CSULB receives $16.4 million for music scholarships
In what officials are calling the largest gift ever to Cal State Long Beach, the Bob Cole Trust has donated $16.4 million to the university for full-tuition music scholarships.
In recognition of the donation, to be announced today, the university plans to ask to rename its department of music the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music when the Cal State University system board of trustees meets Tuesday in Long Beach.
“This gift allows us to compete with the best conservatories of music in the United States while at the same time helping educate students from our area in a very public fashion,” university President F. King Alexander said Thursday. “It’s good not only for our university but for Southern California.”
Cole, who died in 2004, was a Long Beach real estate entrepreneur for more than 35 years and the founder of Bob Cole Realty. He was also an amateur pianist.
The donation will provide selected students with full tuition for four years, Alexander said. It may also fund touring opportunities for students and visits to the university by outside artists.
“This is clearly going to be a transformative gift for the program,” Donald Para, dean of the College of the Arts, said Thursday.
The projected conservatory will continue the music department’s offerings of degrees in performance, education, history, and composition and theory.
John Carnahan, chairman of the department for the last eight years, has been named director of the conservatory, effective immediately.
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