Dr. William Franklin

Dr. William Franklin holds a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education with an emphasis in Child and Adolescent Development from Stanford University. Dr. Franklin currently serves as the Vice President for Student Affairs at California State University, Dominguez Hills and is the former Associate Vice President of Student Success and Director of the Educational Opportunity Program and TRIO Programs. While at CSU Dominguez Hills, Dr. Franklin has been instrumental in securing close to $25 million dollars in federal, corporate, and private grants to design and implement student success initiatives for low-income, first-generation students of color. He served as an Associate Professor in Child and Family Studies at California State University, Los Angeles and he served as an Associate Professor of Human Development in the Center of Collaborative Education and Professional Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay. Dr. Franklin was honored in 2015 with The Wang Family Excellence Award. The award recognizes four outstanding faculty members and one outstanding administrator who, through extraordinary commitment and dedication, have distinguished themselves by exemplary contributions and achievements. Dr. Franklin was awarded the Outstanding Administrator out of the 23 campuses in the CSU. He was also the recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health Family Research Consortium III Post-Doctoral Fellowship and he served as a Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Franklin’s research focuses on risk and resilience in young African-American and Latino adolescents. He specifically examines individual variations in response to risk factors and the antecedents and correlates of healthy outcomes in individuals whose "lifespace" in low-income, urban environments pose heightened risks. For his work in this area, he was the recipient of the Spencer Dissertation Fellowship.

Dr. Franklin received his B.A. in Psychology and Masters in Educational Psychology from CSU Northridge. His teaching interests include adolescent development, child development, African-American family, early childhood themes and life cycle issues, African-American and Latino males, adolescent risk and resilience, at-risk youth, juvenile justice, and positive youth development. Dr. Franklin is the founder of one of the most successful young males of color initiatives in the nation, called the Male Success Alliance. He is also the co-Principal Investigator for the 23-campus, systemwide initiative called the California State University Young Males of Color Consortium.