A chat with the new MPC superintendent/president
Although only three months into his new role as Monterey Peninsula College's 12th superintendent/ president, Marshall T. Fulbright III has jumped headfirst into his new responsibilities.
Fulbright was chosen for the role from a national pool of candidates. He has over 24 years of education experience, encompassing everything from teaching music to elementary and high school students to overseeing more than 600 faculty members as vice president of academic affairs at Grossmont College in El Cajon.
Fulbright's doctoral research focused on diversifying community college faculty by implementing unconscious bias awareness training for hiring committees. His dedication to equity and inclusion is obvious the moment you step into his office, from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg figurine nestled among his Star Wars action figures to the rubber ball and glass sphere sitting on his desk — reminding him of the different shapes and priorities of an institution and community's needs.
Fulbright is also an avid admirer of Thurgood Marshall — an American civil rights lawyer and the first Black Supreme Court Justice — who was instrumental in chipping away at Jim Crow laws in higher education and lead counsel on the Brown v. Board of Education case. Marshall's influence on Fulbright is evident throughout his office, as well as in the several mentions of his work during our conversation.
In between back-to-back meetings recently, Fulbright sat down with The Herald to answer some questions about his background and his future at Monterey Peninsula College.
QBefore coming to MPC you were the vice president of academic affairs at Grossmont College. You also previously served as dean of instruction at Riverside Community College District and an instructor/professor of music at Long Beach City College. How will you use your experience in these roles to guide you as MPC's newest superintendent/ president?
A
Grossmont was a phenomenal place where as a vice president I was able to work with a large team. …Having that experience was immensely helpful for me being here because it really helped me step out of the dean role (which) was a lot of coordinating, a lot of supporting of individuals, which is what the superintendents or presidents do. Being a dean of the College of Sequoias in Visalia (and at Norco College in Riverside), I learned the nuts and bolts of doing the job. and then being the supervisor at Grossmont, I was able to translate that into how to help support people do that same role … I've been a little bit of everywhere. From small to large, from urban to rural. It's all of those experiences that have led me here and has really built my tool chest just to be able to address issues or challenges from a multitude of perspectives.
QYou've been very vocal about your dedication to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, antiracism and accessibility throughout your career. How have you made progress in these areas?
AI think the biggest thing is the lens that I see the world through — to be as inclusive as possible. I think that when you have a well-rounded workforce — and when I say workforce I mean everyone from the president to all of our professionals — you have a better institution. We always say we want the best for the job, but we forget about what the job is. The best may not be the Harvard graduate, the best may be the person directly from the community. So when I say be inclusive and diversity and equity, it's about providing space and opportunity for everyone and realizing that they may not be what we think it may be or who it may be, but it's being open to being different. I've worked to ensure that we have equity in our hiring practices (and) that when we are looking at processes, we are looking at it through an antiracist lens. I ensure that we are looking at policies and procedures that don't inherently harm or hold back some more than others.
Q
You're only a few months into your new role as superintendent/ president, but are you aware of any challenges in those areas at MPC?
A
The overwhelming majority of my time here — three months — has been without students. So I'm just starting to get a sense of what students are doing, where they are. I need a little bit more time to be here, but what I will say is we can do a better job — like most institutions — with providing academic student support. And when I say support services, I don't mean if someone is having trouble in math, then we give them more time with their math instructor. That doesn't help. They've already gotten the information from them. What helps is peer tutoring with another individual, group sessions with someone else. If you
need one-on-one with another tutor. We're starting a mathematical engineering science achievement program here — so having a whole center set up for STEM to be able to walk into a space that is dedicated to math and engineering. That's how we support academically because when students leave, sometimes it's about social issues but sometimes it is the academic support and that's where the underserved comes in … You can focus on diversity, equity, inclusion but it's also about sustainability. It's also about being welcome. I can bring you to the table, but if you're not included or don't feel welcome there, you're not going to participate.
QMPC once focused on continuing education but has now shifted toward setting students up for success at a four-year school after they graduate MPC. What is your vision for the school? Do you have short-term and longterm goals for MPC?
A
When I talk about things, I'm speaking about 9, 12, 18 months in advance. I'm very well aware that systemic change, in order for it to take root, it's going to take time. Where we are now, I can't change tomorrow.
I want this institution to be the premier community college in the region. I want MPC to be the choice and not a fallback plan. This is where you go when you want to go to CSU Monterey Bay or UC Santa Cruz. They're well on board with “how do we increase our student flow from the community colleges into our institutions?” That's why we're here. That's the big picture. But short term, I want this place to run as efficiently and equitably as possible. We need to be flexible, be able to change and adapt. We need to have systems that are easy to follow and navigate. I have to say this institution has been extremely successful with the systems that we have. This is our 76th year and I am so excited about what we can be when we have systems in place that help and support us. I ask now for a report from one of my colleagues and it takes him probably about four to six hours to produce. This was a report that at my last institution, you just click on reports and it would come out. We would get frustrated if it took 30 seconds to crunch all the data.
