Cal State San Bernardino deputy provost Clare Weber has been elected to a second term on the board of directors for the Community Coalition (CoCo), which serves to build a community institution to help transform the social and economic conditions in South Los Angeles.

Weber currently serves as chair of the Community Coalition’s policy committee.  

“CoCo is a fantastic organization, and it is an honor to be a part of it,” Weber said. “Our roots are in South Los Angeles, but our policy work has positively impacted Black and Brown communities throughout the state.”

The Community Coalition was founded by now-U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) to organize Black and Brown communities in South Los Angeles. Now 30 years old, the organization got its start to address the community impact of the crack cocaine epidemic.

Some notable coalition accomplishments include the reduction of liquor stores in South Los Angeles and passage of state legislation known as the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (Kin-GAP) and foster care. Kin-GAP gives relative caregivers the same funding as basic foster-care families.

In education, prior to 2012 the Los Angeles Unified School District did not require all high schools to offer the A-G requirements for admission to the California State University and University of California systems, which put many Black and Latinx students at a disadvantage. Working with the coalition, the LAUSD now ensures that all schools offer A-G courses. The coalition also ensured that the local control funding formula was equitable for schools in South Los Angeles.

More recent efforts include holding the Los Angeles Police Department accountable for the violent and unfair treatment of Black and Brown residents, fighting for the People’s Budget for the city of Los Angeles, a youth empowerment project, and freedom schools.

Weber joined CSUSB in August 2017 and is deputy provost and vice provost for academic programs and the university’s accreditation liaison officer.

Prior to CSUSB, Weber served as the associate vice president for faculty affairs and development at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where she was responsible for a number of academically related programs, personnel services for faculty, and faculty development. She also led the CSUDH WASC Steering Committee, where she developed processes for campus input into the criteria for review and self-study report.

She also served as department chair of sociology, program coordinator of Women’s Studies, vice president of the Dominguez Hills chapter of the California Faculty Association, and chair of the Academic Senate Faculty Policy Committee.

Prior to joining academia, Weber was a human rights investigator in Central America during the civil wars of the 1980s, and a regional coordinator for the international human rights organization Witness for Peace. She also coordinated a campaign to legalize street vending in Los Angeles. She has consulted with nonprofit organizations on program evaluation and strategic planning both locally and internationally.

Weber earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in social science, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from California State University, Los Angeles, and a bachelor of arts degree in sociology and Spanish from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.

The mission of the Community Coalition is to help transform the social and economic conditions in South LA that foster addiction, crime, violence and poverty by building a community institution that involves thousands in creating, influencing and changing public policy, according to its website.

Visit the Community Coalition website for more information.