California State Student Association

History

The California State University System, formally established in 1960 by the Donahoe Higher Education Act. It is the nation’s largest university system, with 23 campuses and seven off-campus centers, more than 400,000 students and 42,000 faculty and staff. The CSU is one of three public higher education systems in the state of California (the others are the University of California and the California Community College System). Since 1961 more than 2 million alumni have received a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral (Ph.D. and Ed.D) degrees from the university system.

In 1958, three years before the formation of the CSU system, a group of Associated Student Body presidents founded the "Student Presidents Association." This group initially served mostly as an informational forum for the campus student associations, but the fact that a well-organized statewide student association was firmly established when the CSU was founded ensured that the students had a place in the CSU's internal policymaking from the beginning. The Student Presidents Association was formally recognized by the Trustees in 1963. By 1974, the student leaders were articulate, intelligent, and politically astute. The student leaders of this era were quite successful both in the legislature and within the system, and are responsible for much of the foundation of student leadership that still exists. By 1979 CSSA had become extraordinarily active, and many student body presidents were finding it difficult to fulfill both their campus and CSSA responsibilities and thus began appointing CSSA representatives (a few campuses had already started electing separate representatives). The Association decided to recognize this reality by re-naming itself the California State Student Association in 1979.