Cal State San Bernardino recently advanced to the category of Doctoral University: High Research Activity (R2), raising the university’s status to a “national university” from a “regional university” by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

“This is great and well-deserved news,” said CSUSB President Tomás D. Morales. “The new designation as an R2 reflects the dedication and determination of our faculty, staff and administrators to develop and offer programs and research opportunities to benefit and advance our students as they pursue their educational goals and dreams, and ultimately help them advance in their careers.”

In order to achieve the R2 designation, a university must award at least 20 doctoral degrees as reported to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and have at least $5 million in total research expenditures as reported through the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research & Development Survey (NSF HERD Survey), said Dorota Huizinga, the CSUSB associate provost for research and dean of graduate studies.

“CSUSB met the new classification criteria by awarding 21 doctoral degrees and having over $10.8 million in research expenditures in fiscal year 2019-20,” Huizinga said.

“This advancement is a testimonial to our institutional commitment to, and our students and faculty success in, engaging in research and scholarly, and creative activities, especially in sponsored research,” Huizinga said.

The CSUSB College of Education offers two doctor of education in educational leadership programs, PK-12 Specialization and Community College Specialization. They are framed around questions of equity, ethics and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. The programs are designed to prepare educational leaders with the knowledge base and skills to lead reform efforts that result in improved student outcomes and educational transformation, particularly for the Inland Empire region.

The new designation also elevates CSUSB’s status to a “national university” from a “regional university” in rankings such as U.S. News & World Report, Huizinga said.

Cal State San Bernardino is one of seven CSU campuses to be classified for 2021 in the Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity category. The other campuses are Cal State East Bay, Fresno State, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, San Francisco State and San Diego State.

The Carnegie Classification has been the leading framework for recognizing and describing institutional diversity in higher education across the United States for more than four decades. This framework has been widely used in the study of higher education, both to represent and account for institutional differences, as well as in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students or faculty.