The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts the Golden Globe Awards, recently presented Cal State Long Beach’s College of the Arts with a donation totalling $105,000.
According to Sandra Cuneo, the grant officer for the HFPA, the donation is specifically for the film and television division of the College of the Arts.
The donation is comprised of three different funding categories: a one-time grant of $40,000, a HFPA Fellowship/Scholarship Endowment of $5,000 and a Higher Educational Fellowships and Institutional Support of $60,000.
College of the Arts Director of Development Arlena Kauppi said in an email that COTA has been receiving money annually from the HFPA since 2005. This year’s donation was much larger than those of the past.
In an article in Inside CSULB, Kauppi said that CSULB and HFPA have a strong relationship.
“They love what our film students do,” Kauppi told Inside CSULB. “Our students write, produce, direct, and shoot fiction films and documentaries… Add to that the diversity all over the CSULB campus, which is especially so in our Film and Electronic Arts Department with students from all over the world.”
The College of the Arts has many prestigious alumni including Academy Award-winning Director Steven Spielberg, Academy Award-winning Sound Editor Karen Baker Landers and Primetime Emmy-nominated Visual Effects Supervisor Ron Simonson.
According to Kauppi, the college relies heavily on outside donations to subsidize its cost of operations.
“The College of The Arts relies for a minimum of 50 percent on outside support for all its departments,” she said.
Kauppi said the department received an an additional one-time grant of $40,000 to provide equipment and software upgrades for the department’s sound mixing suite.
Additionally, the scholarships funds will be used to support around 20 student film productions, including narrative and documentary films being made by film and electronic arts students.
In total, the HFPA gave out over $42.4 million in grants at its August banquet.
CSULB was joined in receiving grants by other CSUs and area universities.