Presidential chat

In just two years, DMC President Mark Escamilla has helped to shape and build the college into a greater educational system that has helped to enable students to grow into leaders in our community.

Since Escamilla became president in 2008, there have been changes made concerning money and space issues and repositioning employee duties. The action Escamilla took was persuading the DMC Board of Regents to reverse a decision made several years earlier to double the out-of-district fee on tuition for students living outside the school's tax zone.

After the board voted in March to cut the fee in half, DMC saw a 30 percent increase in the credit hours of out-of-district students. According to Escamilla, the original decline in enrollment after the out-of-district fee doubled in 2006 resulted in the college losing $1.3 million in state funding.

Escamilla's next step was establishing a new Office of Alumni service to reach out to anyone who has ever taken a class in the school's 75-year history. He hopes to reconnect with as many 700,000 alumni who can help the college with fundraising and develop school pride.

Escamilla next started a Campus Pride Program and at the first Campus Pride Day last spring, over 100 volunteers planted sod and flowers and helped clean up the campus.

Escamilla was part of the effort to create the Northwest Campus, which he officially hopes will bring more students in from Calallen, Robstown, Sinton and other surrounding areas.

The NW Center opened this fall and provides DMC with more classroom space for nurses, medical laboratory technicians, paramedics and other health science professionals and emergency first responders.

"I believe that the new NW Center will greatly help the college students," said Escamilla, "This will allow residents in Calallen and nearby areas an opportunity to take courses with out a long drive."

Escamilla said he also takes pride in the establishment of a good team and firmly believes who first and what later. "I think I have put together an extraordinarily strong team, whom will help the college to get where we want it to be," said Escamilla.

Escamilla has a dedication to education. His personal drive for better education began at Texas A&M University-Commerce where he was assistant to the dean of students for a year and later became interim assistant dean. There, Escamilla established the first Hispanic fraternity in the college's history.

"I just called them up, verified my whole back ground and told them I'll come work for you guys and for cheap," said Ecamilla. "That was one of my lowest paying jobs but I just loved it."

In the following years, Escamilla worked his way up to multiple administrative positions including, associate director of enrollment services at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, executive vice president at Morton College in the Chicago, provost of Tyler Junior College and finally, the position of president at DMC.

Escamilla also showed his loyalty by returning to Corpus Christi after venturing out beyond the Coastal Bend to gain valuable experience and earn a doctorates degree at University of Texas – Austin.

"I plan to stay at Del Mar for as long as this community wants me to stay," said Escamilla. "I am very honored and blessed to have the career that I do, and that this is where I am supposed to be."