Dozens of Long Beach State alumni and faculty convened on the Brotman Hall South Lawn Tuesday evening to celebrate the grand opening of the Anna W. Ngai Alumni Center.
A reception was held across the street from the alumni center where CEO of the 49er Foundation Jeffrey D. Cook and CSULB President Jane Close Conoley greeted attendants with speeches commemorating the opening of the center.
“Let us celebrate this new heart of The Beach community,” Cook said.
The alumni center, which will function as a space for alumni and members of the CSULB campus community to connect and rent out for gatherings, broke ground in September 2019, replacing the Soroptimist House, one of the first student union buildings on campus. Construction for the $11.5 million building finished in April of this year.
The center consists of multiple meeting rooms and an outdoor patio area. Decorations inside are relics of CSULB history donated by alumni. Sports equipment, university clothing and art are examples of the items on display.
After the reception, attendants walked across the street for the ribbon cutting ceremony, where Conoley was joined by Anna W. Ngai, the CSULB alumna the building was named after, for a ribbon cutting followed by an open house of the center.
The crowd then gathered inside the Alpert Family Room where Conoley and Ngai held a “fireside chat,” in front of the fireplace. Ngai regaled the audience with stories of how she grew up in China and Hong Kong, and how she made her way to California, eventually becoming a CSULB graduate.
Attendants were given free copies of “Two Bottles of Soy Sauce, a Blanket & an Impossible Dream,” Ngai’s 60-page book that touches on her first 25 years of life with photographs. Besides helping edit the book, Conoley also wrote the book’s foreword.
“There are many important lessons to be learned from Anna’s trek from China to Hong Kong to California. Enjoy the trip,” she wrote.
Raina Starkel, a CSULB alum at the ceremony, said they loved their time at the university, describing how much they enjoyed watching Misty May-Traynor play for the women’s volleyball team.
“Her and her partner went to three straight Olympics where they won the gold medal each time,” they said. “They were like the best ever in women’s volleyball.”
