President, Cal State Los Angeles

Since becoming the seventh president of Cal State – Los Angeles in 2013, Covino has overseen a raft of changes. He led the El Sereno campus through a switch from a quarter calendar to a semester system and spearheaded the campaign for a bioscience incubator that opened two years ago. He also launched two major initiatives: one focused on community service and the other on training civic leaders. All this while steering the university’s 27,000 students and 1,700 faculty through pandemic-related challenges. Previously, Covino held administrative posts at three Cal State campuses in Fresno, Stanislaus and San Diego, as well as Florida Atlantic University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

YEARS ON THE LA500: 5