DACC Chancellor Mónica Torres

Dr. Torres was the 10th president of the college, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. Dr. Torres is now the Chancellor of the NMSU System of Community Colleges, responsible for the Doña Ana, Grants, and Alamogordo community colleges. 


A message from our Chancellor:

"For me, the key idea here is “transformative” or “transformational.” There is no doubt that the students who leave DACC after completing their studies are not the same people who walked through our doors. When they leave DACC—credential in hand—they leave with new knowledge, new skills, new identities—as dental hygienists or diagnostic medical sonographers, as EMTs and firefighters, as water utilities operators or electrical lineworkers, as computer network specialists or web designers, as early childhood care workers or law enforcement professionals, as people who can succeed in higher education and the workforce.

Dr. Mónica Torres - Chancellor, NMSU System of Community Colleges.

And with those new skills and identities come advantages. Research tells us people who earn post-secondary credentials tend to have lower unemployment rates, make more money, and access jobs with better benefits than those with high school diplomas. For over fifty years, DACC has created instructional spaces where residents from the county (and other places) study, develop, transform and launch themselves into new professional opportunities. 

But the benefits do not accrue to individual students or graduates alone. I am reminded of this almost every day. It is virtually impossible to conduct business in this community without running into DACC graduates: when we get our blood drawn for laboratory tests, when we need x-rays, when we want plans drawn for a new house or a renovation, when we need automobile repair work, when we need our HVAC systems worked on, when we go to restaurants, when we talk to medical billing offices, when we need help setting up our home networks, etc. In addition, research shows that people with college degrees are more likely to vote, more likely to volunteer, more likely  to contribute to their community. Higher education credentials improve the quality of life for those who hold them  and for those of us who live in the communities where those graduates work and live.  

DACC has been doing this work since 1973. I am proud to be part of this history. I consider myself fortunate to stand with the faculty and staff from across those five decades who have worked so diligently to support student learning and development. I am thankful for so many alumni and community members who have donated from their resources to create scholarships so students could complete their studies. We could not do any of this without the voters, taxpayers, and elected officials in the county (and across the state) who have supported the college so we could support the students. And I am most grateful for the students who walked through DACC’s doors in the last fifty years and modeled the art of transformation—for themselves, their families, and our communities."

 

Chancellor Mónica Torres, Ph.D.
Doña Ana Community College
NMSU System of Community Colleges