Las Positas College has a new Dean of Special Programs, Student Equity and Success: Cristine J. Sidela. She comes to Las Positas from Ohlone College and started on March 3.
Sidela’s appointment was announced via campus-wide email. Vice President of Student Services, Jeanne Wilson, invited staff to meet Sidela at her new office in the Student Services and Administration Building in room 1658A.
Her hiring comes as the Trump administration is pushing federal agencies to flag words like diversity, inclusion and equity. Looking to comply with government directives, some colleges and universities are reviewing their databases for uses of “woke” language — words such as race, female, Black, diverse and victim.
But Sidela’s new job is being regarded as a reflection of LPC’s commitment to equity in achievement.
“She’s amazing,” Wilson said of Sidela. “She has such great energy. She’s so smart. And it was like she was tailor-made for this position.”
An immigrant and first-generation community college student herself, Sidela has a history in working to boost student success. She is a founding board member of the California Filipinx Community College Collaborative and serves on the board for California Community College Student Affairs Association. At Ohlone College, Sidela was a Student Life Coordinator who oversaw the school’s Basic Needs program and opened a Cultural Community Center.
She emigrated from the Philippines to America at four. Sidela credits her mom — who opted out of the culturally expected military or nursing job to pursue a career in chemical engineering — for her family’s ability to move over 7,000 miles. “It was through her brilliance, resilience, sacrifice and courage,” Sidela wrote in an article for Ohlone College, “that my family was able to immigrate to the United States and start the journey toward pursuing a better life.”
Sidela remembers she and her parents working two jobs, each, to support one another — the balancing act of overtime hours and passing classes.
“I can never forget the experience of being someone that couldn’t afford my school supplies,” she said. “So that’s the lens I come in with. I see pieces of my journey in our students.
“And that really drives me.”
Along with her new position at LPC, Sidela actively works at San Diego State University as doctoral faculty in an Educational Leadership program for Community College and Post-Secondary students.
Prior to her appointment as Dean of Special Programs, Student Equity and Success, the position — which falls under the school’s Student Equity and Achievement program (SEA) — has been listed as vacant. Since 2019, the SEA program has sought to purge achievement gaps for disproportionately affected students.
Any work the previously vacant listing entailed was overseen by Dean of Student Services Joel Gagnon. Sidela and Wilson called him a “super-dean.”
“To place and keep (the extra work) with Dean Gagnon was just too much,” Wilson said. “We really needed this position.”
Some of the programs now under Sidela’s supervision include the Black Cultural Resource Center, the Cultural Community Center, CalWORKs, Puente and the Health and Wellness Center. This is the first time the programs have been a “collective,” she said — joined under one umbrella: her job.
Sidela wants to build coalitions across campus. “So that it’s not just equity living in one place,” she said, “but (that) equity lives in every single pocket of campus.”
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TOP PHOTO: Cristine Sidela, the new Dean of Special Programs, poses for a photo on March 19 in her office on campus — room 1658A in building 1600, Student Service and Administration. (Photo Ian Kapsalis/The Express)
Olivia Fitts is the News Editor and Features Editor for The Express. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @OLIVIAFITTS2.
