New Long Beach City College president helps students overcome obstacles

EdSource

December 21, 2021

Michael Burke

Mike Muñoz is a success story of the California Community Colleges.

The incoming superintendent-president of Long Beach City College, Muñoz himself was in community college for five years in the 1990s, attending East Los Angeles College and Fullerton College before earning his degree and transferring to the University of California Irvine.

As a student, Muñoz faced many of the obstacles and circumstances that face today’s most vulnerable community college students. He was housing insecure, moving 11 times after graduating from high school and while in community college, going from his parents’ house to his aunt’s to his grandparents’ before jumping around several friends’ homes. He was also a first-generation college student and a student parent, raising his daughter as he worked toward his degrees.

More than 20 years after transferring to UC Irvine in 2000, Muñoz was named superintendent-president this month of Long Beach City College. He starts in the role Jan. 1. He’s currently the college’s interim superintendent-president and was also previously the college’s vice president of student services.

As superintendent-president, Muñoz wants to help students find success like he did and said a major component to accomplishing that is to help students with their basic needs, like housing. Under his leadership as interim president, Long Beach City College has already piloted a program that allows students living in their cars to park in on-campus parking structures overnight.

In an interview with EdSource, Muñoz discussed additional plans he has to help students with housing, child care and more. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

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