Daniel and Connie Rodriguez giving $125,000 to CSUB

Gift will support Roadrunner Scholarship Fund, Center for Social Justice

By California State University, Bakersfield

September 9^th, 2021

California State University, Bakersfield is receiving a $125,000 gift to support its Roadrunner Scholarship Fund and Center for Social Justice.

Daniel and Connie Rodriguez are providing the gift, which will be distributed over the course of five years. The first $25,000 installment was provided to the university this summer.

“CSUB is in the best position to prepare our future local leaders,” Daniel Rodriguez said. “This gift is just our way of giving back a little to a community that has given so much to us.”

Daniel Rodriguez is the founder and president of the Bakersfield law firm Rodriguez & Associates.

Half of the donation will be given to the Roadrunner Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to student-athletes, and the other half will support the Center for Social Justice and its initiative to tell the stories of those who have experienced social injustice in the region.

“Athletics not only helps build character but also provides entertainment to our community,” Daniel Rodriguez said. “As for the Center for Social Justice, we think that it helps promote fairness and justice in segments of our society that are too often neglected.”

Connie Perez-Andreesen and Joel Andreesen, senior partner at Rodriguez & Associates, personally donated to CSUB earlier this year, which played a major role in Daniel and Connie Rodriguez's decision to donate to the university for the first time.

The Andreesens are providing a $150,000 gift that will be distributed over five years. The donation will also go to the Roadrunner Scholarship Fund and the Center for Social Justice.

“Giving is contagious!” Daniel Rodriguez said. “Seeing how much Joel and Connie do for the community, especially CSUB, spurred us to do our little part.”

Dr. Kenneth “Ziggy” Siegfried, director of Athletics/AVP of Student Affairs at CSUB, said the gift will make a significant difference for student-athletes at the university.

“Daniel and Connie are outstanding ambassadors for our community and our university,” he said. “Their generous gift to the Roadrunner Scholarship Fund will impact the lives of many student-athletes while helping our Athletics Department fulfill its mission of developing champions for life through a commitment to academic excellence, an outstanding student-athlete experience, competitive success and community engagement. We thank Daniel and Connie for their tremendous support and for providing our student-athletes the opportunity to achieve their dreams and aspirations.”

The Center for Social Justice at CSUB addresses issues tied to social justice through stories, documentaries and other programming. Dr. Mark Martinez, professor and chair of the Political Science Department, said the gift will help the center continue to create content.

“All of us at the Center for Social Justice are ecstatic about the gift from Daniel and Connie Rodriguez,” he said. “We’re in the process of writing additional stories about ongoing human rights abuses of detained migrants at Mesa Verde (ICE Processing Facility). We need to hire more students to help write these pieces. The gift from Daniel and Connie Rodriguez will help us here.”

Martinez said the donation will also help the team finish its next documentary more quickly. The film is a follow-up to the center’s award-winning 2017 Hollywood documentary “American Migrant Stories.”

“Our next documentary explains why the United States goes through regular cycles of racial tension and confrontation by focusing on America’s botched post-Civil War era,” he said. “We then look at the stories of Asians, Latinos and Blacks in America to help explain how America’s inability to come to terms with its past negatively impacts America’s broader message around the world today. The gift from Daniel and Connie Rodriguez will help us tell this story and the broader story of America’s broader struggle for social justice in the 21st century.”