If Veronica Garcia is hired as the next chancellor for Pima Community College, it would be a homecoming.
Garcia, one of two finalists for the chancellorship, grew up in Tucson. She attended Sunnyside High School and is a graduate of PCC.
“We are the first choice and sometimes we’re the last choice for people,” Garcia told a crowd of PCC employees, students and Tucson residents as she answered questions Monday night as a part of the chancellorship search. “But what we do every day makes a difference. What we do touches lives.”
A chancellor is the chief executive officer of a community college system, and generally sets direction for the academic, fiscal and administrative programs on campus.
After graduating from Sunnyside, Garcia landed a job and didn’t think about attending college. She told the PCC crowd she “wanted to do what everyone else does” like get married, have kids and buy a house.
“It never occurred to me to go through the higher education career track,” she said.
It wasn’t until Garcia met two counselors who used to work at the community college’s downtown campus that she was sold on the idea of attending a higher education institution. And then, it seems, she was hooked.
After PCC, Garcia went on to attend the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and Oregon State University, where she earned a Ph.D. in higher education. Now, she serves as president of Northeast Lakeview College in Texas.
Under her leadership, the college achieved accreditation, the ability to award federal financial aid and veterans’ benefits, and designation as an Hispanic-serving institution.
“This amazing career that I’ve had (is) because of the experiences of Pima Community College,” Garcia said. “Not only do you have a long heritage, but we also have a history of excellence.”
Currently, Dolores Duran-Cerda serves as interim chancellor at PCC. The community college’s former chancellor, Lee Lambert, left last August to become chancellor of Foothill De Anza Community College district in California. His annual salary while helming PCC was $348,935.
The other candidate for chancellor is Jeffrey Nasse, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and college operations at Broward College in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Highlights of Garcia’s time at Northeast Lakeview College, she said, are because of the relationships she’s built across the San Antonio region.
She worked with community leaders to establish bus routes for students across the San Antonio area and established childcare for students and impoverished residents through Bezos Academy.
The funding, provided by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ academy program, created a Montessori-inspired preschool and supplied faculty and tuition for 80 families under the poverty level. Garcia and her team, she said, worked with Bezos’ team to negotiate special priority spots for Northeast Lakeview College students.
“We know that the difference between coming out of poverty is living wage, so for me getting those 80 families onto my college campus and getting those little preschool kids to see what it’s like to be on a college campus really helped make those connections,” she said.
Garcia also spoke about working with local and state politicians to raise money for a new $7.7 million veterans center. The building, which will be constructed in just a few months, will be 10,000 square feet and will help serve the influx of veterans she worked to recruit.
She also spoke to working collaboratively with faculty, staff and students by hosting hundreds of town hall meetings and presentations to share details of various policy plans, as well.
“It’s so important that we have town halls with our faculty and staff to explain the ‘why’ and that we present plans to the community,” she said.
Communication, she added, was not just top-down. It should be a collaborative process.
“We want to make sure that our faculty and our staff have everything they need so that they can be successful not only in the classroom, but that our students can represent us and our system well,” she said. “And so having that feedback loop with faculty and with students is critical because then it gives information back to (us).”
Her town halls and communication style, Garcia said, show her leadership style.
“It has always been my philosophy to be a servant leader,” she said. “That’s my role, is to serve you as a community, to serve you as a leader, to be that role model, and to ensure that we have the resources that we need to continue to make Tucson a thriving city.”
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