Dr. Maria Nieto Senour, at 82 (“and a half,” she adds), has a lot of beginnings under her belt.
More than three decades ago, she was elected to the San Diego Community College District, becoming the first Latina elected to a citywide school or college board office in San Diego.
That was all the way back in 1990. Since then, SDCCD has introduced one of the state’s first baccalaureate degree programs at a community college, established the tuition-free San Diego Promise program, and fostered inclusive campuses — and Nieto Senour has been part of each effort.
Nieto Senour’s ambitions, like that of the community college district that she has been part of for more than 30 years, started small. But her own beginnings, while humble, were not easy.
“I’ve had a difficult life,” she said. “I didn’t know any English when I started school, and when we spoke Spanish they would punish us.”
Her early life was marked by poverty and instability, exacerbated by racism and mentally ill family members in and out of facilities over the course of more than a decade.
“I went to ten different schools before I finished high school, because we were always moving,” Nieto Senour said.
She eventually learned English in school, becoming a good reader by fourth grade and turning her siblings into fellow voracious readers, propelled in part by her own love for books and stories. At the same time, she was unearthing new, twinned interests: teaching and learning. That took her through high school and into academia.
“I became an elementary school teacher, then I became an art teacher, and then I became a counselor because I started seeing that there were kids that were in trouble in the classroom,” she said. “I always knew that if a kid is acting out there’s something wrong at home so they would come and sit with me while I was preparing my next art lessons and they would draw, and we would just talk a little, but I wouldn’t know how to help them.
And so, she decided to get her master’s degree in counseling, eventually landing at State, joining the university as a young assistant professor in 1976, where she stayed until she retired in 2014 with honors after years of directing the Community Based Block M.S. Program in SDSU’s Department of Counseling and School Psychology.
“It’s a program that’s designed to train counselors to be multiculturally competent social change agents and we look at power structures,” said Nieto Senour. “The students decided for themselves what they were going to learn and how they were going to learn it… I have trustees and presidents that were former students of mine.”
Her work with the CBB program directly led her to first run for the SDCCD board in 1990 (at the behest of then-Chancellor Augie Gallego.) More than 35 years later, after multiple stints as president, she’s still part of that board, shepherding the district through dramatic cultural changes, both within the district and throughout the country.
Today, Maria Nieto Senour remains proud of the board and its work, and of the ripple effects that it has had on San Diego County and beyond.
“Maria’s an extraordinary human being,” said Greg Smith, Chancellor at the San Diego Community College District. He credited Nieto’s leadership and influence in part for pushing the district to do more for vulnerable populations seeking to further their education — from asylum-seekers and refugees to high-school dropouts, as well as people leaving abusive or unstable situations, the formerly incarcerated, and more.
Smith says that the district has taken enormous strides during his time there toward student accessibility and affordability, and much of that is due to the continuity offered by long-standing board members. “One of the first things that I heard that was really impactful was sharing her own story growing up as an immigrant in a Texas border town with her family not speaking any English.”
He said that the cultural of the district is the direct result of people like Nieto Senour advocating for students, without whom the most vulnerable would be at risk of being overlooked.
“Her lived experience in a transborder community and the way she expects faculty to operate has created a cultural norm,” Smith said. “That’s her leadership in action.”
“What unites us is so much more than what would artificially divide us,” Smith added.
Late last year, Nieto Senour was honored with a “Trustee of the Year” award, presented by the California Association of Latino Community College Trustees and Administrators. The award will be presented annually, but hers was the first — making her a trailblazer yet again.
She said she was thrilled to receive the recognition, but that her life’s work is its own reward.
“I’ve learned a lot doing this kind of work,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot.”
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