Against the backdrop of AI-influenced uncertainty (and headline-exacerbated anxiety) surrounding translation as a career path, one California university is celebrating a multimillion-dollar donation to its translation program.
California State University, Long Beach announced on March 11, 2025, that private equity CEO Mario Giannini had donated USD 10m to the school to begin a Master of Arts degree program in translation and interpreting, slated to open in fall 2026.
This is not Giannini’s first major gift to CSULB, having established in January 2017 The Clorinda Donato Center for Global Romance Languages and Translation Studies, named for its current director, through a gift of USD 1.75m.
The Center, housed in CSULB’s College of Liberal Arts, is a source of both pedagogical research and instruction in Romance languages.
Students can pursue a minor or a graduate certificate in translation studies; a major option in translation is available through collaboration with the Department of Linguistics. The Center has also hosted an internship program in the past and has seen an uptick in requests for internships for students from a range of disciplines, from speech-language therapy and the arts to politics, seeking to work on campus.
Following The Center’s launch, Giannini donated another USD 5.25m in 2022, then the largest gift in the history of CSULB’s College of Liberal Arts. As a write-up of that gift described it, “The Center is unique in the State of California, offering world-class training in translation studies at state university prices.”
Giannini, born in France to Italian-speaking parents, graduated from Cal State Northridge in 1973 with a BA in English and has called the CSU system “a huge influence.” He is now the CEO of private equity firm Hamilton Lane and sits on the firm’s investment committees.
According to Director Clorinda Donato, The Center’s director and a professor of Italian and French, the majority of the funds will go toward creating scholarships for students accepted to the master’s program.
Donato told Slator that CSULB’s first translation and interpreting program was founded in the 1980s by expert legal interpreter Alexander Rainof, but went into retirement with him. CSULB presented a proposal to revive the program to Giannini, who was selected for his background as a CSU alumnus.
Both the existing undergraduate program and the new, two-track MA program being developed aim to train students “in areas such as audiovisual, community, educational, legal, literary, and medical translation and interpreting by providing an applied approach and the integration of advanced AI, large language models (LLMs), and data science into our curriculum,” Donato explained.
She added: “We will proudly offer each year’s cohort of prospective students generous funding to defray the costs of their graduate education.” Annual tuition for undergraduates is USD 18,972 and USD 17,922 for graduate students, not including room and board.