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Jesse Maldonado
Zone 7 (unopposed)
Age: 30
Brief biography: I’m an educator and the first in my family to graduate from a four-year college, I know firsthand how important it is to provide our communities access to a quality, affordable education that helps students find their passion and gives them the tools and training they need to succeed.
Current employment: Adjunct professor, University of Oregon, School of Planning, Public Policy and Management; national political and labor director, Democratic Municipal Officials.
Connection to Lane Community College: As an educator in this community and resident of Lane County, my connection to LCC is no different than my neighbors — I have a desire to see it succeed. LCC is uniquely positioned in our community to provide accessible and affordable education to thousands of students every single day. Our north star as a community should be to ensure that LCC remains healthy and poised for the future.
Why are you running? As an educator and former elected official and the first in my family to receive a four-year degree, I know firsthand how important it is to provide our communities access to a quality, affordable education that helps students find their passion and gives them the tools and training they need to succeed.
I received my undergraduate degree from a state school with an enrollment less than LCC. One thing I learned there that I know is true at LCC is the importance of being more than a seven-digit number as a student. At LCC, students have connections with their faculty members unrivaled by large institutions — they’re names and faces, not just numbers.
LCC is an incredible resource for people seeking higher education of all sorts, and we as a community have a duty to keep it that way. That’s why I am running for this position — so I can put my years of experience to work, ensuring LCC remains a thriving institution that benefits our entire community for years to come.
Priorities: I see LCC as a beacon of opportunity in our community, and there are three major ways we maintain that mindset and goal:
- Ensuring LCC provides an opportunity for all seeking higher education
For too long we have only encouraged those who want to pursue higher education to attend a four-year university or college, crippling our friends and neighbors with student debt. Getting a degree should be accessible and affordable, and should meet you where you are. Lane Community College, right in our backyard, provides an opportunity to ALL who are seeking higher education.
If you’re a high school graduate who wants to receive a four-year degree, save money, and have one or two years of higher education under your belt — LCC gives you that opportunity!
If you graduated high school or college and want to change career paths — LCC gives you that opportunity!
If you’re a high school student who wants to get a head start on your four-year degree — LCC gives you that opportunity!
If you want to enter a trade and need a certificate or specialized training, or you’re seeking a career-ready degree offered through Career Technical Education — LCC gives you that opportunity!
We are lucky to have LCC and the dedicated faculty and staff help make higher\ education a reality for so many of our friends and neighbors. I will always fight to make sure LCC continues to provide the opportunity for higher education to all who want it.
As a board member, I will ensure we fight for increased funding for LCC in Salem every single year.
- Ensuring LCC provides an opportunity for our often underserved communities
As a professor, a former elected official, and a Latino man, I know that every single student has a story to tell. As the communities that Lane Community College serves grow more diverse, so should the student body and the campus. As the LCC board, we must ensure we do everything in our power to increase enrollment, especially in our often-overlooked and underserved communities, and to make sure our students have the support they need to succeed. The U.S. Department of Education currently provides increased support for over 500 colleges and universities nationwide that are deemed Hispanic Serving Institutions. These colleges must have a Latino student enrollment of 25% or more. Currently, LCC’s student body is 17% Latino. We have the opportunity to increase our funding and the opportunity to serve more of our neighbors who are often overlooked.
I will push for increased outreach throughout Lane County to increase our recruitment of Latino students and ensure LCC becomes the first college or university in Oregon that is a Hispanic Serving Institution.
- Ensuring LCC provides an opportunity to solve our workforce shortages
Lane County is a blue-collar community with a strong manufacturing history — we must never lose sight of that. But the small businesses that form the backbone of our economy need a well-trained workforce who are career-ready the day after graduation. Lane Community College helps connect those businesses with the workers they need by offering a diverse set of programs that prepare students for the job.
LCC’s new Industry & Trades Education Center (ITEC) is preparing students every single day to enter the workforce. ITEC serves as a workforce and technology hub for our community and helps ensure we have the talent in Lane County to build an economy and community for today and tomorrow.
I will always be a champion of career and technical education and ensuring that we prepare career-ready graduates who can enter the workforce, join a labor union, and help our economy prosper!
Also, through LCC’s Aviation Academy, we have the opportunity to help fill a nationwide pilot shortage that will only get worse in the coming years. With mandatory retirements at age 65 for pilots, we now, as a country, have more pilot vacancies than pilots for the first time in history.
I will work to ensure that LCC highlights this offering to prospective students who can help fill this gap.
Lastly, as our population ages, we must find a solution to prepare and graduate more health care professionals. LCC, with the help of the new Health Professions Building, will offer courses to produce skilled medical professionals ready to enter the field upon graduation.
We live in a community that is suffering from folks leaving the medical field, hospitals shuttering, and emergency response calls only increasing. I will always support LCC’s efforts to continue building programming and degree offerings through the health, medical, and fitness career programming. I will also help push for increased partnerships with health care providers in Lane County as we work to fill the gaps present in the field.
Challenges: Enrollment is number one. Though we are seeing a positive enrollment trend for the first time in recent years, we must maintain this momentum. Working with the administration and staff to ensure we’re doing outreach into our community, specifically in schools, to let students know they can find their passion at LCC and that it provides unparalleled opportunities for them. Continued partnership with the school districts throughout LCC’s service area is a need, not a want, to ensure we’re reaching students early, sharing the offerings of LCC and the potential for them to get a living-wage job with the training and tools LCC provides!
The budget, as with any public institution nowadays, will be a challenge. There will be a need to make tough decisions as a board, guided by the knowledge and expertise of the administration and the staff, but I won’t be afraid to make a decision when the time comes.
Board effectiveness: Our North Star as a board is ensuring that LCC remains a beacon of opportunity in our community — we cannot lose sight of this. I’m no stranger to serving on boards, in elective office, and working together with colleagues for the common good. It takes communication, accountability, and an understanding of why we are in these positions and who we answer to — the voters. We must ensure we provide the public ample opportunity to have their voices heard and ensure they never are excluded from the democratic process.
Endorsements: U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, State Rep. Lisa Fragala, Lane County commissioners Laurie Trieger and Heather Buch; Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson; Eugene city councilors Matt Keating, Jennifer Yeh, Lyndsie Leech, and Eliza Kashinsky; Former Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis; LCC Board of Education members Zach Mulholland, Austin Folnagy, Denise Diamond; Eugene 4J School Board members Jenny Jonak, Maya Rabasa, and Ericka Thessen: Former state Rep. Marty Wilde; IBEW 280; IAFF Local 851; Ironworkers Local 29; Lane Community College Education Association; Western States Regional Council of Carpenters; Oregon AFL-CIO; Democratic Party of Lane County; Democratic Municipal Officials; Young Democrats of Oregon; Lane Coos Curry Douglas Building Trades Trades Council; Lane County Labor Chapter; Oregon Futures Lab; Color PAC; Eugene Tenant Alliance.
