Peralta News - Students Trustees, Ready to Change the Status Quo

Peralta’s Student Trustees; Ready to Change the Status Quo
Peralta News Centre
January 2007

By Eve Pearlman

Marlene Hurd, one of two students elected last June to the Peralta Community Colleges board of trustees, is in the Merritt College Admissions and Records Building on a recent sunny afternoon. Every minute or two her conversation is interrupted by other students asking for help: “Where do I get a course catalog?” asks one. “Where do I buy books?” queries another.

Hurd, a 54-year-old Laney College political science major, is patient and kind with each questioner. She wants to help them find their way. “Look,” she says, gesturing to a long line of students. “That’s our future. When I look at them I want to give them hope.”

Hurd herself first began taking courses at Laney after graduating from high school in Vallejo in 1971. But school didn’t stick then for the San Francisco native. “I didn’t see education as a valuable thing then—so I dropped out,” she said. Decades later, after raising a daughter and working 19 years for a payroll company, a disabling vocal cord injury left her unable to do her job, and she returned to Laney.

Now Hurd and co-trustee 24-year-old Reginald James are deeply committed to being strong advocates, working to make sure student concerns and needs are heard—both on the board of trustees and in other forums.

“You have to earn peoples’ respect and we make sure we do that by the work we do,” said James, who hopes that by taking an active role in student affairs he will inspire others—including the young people he works with as a program assistant at the Alameda Boy’s and Girl’s Club.

James, who graduated from Alameda’s Encinal High in 2000, was himself propelled into student affairs when, as a representative for College of Alameda’s Black Student Union, he attended a state-wide conference of community colleges groups. “I’d never seen anything like it in Alameda,” said James, who was also inspired his experience addressing the crowd at a 2003 Sacramento rally against cuts to community college funding. “I saw people getting involved and making a difference together,” said James. “It was an amazing experience, being in a place where all these people share a common goal."

Both Hurd and James have spent years building the skills they need to be successful advocates for change. James, who studied psychology and sociology at College of Alameda before transferring to Laney to study political science, served on COA’s Black Student Union’s board as president and secretary/treasurer and was also a senator and vice president for COA’s associated student government.

Hurd has served as secretary and senator for Laney’s student government, winning the Chancellor’s Trophy Scholarship Award in 2006. She counts among her most valuable experiences interning in the offices of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. Working for elected officials, says Hurd, has allowed her to see how much responsibility they carry and how much hard work they do. She’s also gotten a glimpse at the problems with the political system. “As a student leader, I’d like to become a part of that change of process,” said Hurd.

The two student trustees see eye to eye on the need to work together to create a strong student voice for such things as better customer service for students, improved financial aid, and more unified policies between Peralta colleges.

“Why when I go to Alameda it’s done one way? And when I go to Laney it’s done another way?” asks Hurd, who would like to see a cross-college standardized of procedures and policies. James would like to see the separate colleges work to borrow successful policies and programs from one another. “We’re interested in getting the community colleges to be colleges of the community,” said James

After Laney, James says he would like to go to law school and build a career in public service. Hurd has her eye University of California, Berkeley, where she plans to study political science and public policy. For now, both Hurd and James are working hard to make the Peralta colleges better places.

“Our job as student leaders is to inspire others and get them the tools they need to be successful, and then we’ll all be stronger together,” said James. “We’re just peers who’ve stepped up to do positive things.”