Marielena DeSanctis started to grasp the art of negotiating at an early age, refereeing disagreements and patching up misunderstandings between her dad, who spoke English, and her grandma, a Spanish speaker from Cuba.
Those well-worn negotiating skills will now help DeSanctis find her way through the bumpy terrain of higher education budget constraints and cuts as the new chancellor of the Colorado Community College System.
DeSanctis, 55, took over the 13-college system in October after Joe Garcia retired earlier this year. She is the first Latina to lead the community college system and its more than 130,000 students. The title of chancellor stirs emotion in DeSanctis, who last led the Community College of Denver where she said other Latina women told her how much they believe in their futures after watching her step into an ambitious role.
DeSanctis, born and raised in Florida, has a lot of practice taking bold swings. At 16, the same age her mom was when she immigrated from Cuba, DeSanctis made her own big leap, enrolling at the Georgia Institute of Technology after skipping grades. She began her career as an engineer in an era when science, math, engineering and technology broadly excluded women. When a gap year spent teaching and reevaluating engineering stretched into 27 years of working in education, she rose into administration jobs in K-12 schools, then colleges.
The Colorado Sun sat down with DeSanctis to learn about direction she wants to take the state’s community colleges and the challenges looming over the system — including finding new ways to bring in revenue and weathering more than $5 million in federal funding cuts to Morgan Community College, Lamar Community College and Pueblo Community College, all designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions where at least a quarter of all full-time undergraduates are Hispanic.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Colorado Sun: With your experience at the Community College of Denver, what role do you believe community colleges play in this moment?
DeSanctis: I think community colleges play the role that they were always intended to play — high-quality instruction at half the cost of a four-year university, very nimble, so we’re able to modify our curriculum, start new programs way faster than traditional four-year universities. We are the economic development engine for our communities. It’s unfortunate that there’s this social stigma or misperception or something around community colleges. There’s not as much prestige associated with attending a community college, and I’ll tell you some of the smartest students out there are the ones that are saving the money to knock out those first two years of general education requirements and prerequisites and all of that and then transferring to a university.
I think we continue to play the role that we were intended to play, and that’s being able to meet students where they are, whether you’re 16 or 60. I’m hopeful that this is the moment in which moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and the people that are surrounding our young people or middle-age people say, “Go to a community college. You’re going to get a great education.”
The Colorado Sun: What is your overarching vision for your leadership here?
DeSanctis: I think within (our) strategic plan, there are two that speak loudly to me. Number one is economic mobility. I told you my mom left Cuba in 1961 with nothing but the clothes on her back, not knowing if she was going to see her mother ever again. So she always instilled in my sister and I this sense of the one thing that nobody can ever take away from you is your education. And the power of education to open the doors of opportunity is inarguable. Whether you need a bachelor’s degree for a certain job or not, or a master’s degree or not, the doors of options for you continue to open and open and open and open the more education that you have. So the use of education as the driver of economic mobility for not only that but for generations of that family, it has always been very, very important to me.
And then the other place that really speaks loudly to me is this notion of Power of 13 and having these 13 colleges with 35 campuses across the state and how is it that the more that we collaborate and join forces, we’re able to proactively address the talent skills need of the employers that are currently in Colorado and those that we’re hoping to attract to Colorado in a super efficient way. We’re already clearly efficient if we’re operating at tuition that’s half the cost of universities, but getting even bigger, faster, stronger (to) produce high-quality talent at such a low price point, really leveraging that Power of 13, is super important to me.
The Colorado Sun: What does it mean to you to be the first Latina leader of the community college system here?
DeSanctis: I always struggle as my career has progressed with anybody thinking that I’m special. I’m just Marie. I’m just doing what I do. It was at the Community College of Denver that I had some Latina women come to me and they said, “You need to know how you’ve given us confidence because we see you and now we think that we can do this.” And I’m looking at them like, what are you people talking about? You could have always done this. You didn’t need a little Latina from South Florida to come rolling into this place for you to think that you could do this. I just don’t get it. So what does it mean to me to be the first Latina? I hate to say it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to me, but I’ve come to recognize that obviously it means something to other Latina women and I need to embrace that.
The Colorado Sun: In your time in both K-12 and higher education, what have you learned about what students need, what works for them to succeed and achieve their academic goals?
DeSanctis: Number one defining factor is somebody believes in you. It’s why I say that there’s so much power in community colleges. Your likelihood of having somebody care for you, support you personally in a community college where you have people 100% dedicated to teaching and learning (and) small classes is so far greater than in other forms of higher education. I think, if we’re all honest with ourselves, there were always moments in our life where we were like, “I can’t do this.” I remember going through my Ph.D. program and I can vividly see myself in my bedroom, on the floor with my back up against the bed, crying my eyes out, saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t work full time, take care of two kids. I just, I can’t. I’m going to give up.” And there was always somebody there who said, “Yes, you can. Because if you give up now, you’re never going to go back and the opportunities that await you when you finish that doctoral program are worth the pain that you’re going through now. Suck it up, buttercup. Get back in there, do what needs to be done and get through it.” There’s somebody in your life that, in that moment where you start doubting yourself and you don’t think that you can do it, one of two things is going to happen, you’re either going to throw up your hands and quit or you’re going to keep moving forward. I see that happen time and time again with our community college students.
