Jorge Garcia

Dr. Jorge Garcia was born in 1943 and raised in the San Joaquin Valley. Growing up, he worked in agriculture with his family, and then attended California State University Fresno, where he earned his BA. While working towards his MA in Political Science, he was hired to teach for the Chicano Studies Department at San Fernando Valley State College. He began working towards his PhD at University of California, Riverside, while simultaneously teaching at CSUN. In 1981 he left CSUN to work on his dissertation and make money working on the family farm in the San Joaquin Valley. He returned to CSUN in 1984, earned his PhD in 1986, and was later selected as Dean of the School of the Humanities, becoming the first Mexican American to hold that position. He was instrumental in the creation of a bridge program that made it possible for students who might not otherwise have attended college to do so.