 Our next speaker is Dr. as Chancellor Joseph Castro who has recently become the Chancellor of Cal State University System and who is the first Hispanic to be in that role. And so I'm very pleased to have him join us today. Dr. Castro, take it away. Thank you very much, Lydia. Good afternoon to everybody. And Cynthia, I was listening to you talk about your weather there. I feel for you. It's a little bit warmer here in California, thankfully, but it's so nice to follow you. I really enjoyed your comments and I appreciate this opportunity to share a few comments with you all today. As Lydia said, I'm the first Latino but also the first Californian to be the Chancellor of the California State University. So I'm especially humbled to be in this position. This is the beginning of my second year and a great honor to participate in this critically important workshop alongside so many visionaries and distinguished leaders from the business community, from literature, film and music, and of course my esteemed co-panelists from higher education. And we know that correcting longstanding disparities and educational career and leadership opportunities in STEM will take much more than just one or two well-conceived initiatives or programs. I believe that this is a battle that must be fought and won on multiple fronts. And Lydia, as the co-founder of SOCNUS, I just want to say thank you for your leadership there. That's been such an important organization in this space that I've had a chance to work with over the years. And I'm just thrilled at the potential to expand our collaboration today and moving forward. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the California State University, we are the nation's largest, most diverse. And I would say in my opinion, my humble opinion, the most consequential four-year university serving almost half a million students across 23 campuses from Humboldt State in the North to San Diego State in the South, almost 800 miles of beautiful California geography. I'm especially proud to serve as chancellor because almost two thirds of our students are students of color. Half of them are eligible for Pell Grants and almost one third are the first as I was in my family to attend college. And last spring, we celebrated our largest graduating class ever, almost 133,000 strong. And that adds to our growing network of more than four million alumni around the globe. And nearly half of California's bachelor's degrees are awarded by the CSU. And one in 10 employees in California is a CSU graduate and one in 20 college graduates nationwide earned their degree from the CSU. And we have a equally significant impact in the STEM fields. In 2020, we awarded almost 22,000 STEM baccalaureate degrees, more than a third of which were earned by students from historically underrepresented communities. And many of the nation's leading STEM employers rely on Cal State graduates to strengthen, enrich, and diversify their educated workforces. More than 1,000 CSU alumni, for example, work at Oracle and 3,000 plus work at Cisco and Google and Intel and 5,000 work at Northrop Grumman and Apple. Those are just a few examples. And I share these figures to illustrate not only the scale of our efforts but also the great responsibility and the potential that we hold in creating the workforce of the future. One that accurately and equitably represents our country's changing population, taking full advantage of the diverse talents, perspectives, and skills of all communities. And one that elevates the lives of students of all backgrounds, races, ethnicities, abilities, and identities. Students like a young man that I know, Luis Dominguez. I'd like to share a little bit about Luis. Today, Luis is a systems integration and test engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A child of immigrants who was raised in the area of South Los Angeles. He always had a passion for science and a fascination with space. But he never considered a career in the field a realistic goal. And in fact, as a high schooler, he had no idea that JPL even existed despite growing up less than 20 miles away. It wasn't until he was enrolled in the CSU at Cal Poly Pomona that he first learned about JPL. He applied for and was accepted into an internship program and he's worked there ever since. Luis and his team were responsible for testing and installing the electronics and software systems for perseverance. The rover that is the centerpiece of the long-term robotic Mars exploration mission currently underway more than 180 million miles above the Earth's surface. And today he takes his role of inspiring future generations of diverse scientists, engineers, and mathematicians as seriously as he does his work. And it's his reason why that resonates with me. And I wanna quote Luis. It's because I 100% believe that genius is everywhere. Genius is everywhere. In my opinion, that's why all of us are here and that's why it is imperative that we continue to work tirelessly together to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion as we develop our states and nations future leaders in the STEM fields and in every discipline. With my remaining time and before we engage in Q&A, I wanted to highlight a few of the specific ways that the CSUs engaged in this critical work. Perhaps most significant is the CSU's flagship student success effort, graduation initiative 2025, launched in 2016, this system initiative aims to help more students graduate on a timely basis and to eliminate equity gaps that exist in the graduation rates between students of color, low income students, and first generation students and their peers. It's focused on meeting students where they are, removing administrative barriers, helping them meet their basic needs, providing proactive advising