An urban college located in the city’s burgeoning midtown neighborhood, San Antonio College (SAC) has been a prominent fixture for the nation’s seventh-largest city since 1925. For many years, SAC was the only viable option for first-generation students, students of color and adult students pursuing higher education in San Antonio and its surrounding area. Although that is still the case for many people, today’s savvy students choose SAC over other options because of its long-standing reputation for providing quality education at a fraction of the cost.

What makes San Antonio College so special? That can be answered with one word: HEART. Year after year, San Antonio College reinvents itself to stay ahead of the curve, but it never loses its deep connection to its mission of student success. For nearly a century, SAC’s innovative spirit has resulted in it becoming a leader in higher education in the state of Texas and throughout the nation.

From leading the way in distance education in the 1990s to launching an urban farming initiative in 2018, SAC has always challenged the status quo. Recently, SAC’s outreach center for sustainable living, the William R. Sinkin Eco Centro, has begun planning (and planting) several community gardens that will be sprinkled around campus and will invite students to forage for fresh herbs and vegetables.

In 2018, San Antonio College celebrated the expansion of the SAC Student Advocacy Center, which serves more than 100 students daily who are food or housing insecure. Realizing if students’ most basic needs are not being met, it is very hard for them to be successful in the classroom. The Center moved into its own two-story building which incorporates a food pantry, clothing closet, social services assistance (including free tax preparation) and personal counseling by licensed counselors.

While San Antonio College aims to be an incubator for all students, a troubling trend was uncovered when it was noted that there was a drastic decline in enrollment of men of color. With some 18,000 students enrolled at SAC each semester, about 41 percent are men and, of those, only 5,200 are men of color.

In the fall of 2015, SAC partnered with the University of Texas at Austin’s Project MALES program and received a $5,000 seed grant to provide intentional programming to improve success rates of African-American and Latino males in community colleges. Just two short years later, the program received an additional grant for $75,000 from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. The duPont grant helped form SACMEN, a dedicated group for male students of color at SAC. In a short time, the SACMEN have become a brotherhood and have won multiple awards.

Proving its commitment to providing access to all students, San Antonio College is proud of its ongoing partnership with theDream.US which provides Dreamers (DACA-eligible students) much-needed private scholarship opportunities to attend San Antonio College and to transfer to a university.

There is no doubt that San Antonio College has had to withstand some challenging times throughout its nearly 100-year old history. But passion for student success has always prevailed. Perhaps the reason for this is because there is no better visual than watching a sea of 1,000-plus red graduation gowns crossing the stage at the commencement ceremony—that sight not only brings immense joy and pride, but it most definitely inspires the heart. •

Dr. Robert Vela is the 12th president of San Antonio College and serves on the Board of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and is the president of the National Community College Hispanic Council (NCCHC).

Source San Antonio College