Vice Chancellor of Government Relations

Marlene L. Garcia

Vice Chancellor for Government Relations Marlene L. Garcia has close to 20 years experience working in the legislative arena. Currently, she is a gubernatorial appointee serving in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. In this capacity she is responsible for overseeing implementation of the board of governor’s legislative advocacy program for both the state and federal levels, and represents the community colleges before the state Legislature and the administration. Marlene also works with community college statewide constituencies in addressing key issues of importance to the system. In 2011, she was instrumental in helping gain legislative passage of the landmark transfer guarantee degree bill, SB 1440 (Padilla).

Prior to her work in the Chancellor’s Office, Garcia was a higher education policy consultant for the Senate Office of Research, the Senate Education Committee, and for then Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. She also was a legislative advocate for the California State University Government Relations Division.  

Garcia led the development of the Cal Grant entitlement program, which was signed into law and went into effect January 1, 2001. This program now guarantees hundreds of thousands of Cal Grant awards to needy students who meet academic standards upon graduation from high school.

Garcia has written a chapter for a publication titled: New Directions for Higher Education, Practitioners on Making Accountability Work for the Public (Fall 2006). She was featured in the 

Chronicle for Higher Education