Real Estate & Land Use Institute (RELUI)
Melanie Stallings Williams steps down as Executive Director of the Real Estate and Land Use Institute
Professor Melanie Stallings Williams (CSU Northridge) will step down from her position as Executive Director of the CSU Real Estate and Land Use Institute effective July 1, 2026.
Created in 1974, the Real Estate and Land Use Institute (RELUI) is a partnership between California State University and California’s Department of Real Estate. This collaborative effort brings industry leaders, government regulators, and faculty together to promote education and professionalism in the industry and to support students pursuing real estate careers. The institute administers California’s Real Estate Education Endowment, which funds program improvements and scholarships.
Since becoming the institute’s executive director in 2020, Professor Williams supervised awards of more than $300,000 in student scholarships and more than $200,000 in program improvement grants. These awards have a profound effect on real estate education in California. One student wrote that after losing his family and growing up in foster care, the scholarship allowed this first-generation student to continue to pursue his degree in real estate development with the goal of helping low-income clients achieve home ownership. There are many, many more such stories of students who have overcome personal challenges to complete their educations with the institute’s support.
The campus program improvement grants have likewise provided vital support by making possible activities for which there would otherwise be insufficient funds, for example Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s real estate career development student competition, Cal Poly Pomona’s Argus real estate software training for students, CSU Fullerton’s market forecast and networking real estate forum, and CSU Northridge’s student case competitions at professional conferences. Dozens of academic research papers were published with the institute’s support, furthering the knowledge needed for progress in the field.
Importantly, and with support from the Department of Real Estate, Professor Williams advocated for modifications to California law that would ensure the implementation of educational requirements designed to reduce bias and unlawful discrimination in the industry while allowing existing courses to meet those educational needs. In this way, students could complete coursework that satisfied licensing requirements in their existing programs without adding to their time to graduation (or, worse yet, require them to return for additional course work after graduation). Professor Williams created course materials that met the new legislative requirements and provided them to California’s public university and college students at no cost.
No one builds anything without help. Professor Williams is particularly grateful for support from Department of Real Estate Assistant Commissioner Jeff Oboyski, Licensing Managers Eileen Brewster and Patrick Dunne-Phillips; CSU Foundation’s CFO Aaron Moore and Administrative Coordinator Kim Shibata; CSU Northridge’s Executive Assistant Ken Rappe, Professor & Chair Kurt Saunders, and Dean Chandra Subramaniam; her successor Professor Nuriddin Ikromov (CSU Sacramento); and the Advisory Committee’s membership over the years.