exactly when and where they need support, and importantly sharing real time data and best practices across our 23 campuses, leveraging the power of the system to spur continuous improvement. Now at the midpoint, our efforts have been rewarded with a record high graduation rate for all students from all backgrounds. And in fact, in 2021, approximately 25,000 more students earned Cal State bachelor's degrees than before our graduation initiative 2025 was launched. And that is an increase equivalent to one of our larger campuses in our system. But even as we celebrate our victories, we know much work remains while student success measures have improved for students from all walks of life, equity gaps remain. So we've redoubled our efforts to eliminate them with an equity action plan that targets resources and scales campus proven programs system wide. And we will not rest until equity gaps are closed once and for all. Our commitment to shared governance also creates valuable spaces for our diverse students to develop as leaders at the campus level and through our system wide Cal State Student Association. Our CSSA gives student leaders a vital voice in some of the most critical education policy issues impacting California. And I consult regularly with that leadership. They are active participants in our decision making on issues ranging from campus policing to financial aid reform, standardized testing and our pandemic response. Issues impacting millions of current and future students. And the training ground for our students extends across the nation. Located on the campus of CSU Monterey Bay, our Sylvia and Leon Panetta Institute inspires diverse and talented students from across the CSU to lives of leadership and public service at the highest levels. And each fall, the Panetta Institute hosts a congressional internship program, a semester long public service experience that includes two weeks of leadership classes followed by an 11 week internship program with the US House of Representatives in offices of both Republican and Democratic members. And through the Institute's education for leadership in public service seminar, our students have the opportunity to engage with nationally renowned speakers who share insights on leadership across sectors ranging from business, education, the media and local state and national government. And with regard specifically to developing diverse leadership in the STEM fields, public and private partnerships provide invaluable internships and experiential learning opportunities for Cal State students across our 23 campuses. One example is the American Rescue Plan recently awarded Cal State Long Beach a $10 million grant to recruit, train and place more than 700 students of color as public health workers. And the grant includes funding for paid internships and job placement with anticipated support from more than 26 public health agencies, hospitals and community-based organizations. Humboldt State University's CERM bridges program has once again been awarded a generous grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. And that program supports students from diverse backgrounds committed to improving human health through stem cell research and gene therapy. And then in October, San Jose State welcomed its first cohort of biology and computer science students to participate in a bioinformatics internship program with NASA. And that was developed by two San Jose faculty members and that program includes a five-day boot camp preparing students to join NASA's gene lab project. At Chico State, our data showed that students of color were disproportionately affected by low pass rates in some of the university's large introductory STEM courses, leading many to leave the STEM fields altogether. But thanks to a $2.2 million grant from this workshops, generous financial supporter, the National Science Foundation, these courses now incorporate hands-on research experiences to help our students build connections with peers and faculty, hone their skills and begin to identify as scientists. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention the CSUs, New Global Hispanic Serving Equity Innovation Hub located on our Northridge campus. Funded through a unique public-private partnership with the state of California and Apple, the Innovation Hub will work to transform Hispanic serving institutions, not only through the CSU, but across the nation by equipping Latino and Latina and other historically underserved students with the skills necessary for high-demand STEM careers. The hub will work in collaboration with other CSU campuses and Hispanic serving institutions across the nation to accelerate educational equity while ensuring students have the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. These are just a few of the programs that exist on each of our 23 campuses and that underscore our commitment to inspiring, preparing and empowering our states and nations, diverse leaders of tomorrow in STEM or any field of their choosing. And this is more than an institutional commitment, it's a personal commitment for me, raised by my grandparents who are farm workers and by my hard-working single mother. I was the first in my family to go to college attending the University of California Berkeley as part of the EOP program. And I would not be here without support from that program and so many others. And I just thank you for the opportunity to be here with so many other incredible leaders. And I look forward to our Q&A and the opportunity for more dialogue. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was very useful to hear about all of those programs and the institution Cal State really allows a test of scalability as well. So that was, that's great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.