SACRAMENTO, Calif — Sacramento State University's ninth president, J. Luke Wood, started his first official day in his new role Monday.
Wood says one of the most important things he can tackle as a university president is student success and that includes factors both inside and outside the classroom.
"As a student here, I struggled with food insecurity and housing insecurity, so I want to make sure that all of our students have the ability to know that they have a meal that's coming and they know where they're going to lay their head at night. That's important for me personally, but I think it's also important for student success," said Wood.
Who is J. Luke Wood?
Wood earned his bachelor’s degree in Black History and Politics from Sacramento State University in 2005. He went on to receive a master’s degree in Higher Education Leadership there as well.
“It’s about investing back in the community that invested in me,” said Wood. “I know what Sac State is capable of doing. I was a Black male, former foster child, first-generation college student who struggled with food insecurity and housing insecurity and was able to graduate because of the incredible people and systems of support that were in place. If Sac State can do that for me, it can do that for anyone."
The 41-year-old comes to Sacramento State from San Diego State University where he was the vice president of Student Affairs and Campus Diversity as well as chief diversity officer.
Wood grew up in McCloud, a town in Siskiyou County. His appointment comes after Robert S. Nelsen announced his retirement in November.
“President Nelsen has done an incredible job in increasing graduation rates and creating a sense of community at Sac State,” Wood said. “So, it’s really about furthering the good work that’s been done around student success, diversity and inclusion, and seeing how we can further continue those trajectories to continue to be even better every day.”
Wood shared with ABC10 what it means to him to be in this position.
"It's meaningful to me because as a student, I never saw very many leaders on campus in any real positions that were from our community, the black community and so I hope that when a student comes in here who's from our community, that it's a signal to them that they can do it, they can achieve, they can succeed and they can become leaders," he said.
The President of the Sacramento State Black Alumni Chapter, Khalil Ferguson, said he's looking forward to this next era for the University.
"We've been doing a lot of work over the past year since I was a student during undergrad and focusing on black student retention," said Ferguson. "To have him here as a president at a time where we're coming off the great work that President Nelsen has done, to build on top of that and really support our students, our black students, our sports programs, just overall educational programs. We're really looking forward to seeing the energy he brings to this campus."
This year, Wood was appointed by the State Senate to serve on the recently established California Racial Equity Commission. The group will work to prioritize racial equity in our state.