Growing up, Melanie Dixon never pictured herself pursuing a career in education. She regularly found herself rushing to get out of school. Dixon, who grew up in Portland, Oregon, recalled her challenges in education due to violence in her community during the early 90s.
“A lot of the young folks that I grew up with were individuals that were turned out, as they would say, or mixed into gangs. There was a lot of shootings, there was a lot of deaths,” Dixon said. “I’ve lost two of my friends in the same year […] I didn’t feel comfortable going there and ultimately detached from school.”
But when she enrolled at Portland Community College (PCC), things began to flip. This decision sparked a chain reaction that inspired her to immerse herself in the world of education.
Dixon would eventually transfer to Portland State University (PSU). Today she is the President of College of Alameda, and hopes to become a role model for students.
“The experience and the opportunities that the two year [college] can provide are very personal, because for me, they allowed me to overcome poverty,” she said.
Early education against the odds
Dixon’s first experience in a community college environment came when she was a toddler in her hometown of Portland.
Dixon was raised by her mother alongside her two siblings in the Portland metropolitan area. While her mother attended Portland Community College, Dixon received a preschool education at the college’s Child Development Center.
In high school, Dixon dropped out and opted to pursue a GED at PCC. Later, she re-enrolled to pursue an A.A.T. in Communications. There, Dixon met a math professor named Matthew Funk who showed her she could be an academic.
“He, I think, turned on the light for me,” Dixon said. “That began spinning the wheels around my academic identity.”
At 27 years old, Dixon transferred from PCC to PSU. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications. She returned to Portland State to receive her master’s degree in postsecondary education.
Journey from Oregon to California
Shortly after graduating, Dixon was hired at PSU in 2009 where she held multiple positions during her tenure. She started as Assistant Director for Diversity Recruitment and later transitioned to a position as a student services coordinator. There, she assisted students from underrepresented backgrounds with academic career planning.
“I began to realize the importance that relationships played in students not only understanding how to navigate an institution of higher education, but also seeing themselves,” Dixon said. “That’s what pulled me into the classroom, […] this notion of social justice and equity.”
Dixon chose to move to California in part because of the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act, which required California community colleges to provide resources for student success like counseling, academic assessment, and education planning.
“My interest was to figure out if I could do really great work in another state,” she said.
In 2014, she started working at the Los Rios Community College District in Sacramento. There, Dixon met former colleague Devoun Steward, the current Vice President of Instruction at Sacramento City College. He told The Citizen that the most striking thing about Dixon was how closely she ties herself with the campus communities.
Steward met Dixon in 2018 when he was a faculty member. At the time, she served as the Interim Vice President of Student Services at the college. Steward said that Dixon was known to walk up to any passerby on campus and engage in deep conversation.
“She knows everybody and everybody knows her,” he recalled. “Everybody wants to go up to her and give her a hug, and students really gravitated to her.”
President of Folsom Lake College Artemio Pimentel also worked with Dixon at Los Rios. He said that Dixon supported students who were entering the workforce and established assistance programs such as basic needs services.
“It’s a real privilege that we have someone like Melanie in the [community college] system,” Pimentel remarked.
Dixon became president of American River College in Jan. 2021, but left the position in Dec. 2022 and temporarily moved back to Portland due to family complications, she said.
During that time she served as Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, Washington.
Dixon said that the variety of opportunities presented by a two-year college are particularly important for communities of color. In her experience, the key to escaping poverty “isn’t necessarily always pursuing [an] upper division degree […] sometimes it’s pursuing a certificate in a particular field.”
Continuing the dream at CoA
As she steps into a new chapter this year as CoA president, the long and winding road of her career finds her as passionate and enthused for the field as ever.
“As a leader that is compelled to serve and change people’s lives through the mechanism of California community college systems, CoA was a really great opportunity for me to be at what I felt like was the epicenter of this particular work,” Dixon said.
Dixon hopes to increase CoA’s enrollment back to pre-pandemic levels, expand dual-enrollment, and increase transfer rates to boost the college’s state funding under the new Student Centered Funding Formula for California Community Colleges, which in part rewards colleges that give out more degrees.
“We’re looking to the future to ensure that our students that graduate from us are able to get high wage earning careers in the jobs of the future,” Dixon said.
Correction 12/12/24: This story was updated to correct the title of Artemio Pimentel.
