Meet the Interim Vice President
By Bailey Vega
Primavera Arvizu, who was originally hired as a dean last April, is now the new Interim Vice-president of Student Services at Taft College. She has a master’s degree in counseling with a concentration in student affairs as well as twelve years of experience in higher education at both two and four year institutions. Before coming to TC, she worked at Bakersfield College for nearly a decade, and over the years her career has involved various responsibilities such as working with state and federal funding, engaging in advisory and outreach professions, and working as a program director and an administrator. In every job position, Arvizu’s goal has always been “to make sure students are successful,” she said.
Supporting students and ensuring their comfort and success is Arvizu’s highest priority. She describes herself as a “student advocate” and is passionate about connecting with the people who attend and work at Taft College. She strongly feels that she can associate with and provide assistance to students because she recalls very clearly what it was like to be one on a college campus for the first time. “I remember being a student on the BC campus and feeling so lost,” she said, noting that this feeling even brought her to tears at times. Because of this, one of her main goals as the vice president is to help students who may feel similar to the way she did, which inspires her to makes an effort to say hello to students on campus and to open conversations with those who may be feeling unsure of themselves in a college setting.
Our interim vice president really has a heart for working with people as further evidenced in her response to being asked what her favorite part about working at Taft College is: “The people here.” Since the responsibilities of Arvizu’s job center on student services and advising and supervising other faculty who head programs at the school, she takes advantage of the opportunity she has to make personal connections with others.
Although Arvizu’s position is interim, meaning she is the vice president until the college finds a person to fulfill the position permanently, she fully intends on building productive momentum in order to keep things going forward smoothly for Taft College students now and in the coming years. Concentrating on “moving the dial of student success,” “always asking what comes next” as well as being aware of the “student life-cycle” (what Arvizu describes as the different stages of being a student) are key points in her aim to continue making effective and positive progress at Taft College.
Arvizu’s enthusiasm for aiding and encouraging students on their various educational paths is summed up well in her statement of what her mission is for the school: “My vision for Taft College within student services is to focus on student success and moving the dial. And how do we do that? Well, we have to understand the student life-cycle; we have to understand their momentum points and which points in time in their student life-cycle we can enhance. [We also have to understand] barriers and obstacles we can try to remove so that students can be successful on campus. It’s the community, it’s the students, and it’s the people; it’s the staff and it’s the support that we provide to make it happen.”