Q
Why do you think it is that MPC is a little bit delayed on that shift?
AWhen you focus on one thing — like when you asked about MPC's past focus on continuing education — and you
put all of your eggs in that basket, you don't move as quickly in other areas because you don't need to. Some of my colleagues in this region and at other institutions are further
ahead with other areas because they've been focusing on that for years.
We're starting to focus on that only recently. This wasn't an urgent issue for us. It's now urgent. That's why things are changing now. We're dedicating a lot of human resources, fiscal resources in order to make this shift. It's going to be hard but we know we have to do it. This institution is going to be a different institution in three years.
QThere's been a fair amount of turnover in leadership at MPC in the last few years. Do you plan to stay longterm?
A
There's only one answer. I hope to be here. I think I have the support of my colleagues because of the different perspective and knowledge that I bring to the institution. I want my son to graduate from high school here. I don't want to be up and moving again because of all the things that I've talked about requiring systemic change. In order to have systematic change, it takes time. I'm a musician. This is the third music building that I have worked on the design plans for and I have yet to see one open. So my hope is to see this building open.
QIf and when you eventually move on from this position, what do you want to be remembered for?
When I had a performance as a conductor, if we were performing Beethoven and someone said, “that was the best performance of Beethoven I ever heard,” I was more impressed when someone said that the group played the best (they've ever played). When you can help influence individuals and groups, the product is one thing. If people will say after I leave that “he was a caring, loving, compassionate human being who helped me be better,” I'm fine with that. I would rather build a system and human beings and a culture in place so that people say, “this is a better place to work.” If it's a better place to work, the result will be a better institution, better students.
Q Some topics mentioned in the community survey that students/ faculty are concerned about included student homelessness, campus safety and COVID-19. How do you plan to address some of these concerns?
A For right now, I would say everything is on my list. I think housing insecurity is an enormous challenge. After attending the Chamber of Commerce event Wednesday, every single person on the panel talked about housing costs. So that is not a MPC-solvable concern. What I will say is it's a challenge because of how it hinders us, and how it hinders this institution from attracting faculty and staff here. So housing insecurity is harmful for the entire region. I hope that we can start having conversations about how we all — from businesses to the CSUs — can address this as a region. When it comes to safety, I'm not aware of any challenges. For approximately the last three years, we have not had a director of safety. We just hired a new person, C. Brian Cabriales, and he's now our director of safety. We also have a new director of facilities (and) a new director of human resources, Jennifer Baughn, (who is also) our Title IX coordinator. She will be monitoring and making sure we're in compliance and taking reports where needed. So we have increased in that area by having a full-time person for that. I think big-picture safety is so many things. It's about lighting on campus, it's about the number of safety officers that we have on campus. We have to have a space that is intellectually, emotionally safe as well as physically safe.
Q
Declining enrollment post-COVID-19 continues to be a trend in higher education institutions across the country. How are you tackling this?
A
We no longer have a vaccine mandate and that's helped enrollment. We are continually monitoring (cases) and we haven't had any increase in reports. Our enrollment is doing well. We have increased our enrollment. As we are actively coming back to campus, we're being very intentional about safety. We still have people wearing masks and that's absolutely your choice. I want you to feel safe where you are, but I don't see it right now as being an enormous hindrance to us.
Q One of the characteristics the community said they were looking for in their next leader included a strong financial background. How do you fit this?
AQ
AIt's interesting because the last two presidents have been chief business officers. I'm here because I'm not. You don't have to be a CBO as a president to be fiscally stable. You need to hire and know who is fiscally responsible. We have a great CBO (Steven Haigler) and the conversations that I have with them are centered on student success and what we can do that's fiscally responsible to get us there. I'll never put dollar signs on students' heads. I'll never go out and have a conversation about how we've got to be fiscally solid. We have to be a place where students are able to be successful and go out and transfer or go into the workforce. If we do those things, we will be fiscally solvent.
Let's talk about the Board of Trustees. In a community survey, several community members described the “board's dysfunction” as the biggest challenge the next leader will face in this role. How would you define the situation and how do you plan to tackle it?
I would define it as incredibly optimistic. And I would say that they are well aware of the perception and well aware of how they or others call them dysfunctional. There is a concerted effort to change. I feel very comfortable saying the relationship — the strained, past relationship — they're aware of and they want to forge a new relationship of mutual respect and trust so that they know their role. I know my role and we know how those should be working together for the overall betterment of the institution. We're establishing our working relationship and hopefully, it only improves.