From left: Joe Baca Jr., Fifth District San Bernardino County supervisor; state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, 23rd District; Ellen Weisser ’68, donor; Lesley Leighton, music department chair; Trisha Owens, CSUSB music student; Terry Donovan Smith, theatre arts department chair; Rueyling Chuang, dean, CSUSB College of Arts & Letters; Tomás D. Morales, CSUSB president; Rafik Mohamed, interim provost and vice president, Academic Affairs; Samuel Sudhakar, CIO and vice president, Information Technology Services; William “Bill” Stevenson ’84, chair, CSUSB Philanthropic Foundation; Robert Nava, vice president, University Advancement, and executive director, CSUSB Philanthropic Foundation; and Stan Weisser, donor.
CSUSB breaks ground on new Performing Arts Center
The record-breaking heatwave may have moved the Cal State San Bernardino Performing Arts Center groundbreaking ceremony indoors, but that didn’t stop the event from being a lively and significant moment for the CSUSB community.
The Sept. 7 event brought nearly 300 CSUSB administrators, faculty, staff, students and community members together in the Santos Manuel Student Union South to officially break ground for the new 73,337-square-foot Performing Arts Center.
The center, which will be located south of the existing Performing Arts Building, will offer a 500-seat theater and music instruction space. The $126,907,000 construction project is scheduled to open during the 2024-25 academic year.
“Providing our students with 21st century resources means that they require access to state-of-the-art facilities. Therefore, our campus needs both to refresh and build new over time,” said CSUSB President Tomás D. Morales during the event. “I know that you agree with me that our students deserve the very best. They have that already with their faculty – now we need to ensure that they have it in their learning spaces.”
Morales also thanked Stan and Ellen Weisser ’68, longtime supporters of CSUSB whose generous and invaluable gift was the seed donation for the new Performing Arts Center. Their gift led the university to name the center’s foyer the Ellen and Stan Weisser Performing Arts Foyer.
The center will provide modern teaching, rehearsal and performance spaces necessary for a dynamic performing arts program. At completion, the new 500-seat performing arts theater will be the only one of its size and quality in the Inland Empire, and will allow more of the area’s community to experience the highly acclaimed productions from CSUSB student-performers and student-musicians. The building will also create a new “front door” to the campus that shows a modern and forward-looking face to visitors and the larger community.
“Once its doors open, we will be able to provide invaluable learning experiences for our students and further bridge the connection between our campus and local communities,” said Morales. “Because this groundbreaking is for a groundbreaker of a project for the IE.”
Watch a tribute video to
Ellen and Stan Weisser
