WOMAN’S WORK
Garcia hopes to inspire students as IVC president
IMPERIAL — Female. Check. … Latin-American. Check. … First-generation college graduate. Check.
Imperial Valley College’s new President/Superintendent Martha Garcia is reflective of the majority of her school’s student population.
And if she accomplishes nothing more in her tenure as the college’s top official, she wants students to be able to look her, the first woman and first Latina hired to serve as the college’s top official — not to mention the youngest to serve in that role — and see what is possible with hard work.
“I’m very excited,” the 40-yearold Valley native and Brawley Union graduate said. “I’m still feeling like this is a dream. It’s going to be some time for this to feel like reality.”
The official date for reality to take effect is July 1, when Garcia will move into her new office in IVC’s administration building. She’ll be only the sixth (out of 114) Latina community college president in the state, and she’ll be serving a local student population of approximately 8,200, of which 57 percent are female and nearly 90 percent is Latin-American. Beyond that, 60 percent are first-generation college students.
This is a student population Garcia, an IVC graduate herself, is both proud and eager to serve in her new role. Employed by the college since 1999, she recently has served as the college’s vice president for Student Services and as the acting vice president for Academic Affairs.
“As an alumnus, this is truly meaningful to me because I feel I am making a difference in students’ lives,” Garcia said. “I look forward to continuing to serve the students and the community in this capacity.”
A recently awarded $2.5 million Innovation Grant from the California Community College’s Chancellor’s Office toward IVC’s Embedded Tutor Program should help. The Embedded Tutor Program provides tutors inside the classroom to assist students inside and outside class.
In its grant proposal, the college noted only 28 percent of students in developmental English eventually reach transfer-level English — that is, a course a four-year college or university would accept for admittance. Meanwhile, only about 2 percent of students enrolled in the lowest of four levels of developmental math ever reach the transfer level.
“Unfortunately, many of the students accumulate additional units that delay their progress and burn up their financial aid,” IVC said in its proposal.
However, the college says success rates have improved significantly with the introduction of ETP in 2015. The program started in eight classes and by the fall of 2017 had grown to 61 classes. By and large, classes with embedded tutors had both higher success rates and higher retention rates than the classes without the tutors.
Garcia said the college plans to use the Innovation Grant money to add 25 tutors, bringing the total to 85. Because limited access to technology has proven a barrier to the program’s results, part of the money will also go toward purchasing technology such as iPads for use in the classroom, she said.
Almost from the day she moves into her new office, one of Garcia’s biggest challenges will be to prepare the college to adapt for a new state funding formula. Currently, funding is based on the number of full-time equivalent students, where every 15 credit hours of enrollment equals one student.
As of July, full-time students will account for only 60 percent of the formula for state funding. The other 40 percent will be split between the economic need of the students and a series of performance metrics. These will include measures such as transfer rates, completion rates and, in the case of technical programs, job placement and wages.
The college has two years to transition to the new formula and then five years to implement it fully. While potentially this change could cost the campus money, it could work the other way as well.
“I’m not worried,” Garcia said. “At the end of the day, I expect our teachers and staff will do what’s necessary to contribute to student success.”