South Texas College Board Chair Rose Benavidez’s influence may have already extended to Washington having recently been elected the first Latina on the Association of Community College Trustees Board of Directors. Now she’s been named chair-elect of that body, which places her in a leadership role working with the White House.
The ACCT board serves in a national capacity, which advocates for thousands of community colleges across the nation, representing more than 6,500 elected and appointed trustees who govern over 1,200 community, technical and junior colleges in the United States and beyond.
Benavidez said she plans to use the platform to highlight the voices in the Rio Grande Valley at a national level.
“Having an opportunity to serve on the ACCT board, especially as the chair-elect, will give me an opportunity to create a platform that will not only address our local and regional issues in higher education, but will allow us to have a collective voice nationally that will ensure those priorities are funded and that our needs are not overlooked,” she said in a news release.
With direct dialogue with the White House and the Department of Education, Benavidez said she will ensure “we are not just addressing the needs of the institutions, but sharing the incredible story of South Texas College and the transformational impact it has in our community.”
She was first elected to the board for ACCT in 2017 representing its western region and has served as the chair of its diversity committee. She has also served as president of the National Association of Latino Community College Trustees.
Benavidez now follows in the footsteps of her father, the late Manuel Benavidez, who as a founding STC trustee served as chair of the diversity committee and received the ACCT Lifetime Membership Award for exemplary leadership in 2005.
“When I first became part of the board, I learned that my dad was part of the initial effort to promote passage of the DREAM Act when he was chair of the diversity committee,” she said in the release. “It is an incredible feeling to know that years later, as a member of the ACCT board, we are now working with the Administration and have taken that idea and moved it closer to becoming a reality.”
Benavidez has served on the STC Board of Trustees representing Starr County since November 2009 and currently serves as president of the Starr County Industrial Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded and supported by local government and business leaders committed to developing the local economy.
“We have always been a board and college that is all about community, and the fact that I have been able to have so much support and trust to take the most basic needs and quite frankly the most basic rights people have in being able to get an education has been an absolute honor,” she said in the release. “I’m humbled to be able to be at this point where I will help direct the national dialogue and highlight the wonderful community and people we serve.”
