Q&A with State Center CCD Area 2 candidate Nasreen Johnson

FRESNO COUNTY – This November, contests for city council races, school board elections and local bond measures will be listed lower on the ballot, but they are not any lower in importance. 

Local elections are often decided by just a handful of votes, highlighting the impact of each individual’s voice in the community. In Fresno County, residents who want to see changes in how the State Center Community College District (SCCCD) is governed and provides affordable higher education opportunities to residents will have the chance to vote on board of trustees candidates promising to be champions of education.

The SCCCD Board of Trustees oversees the operations, policies and budgets of the district and its campuses. SCCCD is made up of Fresno City College, Clovis Community College, Madera Community College and Reedley College. The board is made up of seven trustees elected by district to four-year staggered terms and also includes a student trustee.

This year, trustees from Area 2, 3, 6 and 7 are up for election; however, only candidates for Area 2 will appear on the November ballot. Current Area 3 Trustee Danielle Parra and Area 6 Trustee Deborah Ikeda have been appointed in-lieu of an election, as they were the only eligible candidates to file for their areas. In Area 7, current Trustee Richard Caglia did not file for reelection and Austin Ewell has been appointed in-lieu of an election. 

In Area 2, incumbent Nasreen Johnson is running against Pablo Villagrana. Johnson was first elected in November 2020, when she received 37.9% of the vote over Sevag Tateosian and Eric Payne, who received 32.5% and 29.6% of the vote, respectively. Area 2 serves the center of the SCCCD jurisdiction and covers northeast Fresno.

The Mid Valley Times was unable to reach Villagrana by press time; updated Q&As will be published online. 

California voters can use the Secretary of State’s online voter registration tool at registertovote.ca.gov to register to vote or check their status. Voters in Fresno County can use an online district lookup tool through their respective county elections office to enter their address and find what Congressional, state, county and city districts they live in.

Johnson spoke with Mineral King Publishing about her background and her goals for the next four years if she is elected Nov. 5. Interview responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: What is your background?

JOHNSON: I’ve lived in Fresno since second grade, and I’m 43 years old. I worked in communications for over 20 years. I’ve owned a small business, I’ve worked in (the) nonprofit, agriculture (and) industrial sectors. I’m a proud first generation college grad. I graduated with my AA degree from Fresno City College, and I have a passion for education because I understand how that’s a pathway out of poverty. It’s my lived experience.

I went back to school to complete my education as a single parent of two young children, earning my bachelors in business management and my MBA in global business from Fresno Pacific University. My kids are now community college students themselves, and I think that kind of rounds out a little bit about me. 

I enjoy attending community events and volunteering, and my passion is really just being an active member in the community. It’s how I kind of keep a pulse on what our community needs are. People often see me at community events; that’s one of the ways I stay accessible.

Q: Who is supporting/endorsing your campaign, and who are the major funders of your campaign?

JOHNSON: I’ve had really great support and endorsement from a wide range of groups, including the National Women’s Political Caucus of Fresno. They’ve generously supported me. I’ll have to look up my contributions to tell you how much, but they’re one of my top donors. 

The Fresno County Democratic Women’s Club, the Democratic Women in Action, the Fresno Stonewall Democrats, the San Joaquin Valley Democratic Club. Also Black Women Organized for Political Action, BWOPA, I’m proud to have their endorsement. The LGBTQ Victory Fund, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. 

Q: What do you hope to change or accomplish in the upcoming term?

JOHNSON: I remain focused on student success. It’s the reason that community colleges exist, right? But not just we’ve graduated or distributed this amount of degrees or certificates. I’m focused on, are we serving all of the community that we have in our Central Valley? 

We started looking at disaggregated data regarding student success, so we’re looking at, demographically, (of) the students who are applying to come to and enrolling in our community college, is that representative of our demographics in our county? If there’s a group of students that isn’t even attempting to come, why? And then once they get here, are they succeeding at the same rate as other students? And if not, why? Because community colleges are a great equalizer, and I want to make sure that our students are all able to succeed if they want to come to our campuses and that they’re able to thrive once they get there.

My other thing that I really am focused on is workforce development. Not every student that comes to us wants to transfer or obtain a degree, and so really making sure that we’re training students in high wage jobs that they’re interested in going into. It supports the workforce and the business community to have highly qualified folks that can work in the jobs that they have for our community here.

Q: What does the role of a board trustee look like to you, and how would you fulfill those duties?

JOHNSON: I’ll say there’s the external (of) what it looks like. It might look like to some community members that we have photo ops and we meet in a meeting once a month, and we show up to things like ribbon cuttings, but that’s really just the external view of what you see a trustee do. 

I would say behind the scenes, it’s quite a bit more than that. There’s a lot of research and reading and digging into issues and hearing from community stakeholders and students and participating in campus events and learning what other colleges — community colleges and other higher ed institutions — are doing across the region and state and nationally, because innovation that they might have might be applicable or something we want to consider. 

There’s a ton of problem solving and research to really delve into the issues, and then there’s committee work. There’s a lot that happens behind the scenes, but in broad strokes, we trustees set the arc and the vision for our district and decide how the dollars get spent and implement policies for our colleges, but all of that takes work behind the scenes.

Q: What programs or departments would you like to see expand or receive more support? Why?

JOHNSON: Being a nontraditional student myself, I understand some of the barriers to higher ed. A lot of students are struggling financially, and while community colleges are still the financially responsible way to enter higher ed, it still can be out of reach for some students. 

Focusing on expanding access is really important, and one of the ways we do that is by expanding some of our partnerships with the community and addressing some of those basic needs that our students have — food, housing, just really basic supports, because it’s really hard to focus on learning and being a college student if you’re struggling to put a roof over your head or keep a roof over your head, or keep food in your bellies or your children’s stomach. 

That is one of the ways that I feel like we need to expand, is just making sure our student’s basic needs are met and that their struggles don’t impact their ability to to come to college. Another is our workforce development. We’ve done a lot of work to expand partnerships and internships and opportunities for students with our local employers, but there’s always ways to continue to expand, particularly as newer jobs come online, (like) green jobs, making sure that our local workforce has the skills that our employers need, and that our students have access to those new jobs. 

Another thing that’s important is our facilities; some of our facilities are 50-plus years old, and so obviously technology and certain necessities that you might have in a college classroom are difficult in those older facilities. So making sure that our facilities have the maintenance and modernization funds that they need, so that we can have state of the art facilities for our students to support their learning. 

Q: Anything else to add? 

JOHNSON: Part of that expansion in the workforce development piece, I just want to (talk) about our critical nursing shortage, particularly in our community with rural and underserved areas in the Central Valley. I just strongly believe that community colleges are positioned to address that shortage, because we need more pathways for nursing. Our nursing students are oftentimes required to have bachelor’s degrees, (and) we’re working on expanding that access and providing bachelor’s degrees at the community college level.

That work is important, because if the only option our students have is to wait and wait many years to get into a local program, or pay over $100,000 for a private program, or go to a different state, we lose our students that way. They don’t often come back to our region, or they have so much debt they need to explore larger cities where the pay might be much higher so that they can pay off those really high student loans. 

It becomes inaccessible for students that are low income or need to stay local while attending school because of family obligations. So just another really critical, kind of a niche expansion, but really critical for our community.