![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/sandiegodowntownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/anthonyBeebe_50_SMCP.jpeg\")
<\/a>Dr. Anthony Beebe said he has spent his entire post-high school life preparing for his new position as president of San Diego City College.<\/p>\n
The San Diego native spent most of his formative years in Oregon just south of Eugene. He became a county firefighter right out of high school for a total of eight years locally and spent a great deal of that time teaching others how to become firemen in the academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I got into education, through that experience,\u201d Beebe said.<\/p>\n
The Bankers Hill resident was recently chosen after a lengthy application and selection process. Later this summer, Beebe will step away from an eight-year stint as president of San Diego\u2019s Continuing Education program and right into the head post of San Diego City College.<\/p>\n
As one of four presidents in the San Diego Community College District, for the last eight years Beebe has steered an institution that serves over 85,000 students seeking education from 25 career and technical areas on seven different campuses located all over the county. He had a $30 million budget, 600 full and part time faculty, 100 classified as staff, nine deans and two vice presidents. While there, Beebe created a nonprofit, the Continuing Education Foundation, which in part offers student scholarships.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Continuing Education Program] is probably one of the most diverse institutions of its kind in the country,\u201d Beebe said. \u201cWe had about 142 different countries represented last spring and about 50 languages that were spoken across the seven campuses every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is as diverse as it gets, and according to Beebe, it\u2019s just one of the many perfect precursors to his new role as president of another multi-cultural institution.<\/p>\n
In addition to his teaching experience at the firefighting academy, Beebe also climbed the full ladder of instruction, eventually obtaining a doctorate in education \u2014\u00a0he has almost completed his second \u2014 but he said it was the community colleges he came in contact with throughout his life that made lasting impressions on him. In fact, his dissertation was an analysis of Oregon\u2019s community college system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recently told the board, in some ways I\u2019ve been training to be the president of City College my whole life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Taking a look at his resume, that is clearly an accurate statement.<\/p>\n Aside from all the higher education he\u2019s been involved with, he\u2019s been touched by five different community colleges and worked in six community college districts, holding such positions as faculty\/coordinator, director of continuing education, instructional dean, associate vice president of instruction, and vice president of instruction and student services before his presidency here, again with continuing education.<\/p>\n Despite his lucrative resume, San Diego City College’s next leader\u00a0remains humble about his path to success.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a typical academic, I don\u2019t think,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think of myself in that way in any way shape or form, anyway. Just through lessons of life. I just kind of prepared myself for this position. There are a lot of things I have yet to discover about City College but I am certainly excited to tackle the job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Community colleges in general have often gotten a \u201cbum rap\u201d in the education system hierarchy, but according to Beebe, there is much more than meets the eye, especially the pocketbook.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t always think of a community college first, they\u2019ll think of San Diego State or UC San Diego,\u201d Beebe said. \u201cBut community colleges are such a tremendous value for the community. In terms of being able to get started there, go to the first two years, get an associate and transfer on or go out into the world of work, and save yourself in the process a lot of money when you go through that.\u201d<\/p>\n Beebe said he recognizes that many shy away from returning to college, either because they had a bad experience at a college or university at some time in their life, or even had a bad experience in high school.<\/p>\n \u201cThe community college is all about helping people come back to that educational environment and they do so in a very warm and caring way.\u201d he said. \u201cWhich frankly is one of the things that drew me to community colleges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe educational experience you get at a community college \u2014 as the name implies \u2014 is all about community,\u201d Beebe continued. \u201cFor me, starting out at a community college really gave me the foundation in the learning community that I wanted in an education.\u201d<\/p>\n Beebe is taking the helm of City College in its Centennial year, having first opened in 1914 as an extension to San Diego High School. All community colleges originally grew out of the K-12 school districts, which is why Southwest as well as Grossmont and Cuyumaca colleges are not directly associated with Mesa, City and Miramar colleges.<\/p>\n Taking over the institution at this time in its history is personally significant to its new leader.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be president of City College on its 100 anniversary, knowing that the college has been modeled this way for more than 100 years, is an honor and a privilege beyond words,\u201d Beebe said.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a student of community colleges and am nostalgic about their mission,\u201d Beebe said.\u00a0\u201cIn 1901, Joliet Junior College was started in Illinois as the very first public community college in the United States. Of course, San Diego City College opened its doors in 1914, a mere 13 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that both Joliet and City colleges were part of the \u201ccommunity college movement,\u201d a social justice crusade that challenged the fact that higher education was only open to the elite and wealthy. The movement pushed to allow all the opportunity for higher education and the greatest change happened in the 1960s, he said, and the guise was \u201cif they have the willingness and capability, they should have that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCommunity colleges such as San Diego City College changed all of this in the democratization of higher education,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cThe doors to college were opened to a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, as the college continues to grow, expand and upgrade the campus infrastructure, Beebe sees its many advantages as an \u201curban college.\u201d Located just steps from the center of Downtown San Diego, Beebe feels it is important to deepen the relationships that exist between the campus and the surrounding neighborhoods of Downtown.<\/p>\n He also wants to further expand relationships with the City of San Diego and the San Diego Downtown Partnership. In addition, he has plans for a small business outreach initiative where he sees the college putting on seminars and conferences to help the small businesses grow stronger and more knowlegeable.<\/p>\n The history of social change at City College is quite meaningful to Beebe, and he said the college still has a responsibility today for continuing to effect social change. He plans to expand upon that ideology during his tenure and has already begun to reach out to faculty in advance of his arrival regarding his ideas.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really one of the cornerstones of my vision, to strengthen the advancement of that social change element,\u201d Beebe said. \u201cSo that not only are we teaching math, and we\u2019re teaching history, and we\u2019re teaching anthropology, and all the great sciences, but overarching all of that, we\u2019re also teaching students to be the change that we want to see in the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you stop and think of all the different issues that we\u2019re facing here in San Diego, whether it be homelessness, immigration, drop outs, gay rights issues, and on and on and on \u2026 I think it is beholden upon the community college, particularly one that is in the center of the city like City College is, to take a leadership role in framing some of those discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n Beebe takes over as president of San Diego City College August 1.<\/p>\n \u201cThe San Diego City College Story: A Centennial History\u201d is a hardbound book that tells the entire history of City College, including those days of social change. Once published the book will be available at the campus bookstore. It can be preordered now on the sdcity.edu<\/a> sitio web.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown News Editor<\/p>","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":236914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"San Diego\u2019s \u2018urban college\u2019 gets a new leader","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11600,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sdnews","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>