Hornet Media and the Fullerton Observer interviewed Mark Lopez, running for the Area 5 position of the NOCCCD Board of Trustees, at a candidate forum at Fullerton College on Oct. 7, 2024. The Fullerton Observer reached out to all candidates running for this office for the opportunity to take part in a video interview at the forum and interviewed those who responded.
This video series is a joint production of the Fullerton Observer, a volunteer-run community newspaper, and Hornet Media, the student-run media outlets housed in the Fullerton College journalism program.
Interviews have been edited for length and clarity but have not been independently fact-checked.
View live coverage of local elections returns on Nov. 5, 2024, at 7 p.m. on Hornet Media’s YouTube channel @fchornetmedia
Video Transcript:
Hornet Media
What is your specific experience and background that makes you most qualified to be a member of the NOCCD Board of Trustees?
Mark Lopez
Well, I’ve been serving on the Anaheim Elementary School District Board of Trustees for the past six years, so I have a lot of experience with budgets, with personnel, with human resources, with large student population. I’m also a high school teacher, so I work with a lot of high school students in the area that feeds into the North Orange County Community College District. A lot of students end up enrolling and attending Fullerton or Cypress College. So I do have a lot of experience coming to the school sites and and working with my students as they’re transitioning into the higher education.
Hornet Media
And did you attend a community college? If so, where did you go? And what did you say? If not, what is your educational background?
Mark Lopez
I’ve taken a few classes at both Fullerton College and Santa Ana College during my undergrad. However, I did graduate from Cal State Fullerton for my bachelor’s degree in political science, my master’s degree in political science, and then I earned my teaching credential from Cal State Long Beach.
Hornet Media
How frequently do you come to Fullerton College, Cypress College or NOCE to meet students and talk with them about their needs?
Mark Lopez
Well, I don’t talk to a lot of current students about the issues that are affecting them directly. I do have some of my former students who now attend community college here, and I do keep in touch with some of them, and frequently have a lot of field trips here as well. And I’ve also come here to see a lot of their CTE pathways that we have at Fullerton College in particular.
Hornet Media
With the increasing cost of living, what initiatives will you advocate for to improve college affordability and access to financial aid for students?
Mark Lopez
I think a lot of it is working with our state and federal representatives and advocating for some of the programs that already exist. A lot of students may not even know about a lot of scholarships grants that
are available and how to apply for them. So I think working with the students and connecting them to the place where they need to be in order to access those funds is number one. And then, as I said, secondly, is working with our state and federal representatives to try to allocate more funding and being an advocate for our students to try to support our current population that we have.
Hornet Media
Given the rising mental health challenges among students, how do you plan to enhance mental health services and support systems, such as scholarships, housing support, meals and academic support services within our colleges?
Mark Lopez
Well at our campuses, we currently have, at the health and wellness centers, a lot of mental health counselors that are there now, and I think a lot of students may not be aware of that, and so promoting the resources that are already available would be the first step beyond that, housing, meals, other issues that our students face in their day to day lives could be another source of stress, and that could cause them some mental health concerns. So I think how we address that is looking again at some of the grants that might be available and trying to connect them to the services here regionally that could support them,
Hornet Media
Both Fullerton College Faculty and Classified Senate say the main thing that can improve student enrollment is hiring more full time faculty and full time counselors. Students agree that insufficient full time staff leads to delays and misinformation for them. Do you support the hiring of more full time faculty and staff in the district?
Mark Lopez
Yes, I support full time faculty and counseling counselors to be hired as long whatever is feasible within the budget, I think that’s what we should do to better serve our students class size and being able to make sure that our classes are available for students to complete them and be able to either earn their certificate or transfer as expeditiously as possible, it should be our goal.
Hornet Media
There have been debates on the Board of Trustees over what flags can be flown on campus, and the proposal of the phrase “dismantle oppressive institutional structures” in the mission statement, how will you advocate for equity initiatives within the district to address issues like systemic racism and discrimination affecting students?
Mark Lopez
I think that’s something where we have to examine our shared governance structure and making sure that we have stakeholders representatives on all of our different committees that we have and make sure their input is being heard, because we exist in our lived experience and we don’t have the benefit of others’ perspectives unless we talk to them. I think that our student representatives on, the board currently are a great resource, but I want to make sure we can expand that to bring in, as I said, other stakeholders into these different committees to hear what other resources would help them directly.
Hornet Media
Fullerton College Campus Safety has requested that its officers be able to carry an ASP, an expandable baton for self-protection. Do you agree that they should carry and ask which is technically a weapon, or do you think officers should be should only be allowed to carry pepper spray, which is the current policy, and should focus mainly on deterrence, presence and community engagement?
Mark Lopez
I think that’s something that should be examined a little more closely. I think that pepper spray could also be considered a weapon in many cases, and sometimes that, depending on where it’s utilized, it could whether it’s indoors or outdoors. It could have unintended consequences in the current policy of not necessarily just targeting the intended individual, but it could also create health concerns for innocent bystanders or the security officer themselves. The same could be said for any other weapon that our officers are equipped with, because that could be used against them as well. So I think there needs to be some more examination of it, some training, what the liability concerns might be, but I’m open to making sure that we have safety as our top concern.
Hornet Media
What do you see as the biggest challenge in opportunities facing NOCCCD in the next few years?
Mark Lopez
I think that public safety and safety on our campus is probably one of the bigger concerns, just because if students and faculty don’t feel safe on campus, then there’s no teaching and no learning that’s going to be taking place. So we want to make sure everybody feels safe and secure, first of all, and secondly, I think there are a lot of both challenges and opportunities right now in terms of making sure that our students can afford to attend classes here, that they can graduate, they can transfer to the university that they would like to transfer to for their program or complete their certificate here, and acquiring the funding that would help them to be able to do that, I think is important. And I think preparing them for jobs that may not exist right now is another important thing. And looking at the future, what jobs might exist in the next 5, 10, or 15 years.