{"id":154552,"date":"2024-02-28T09:27:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=154552"},"modified":"2024-02-28T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T18:01:07","slug":"carlos-garcia-reflects-on-decades-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=154552","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Garc\u00eda reflects on decades of service"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Carlos Garc\u00eda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After many roles in higher education and several years devoted to helping students and his community, Carlos Garc\u00eda is ready to enjoy a well-earned retirement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garc\u00eda first joined the Mountain Lion family as Associate Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance in March 2016, and in December 2017 transitioned to Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success and Auxiliary Services. He then took over as Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs before officially taking on the role in 2020 and has served in it since. Despite being a full-time Vice Chancellor, he also briefly took on additional duties as Acting Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance for four months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I feel very fortunate that I was able to have a career where the main focus of my job was to help others succeed,” Garc\u00eda said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And help he has – in his multiple roles, Garc\u00eda’s provided executive leadership to an impressive variety of student support services and auxiliary services on campus, including Academic Advising, Student and Family Connections, Career Services, M.O.S.A.I.C., Office of Student Life, Student Leadership Programs, Veterans & Military Student Affairs, Disability Services & Testing Center, Dean of Students Office, International Student Affairs, Intercollegiate Athletics the Bookstore, Copy Center, Vending, the UCCS Farm, Residence Life and Housing, Family Development Center, University Center and Conference Services, Ent Center for the Arts, TheatreWorks, the Galleries of Contemporary Art, Student Health Center, Counseling Center, Wellness Promotions Programs, Campus Recreation, Dining and Hospitality Services, Division and Auxiliary Finance and Division Assessment – just to name a few. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With these many partnerships, it’s no surprise that the collaboration opportunities on campus, and his colleagues, are some of Garc\u00eda’s favorite things about working at UCCS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The \u200bpeople \u200bI \u200bwork \u200bwith \u200bhere\u200b \u200bare \u200breally \u200bvested \u200bin \u200bthe \u200bstudent population \u200band \u200bwant \u200bwhat’s \u200bbest \u200bfor \u200bthem,” Garc\u00eda said. “It’s \u200balso easier \u200bto \u200bcollaborate \u200bwith \u200bfolks \u200bhere \u200bthan \u200bit \u200bis \u200bat \u200bother universities I’ve worked at, which is something I love about UCCS.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with his executive leadership expertise, Garc\u00eda served on the campus emergency operations policy group and COVID Incident Management Team, co-lead the campus response to COVID-19, chaired the Significant Events Team while leading large-scale campus events, acted as liaison for the Air Force ROTC program with CU Boulder\u2019s Detachment 105, implemented mandatory diversity training for all Student Affairs staff and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he’s looking forward to retirement and his next chapter, Garc\u00eda looks back fondly on his time at UCCS and the people he’s spent many hours working closely with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve \u200bgotten \u200bto \u200bknow \u200bmy \u200bteam \u200band the people I work with on a regular basis really \u200bwell,\u200b\u200b and \u200bI’m \u200bgoing \u200bto \u200bmiss \u200bthem,” he said. “\u200bThey’re \u200bgreat \u200bpeople. \u200bThey take their work seriously, \u200bbut have \u200ba \u200bgood \u200btime \u200bdoing \u200bit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before joining the UCCS staff, Garc\u00eda was already part of the CU community as Boulder’s Executive Director of the University Memorial Center. Both of Garc\u00eda’s children are CU Boulder grads, with their time as students even overlapping with his tenure there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garc\u00eda also served as Director of Union and Housing at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he earned both his undergraduate degree and his Master of Arts with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration. Prior to this, he was Union Operations Manager at the University of North Texas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garc\u00eda has accumulated many awards and recognitions over the years through both his career and community and volunteer efforts. During his years at CU Boulder, he received the 2016 Boulder Marinus Smith Award and the 2013 Interfraternity Council Special Recognition Award. He also had an student leadership scholarship, named the Carlos Garc\u00eda UMC Director\u2019s Scholarship, established in his honor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From his time as a National Association of College Auxiliary Services (NACAS) Board of Directors president, he won the 2023 Silver Torch Award, 2023 West Regional Mentor of the Year and 2020 Robert F. Newton Distinguished Service Award. For his work with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), he earned the 2024 Emeritus Award, Region 13 Pat Moonen Outstanding Service Award in 2011, the 2006 Board of Trustees Appreciation Award and Region 12 Appreciation Award for 1993 \u2013 1996. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of his career accolades and efforts in higher education, Garc\u00eda has been a devoted community member and volunteer for decades. He has acted as a youth recreation league coach for several sports, served the Boys Scouts of America as a merit badge counselor, Eagle Scout mentor and Assistant Scoutmaster, participated in several other local volunteer initiatives and is a Certified Auxiliary Services Professional (CASP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Garc\u00eda plans to spend as much time as possible with his wife and family and fill his newfound free time with traveling and camping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In \u200bthe \u200bpast, \u200bwe had \u200bto \u200bwait \u200buntil the \u200bweekend \u200bto \u200bgo \u200bcamping,” he laughed. \u200b”Now \u200bwe \u200bcould \u200bleave \u200bon \u200ba \u200bTuesday \u200band \u200bget \u200bthe \u200bbest \u200bspots. I’m \u200blooking \u200bforward to just \u200bbeing \u200bable \u200bto \u200bdedicate \u200btime \u200bfor \u200bus \u200bto \u200bdo \u200bfun \u200bstuff and travel.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After many roles in higher education and several years devoted to helping students and his community, Carlos Garc\u00eda is ready to enjoy a well-earned retirement. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":154595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,49],"tags":[44,331,51,368],"class_list":["post-154552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-campus-announcements","tag-administration-and-finance","tag-campus-announcements","tag-featured","tag-student-affairs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Carlos-Collage-v2-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-EcM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154552"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154594,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154552\/revisions\/154594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/154595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}