Weaving Futures Together

An artful investiture signifies a new era

By Victoria Cisneros (’19, ’21)

Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval asked a group of printmaking students, including Bobby Brown (pictured) to create original artwork that would become mementos for his investiture. Brown thought about the children at Williams Elementary where he works and developed a piece that shows kids drawing their dreams with magic chalk.

With deep roots in the Valley and a life mission to uplift the region and beyond through higher education, Dr. Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval emphasized his presidency as a communal tapestry in which “every thread matters” during his official investiture as the university’s ninth president.

Fresno State hosted the investiture on Sept. 9 at the Save Mart Center, with hundreds of alumni, friends, students, faculty, staff and other CSU dignitaries in attendance. According to tradition, an investiture is defined as the “formal ceremony of conferring the authority and symbols of high office.” It is held during the new president’s first year in office, or at the conclusion of the first year.

During the ceremony, Interim California State University Chancellor Joelene Koester presented Jiménez-Sandoval with his presidential medallion. The medallion, which is unique to each university president, was developed and designed by art students José López Rodriguez and Tarynn Abrahamson-Tvo to ultimately reflect the hard work, dedication and innovation that define our flourishing Central Valley.

Jiménez-Sandoval came to the Central Valley from Mexico when he was 10 years old, and helped on his family’s farm. His commitment to the region and higher education form part of his mission to promote the region’s economic and cultural ascendancy. He first joined Fresno State as a faculty member in 2000. Over two decades of service, he has served as a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, coordinator of the Spanish master of arts degree, chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, and provost and vice president for academic affairs.

“President Jiménez-Sandoval’s deep and longstanding connection to Fresno State and the Central Valley community it serves is surpassed only by his unwavering commitment to the University’s talented, diverse and driven students,” Koester says.

Engraved in History

In spring 2022, Jiménez-Sandoval charged a group of printmaking students, including Tarynn Abrahamson-Tvo and second-year graduate student Bobby Brown, to create original artwork that would become mementos for his investiture.

“I wanted the community to become aware of the great artists, the great creativity that our students represent,” Jiménez-Sandoval says. “I felt that it was important to showcase the most important reason why the University exists … so that students can become the best versions of themselves in this process of education. And all of the designs collectively represent the
power of education.”

With the direction from the president to create a piece that embodied the Valley’s vibrant histories of people coming together and the power of Fresno State to advance our region, Brown recalled the children at Williams Elementary in Fresno, where he works as a noontime assistant. He thought of the power of art to unite us as one and the promise of a fruitful future nourished by our collective hopes
and dreams.

“I got stuck on ‘come together’ and I thought about the children at my school and how it was for me growing up and how things just work together when you’re doing artwork,” he says. “It was showing kids drawing their dreams, and they’re drawing with magic chalk. And I did the tree upside down so their dreams are filling [it in] and the tree is growing.”

For Jiménez-Sandoval, seeing students infuse their own experiences and perspectives into their work while at the same time acknowledging the power of the past has reaffirmed his vision for the future and the pivotal role that Fresno State plays in advancing the region, state and world.

“What I saw in the students producing these works was a consciousness of history, a consciousness of how it is that we have woven together this tapestry of each other and how we are fully present in the moment and all of its potential for what the future holds,” Jiménez-Sandoval says. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the fact that it’s the student work that’s the core of the symbols of the presidency that I’m embarking on.”

For Brown, this opportunity has taught him more about both himself and his place as a Bulldog. Like all Fresno State students, his experience is one of the many individual threads that create the entire image of the university.

“I didn’t think I did anything here that would engrave me into Fresno State — that makes me part of it,” Brown says. “But I now know that I’m part of the history of this school forever.”

— Victoria Cisneros (’19, ’21) is a marketing strategist in University Brand Strategy and Marketing at Fresno State.