The Colorado Sun: The Trump administration has pushed forward some funding cuts, especially for institutions that are Hispanic serving, that have that designation or that serve higher populations of a more diverse student body. How has the community college system this past year been impacted by federal funding cuts?
DeSanctis: I know a number of our colleges have been directly impacted. We did a letter to our legislators about the actual direct impact. Call me Pollyanna. I am trusting and hoping that what I’m hearing from Washington D.C. turns out to be true in that, yes, there are cuts that are being made in order to redistribute and send those funds back into higher ed, just maybe in a different form.
The Colorado Sun: What’s your outlook on the future of community colleges under this administration? On the one hand, President Trump applauds community colleges for the way that they build up skilled trades and really impact local economies and the workforce. On the other hand, he is making funding cuts that affect community colleges because community colleges are some of the most diverse campuses in our country. So with that mixed bag, how do you feel about the future of community colleges in the next three years?
DeSanctis: I think the future of community colleges is incredibly bright. Have there been some funding cuts to community colleges? Yes, but very small in comparison to either real cuts or fears of cuts to our university partners. Because we have faculty that are 100% dedicated to teaching and learning and research isn’t what is driving their workload, it’s not driving our business model. We don’t have that issue. We’re not worried about losing millions and millions of NSF (The U.S. National Science Foundation) grants got cut or these types of things.
I remember (at the) end of July, I testified to the Democratic caucus and they were asking about (H.R.1) and the changes to federal financial aid, and I’m like, guys, is there a decrease in the lifetime amount that students can take student loans out for? Yes, that’s $257,500. The average for our students is $13,000 in student loans. So is it a reduction? Yes. Does it have any impact on a community college student? No, it just doesn’t. I think (it) remains to be seen what comes out of rulemaking with Workforce Pell (Grants). Obviously the opportunity for federal dollars to flow into short-term credentials is another signal by the administration that skilled trades are important. Not everybody needs a four-year degree to succeed.
The Colorado Sun: I also want to touch on the diversity, equity and inclusion front. What is your viewpoint on the importance of DEI on a community college campus and across the system? And is that something that you want to prioritize, even as there’s been a lot of backlash against that from the federal administration?
DeSanctis: This one’s an interesting topic for me. Community colleges were built to meet students of every age, every demographic, where they are (and) support them on to success. Has it always been called DEI? No. At some point in time in our history, that terminology came to be and now that terminology has gotten crossways, let’s call it, with people. We are always, have always, and will always meet students where they are and support them to success, whether they are 16 or 60, whether they identify as white, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, whether you’re a military veteran, whether you have exceptionalities. None of that matters to us. We meet you where you are, figure out what your hopes and dreams are. We may interject some opinion there and say, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Because if you really want to move in socioeconomic status, perhaps you should consider this, this or this, right?” Aside from that conversation, we’re going to meet you where you are, and we’re going to support you in whatever way you need support to be successful. And that looks different for every student. There’s just a whole lot of to do about DEI as a term. We’re going to continue to do the work that we’ve always done. I don’t care what you call it.
The Colorado Sun: What challenges do you anticipate as you really dive into the job of chancellor?
DeSanctis: Number one, funding. Colorado does not fund higher education to the level that other states do and when you’re trying to make transformative, systemic change, with that comes the need to spend some money to make those changes, particularly at the beginning of those changes. So that’s probably the biggest challenge. It’s not only the amount of funding that the state puts into higher education, but kind of the way it’s allocated is a little crazy to me.
Right now the governor, of course, just released his budget, which it’s going to change 100 times. In essence, we’re basically flat from last year in the governor’s budget, which doesn’t take into account higher costs of everything, plus employees that rightfully so expect a raise because cost of living goes up and inflation goes up. And if they don’t have a raise, then basically they’re taking a pay cut because everything else in their life has gone up. So I think being able to make transformative change on a shoestring, the morale issues that come with doing hard work and not realizing it in your compensation (are) huge, huge challenges.
The Colorado Sun: So how do you manage that if essentially what’s on the table right now amounts to a budget cut because you’re getting flat funding and the cost of everything else is escalating? How do you maneuver through those financial pain points?
DeSanctis: We’re about to find out. I’ve never had to do that before from this role so super candidly, I don’t know. I will continue to pray for the intercession of the Holy Spirit to give me the words that will touch the hearts of legislators to say, we are teaching 40% of the undergraduate students in the state as a community college system. Fund us appropriately. You value community colleges for the value that we’re able to deliver to students while delivering high-quality instruction. Our ability to deliver high-quality instruction at such a value to students means that we need support.
The Colorado Sun: And if that strategy doesn’t work?
DeSanctis: You need to find other ways to fund your business enterprise that doesn’t rely as heavily on state funding. You have three levers. You have state funding. That’s not going anywhere any time soon. You have student tuition. You certainly don’t want to start increasing student tuition. And then you have, how do you bring in revenue, either public-private partnerships (or) philanthropic dollars? How do you get community at large to invest in higher education? If the state’s not going to do it, then the community is going to have to do it.