and graduate students who are prepared to contribute productively, responsibly, and ethically to the needs of its region, California, and the world. The university is nationally recognized for its emphasis on service learning, as well as for outstanding academic programs such as marine and environmental science, digital film and media production, business administration, kinesiology and computer technology. CSU Monterey Bay also provides extensive opportunities for undergraduate research, and its faculty are widely recognized for their scholarship. The broad curriculum, geared for the 21st century, emphasizes hands-on learning, real-world application, student research and cutting-edge technology to prepare graduates who make the most of their opportunities. As a culminating experience, all students complete a "capstone" project that demonstrates achievement of important learning outcomes. For the past 16 years, CSU Monterey Bay has steadily transformed what was part of Fort Ord, a sprawling and historic U.S. Army base, into a "green" and technologically advanced campus. The state-of-the-art LEED certified library that opened in December 2008, is the center of student life at Cal State Monterey bay. The striking building is interspersed among existing structures that have been upgraded and re-purposed for education. It is also home to the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center and the Student Success Center, among others. An early signatory to the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment, the campus has undertaken a full range of initiatives to work toward its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. These include a free campus shuttle and free access to the regional bus system for students and employees, a 1-megawatt solar energy plant that meets 17 percent of university electricity needs, a food service commitment to organic foods and compostable serving products, and campus-wide recycling that has achieved a 50 percent waste diversion rate. Concepts of sustainability are also incorporated throughout the curriculum. CSUMB is one of the few truly residential campuses in the CSU system: 61 percent of its undergraduate students live on campus in affordable, spacious residence halls and student apartments. Extracurricular opportunities include an array of student organizations and 12 sports in NCAA Division II. Both the women's basketball and men's golf teams won championships in the California Collegiate Athletic Conference in 2011, and the men's golf team won the NCAA Division II National Championship. The university is also home to the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, established to help the nation meet the challenges of the twenty-first century by providing study opportunities in government, politics and public policy.