Photo courtesy CSULB
Legendary Long Beach State president Bob Maxson passed away this week at the age of 89, leaving behind an unparallelled impact on the city’s university.
Maxson was president of Cal State Long Beach from 1994 through 2006, 12 years that founded much of the modern identity of the university. He took over a campus community that was wounded and looking for direction after the 1991 shuttering of the 49er football program. Maxson was decades ahead of his time as far as understanding the importance of branding and imaging. He put “The Beach” forward as the name for the school and coined the now-ubiquitous “Go Beach” tag, using it at the end of every single speech and public comment he made.
“Terms that forever changed how people on and beyond campus think and talk about our university,” said interim president Andrew Jones in a statement this week. “Bob’s achievements were many but perhaps most transformative were his efforts to make student success the central strategic goal of our campus. And his belief in our students was reciprocated: Bob was the first CSU president to receive the California State Student Association’s University President of the Year Award, and those wins became so frequent that student leaders eventually retired his name from consideration and renamed their award the Robert C. Maxson President of the Year Award in his honor.”
The campus thrived under Maxson’s tenure, as he developed a reputation among students for his enthusiasm and genuine care for them–often strolling campus and stopping to high-five or talk with them. He also developed a reputation among coaches and faculty for not getting bogged down by CSU red tape, but doing whatever it took to deliver results and support for the campus.
His first appearance in Long Beach after his hiring was at a meeting of the Long Beach Century Club. Past president Dan Gooch developed a close friendship with Maxson, and said his support of the club and sports led the club to issue its first and only honorary membership to Maxson.
“I was greatly impressed with his directness and later on with the fact that you could count on his word being both accurate and sincere,” said Gooch. “He was an individual who put the student first and absolutely loved supporting every team at State. He will not be forgotten.”
Any student who attended the Beach during Maxson’s tenure remembers his enthusiasm and the spark of joy he brought across campus–as well as his uncanny ability to remember students’ names and stories, bringing the “small town” vibe to the big city of Long Beach’s campus.
His creation of the President’s Scholars helped reverse the image of Long Beach State as a safety or backup school to the city’s top high school students. It brought full scholarships (funded privately through donations he secured) to valedictorians and National Merit Scholars, and succeeded where no one before or since has at pulling top LBUSD students to CSULB, instead of Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, or the Ivy Leagues.
He also founded the Disabled Student Services on campus, and won countless awards including an induction into the Long Beach State Hall of Fame.
Maxson was a native of Arkansas and led the University of Houston and UNLV before getting the job in Long Beach.
A university obituary quotes the on-campus Daily Forty-Niner student newspaper upon his retirement, as write David Whisler wrote:
“Many people say that Maxson has done more for this campus than any other California State University president in history. It was hard to find someone who disagreed.”
