Black Leaders Providing Support, Community for Students

By Luciana Chavez Special to Merced College

The work of the employees featured here—to improve how Merced College guides Black students, students of color, and anyone facing societal challenges toward college degrees—cannot stop. It will not stop.

That’s because college leaders have empowered these folks to examine data, create solutions and, if necessary, get into the weeds so the gains they’re now seeing for students of color do not stop.

In honor of Black History Month, we’re profiling Black leaders who are doing this work—like Travis Hicks, Dean of Humanities, Liberal Arts & Rising Scholars.

“As dean, you’re able to make the macro changes to help faculty improve and show off their talent,” he said. “The daily work is a little more energizing than in the classroom. It’s not better or worse, but you have to be ‘on’ all the time.”

Hicks, a Mathematics and Philosophy Professor, was one of three finalists chosen for the 2025 Black Educator Excellence (BEE) Awards, a statewide honor given to campus innovators by the African American California Community Colleges Trustees and Administrators (AACCCTA).

“Being named a finalist is a boost, not the award itself,” he said. “You get to meet people throughout the state who are doing the same things you are, with whom you can collaborate to change the system. And the testimonials from faculty and staff in the nomination, they’re very heartfelt. It makes me feel a little tied up inside.”

Hicks, a graduate of Howard University (bachelor’s), University of St. Thomas (bachelor’s) and Loyola Marymount University (master’s), is leading the effort at Merced College to make the Black Student Union more relevant and to further develop programs like Umoja, which leans on culturally relevant instruction, and A2MEND (African American Male Education Network & Development), which pushes mentorship and leadership training.

“In recent years, working with people like Victor Smith (English Professor), Joe Serena (Dean of Instruction for Allied Health & Public Safety) and Louis Foy (Assistant Director Of Equity), we’ve collaborated to bring more focused instruction through learning communities in the classrooms and by taking the students to conferences and showing them what it’s like to be a young professional Black person,” Hicks said.

“It’s hard to sustain that at a two-year institution. But the growth we’ve seen and the numbers we are serving now are amazing. It’s a joy to see those things grow and take hold in students’ lives.”

Hicks approaches his work with a nod to his past. He grew up in a good place with supportive parents. That allowed him to fulfill a dream to play some college basketball as a walk-on at Howard.

“I guess I was fortunate but it also always took a little bit of extra work for a Black man to succeed,” he said. “So, in my classrooms when I see one or two Black students, I’ll speak to them individually and say, ‘Hey, I was you.’

“Many times I thought I might be an imposter, that I didn’t belong. It’s hard to find a welcoming place. We’re trying to create that at Merced College, to mitigate for our own students the feeling of being an outsider. We create a community to give kids a connection. And then they can become what they want to become. There’s nothing better than that."

LaDenta Smith has just about seen it all as the Student Support Coordinator with Merced College’s CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids) program for 20 years.

Smith guides parent-students, who receive temporary state cash assistance, to take advantage of county services for which they also qualify like job training, childcare and transportation. Every day she supports adults who battle doubt and circumstance.

“I’m concerned about their education and well-being, so they gravitate to me when they’re on edge,” Smith said.

She has her own compelling story to tell when they show up at her door. Five years ago, a boss questioned whether having an associate degree was enough for coordinators like her to succeed. She got so angry, she went back to school to earn a B.A. from Grand Canyon University.

“When students say ‘I can’t do this anymore. I have kids. I’m too old,’ I laugh at them,” Smith said. “I really do. Then I tell them, ‘When I was 60, I got a B.A. with honors. You can do it.’”

Smith is a savvy leader. Three years ago, she and her colleagues found a way to make it easier to prove eligibility for CalWORKs. Since recipients must work hours for approved welfare-to-work activities each week, they also have to show proof to qualify.

“Before, if a student was on welfare, we could only rely on a referral from the county to serve them,” Smith said. “We had to wait for other people to do something. Now students can easily print out a form from the county website establishing their eligibility.”

Because of backlogs at the county getting verifications during COVID, CalWORKs enrollment dropped to 100. Since changing the process, Smith said the program is back to serving over 200 students.

Keep in mind that Smith—along with EOPS Student Support Coordinator Nora Martinez—is also part of the braintrust behind the Motivating Other Mothers (M.O.M.) group they launched together four years ago.

You can hear Smith’s pride when she mentions that one of their M.O.M. graduates is now a Student Service Assistant at the college, and some 15 CalWORKs graduates have returned to work at the college during her tenure.

Smith will turn 65 in June, but retirement will be someone else’s idea.

“The people here laugh when I say they will find me dead at my desk instead of me retiring,” said the grandmother of 11. “I have an honest passion to make sure the men and women who come here to receive cash aid are successful. I love what I do.”

As a Financial Aid Technician for five years, and having worked in that office for eight, Ashleigh Rice guides students who are applying for financial aid, checks their eligibility and, if if they don’t qualify, directs them to other financial resources.

Rice works with many students who land just above the income maximums for aid and still need help to pay for school, as well as many students of color—who comprise 80% of the student body—who qualify for aid but still need help. It’s creative work that never ends.

“I think I’ve grown a lot, from not really knowing if I was going to stay in my job here to becoming passionate about it,” Rice said. “It’s boosted my confidence.”

She shared the time when a female student came to her, overwhelmed because her parents wanted her to go to college but she didn’t. Rice remembered arriving at Merced College just as uncertain.

“I told her how I eventually found something that makes me happy, and she felt better about her decision to leave college and go to beauty school instead,” she said. “That story reminds me to see myself in each student I see.”

Rice also coordinates Merced College scholarships and works with benefactors to create them.

Since Merced College moved the scholarship application process online in 2021, it's easier for students to apply for them. When applications seem low, Rice can reach out to professors, deans and coaches to help encourage students to apply.

One application is then used to match students to scholarships for which they’re eligible. Five years ago, she processed 700 applications. This year, she processed 1,200.

Rice’s impact is growing in other ways.

“Some students don’t really see people who look like themselves in higher up positions,” she said. “When they do see a face like their own, like mine, it signals to them that they can succeed and advance in their work.”

Rice relentlessly removes obstacles for Merced College students because she’s modeling tenacity for her daughter, Kamrynn. She learned it herself from a duo of formidable Black women—mother La Tanya Love and grandmother Gladys Cooksey. She's grateful to all of them.

“They’re amazing,” she said.