PUBLISHED: April 9, 2026 at 12:57 PM PDT
A love of science at Terra Linda High School led Emberly López Escobar to Dominican University of California to study biology. A service-learning placement at RotaCare, the health clinic caring for low-income patients, inspired her to add a second major in social justice.
A first-year student, López Escobar is already making an impact in the community and in her field — advancing housing justice through an initiative with nonprofit Canal Alliance and performing lab research about the impact of ocean acidification on crabs.
Sulgi Kim knew little English in her first year at San Rafael High School. Within three years, she moved from English language development class to advanced-placement English. Kim brought that fierce work ethic to Dominican — and discovered how far she could go.
Interning with the Marin County Office of Equity and working for an immigration services firm (founded by a Dominican alumna) provided Kim fresh insight into addressing social disparities. Building on that learning, she enjoyed in-depth tutorials on international law and politics when she was selected to attend the University of Oxford through the Dominican “Scholars at Oxford” program. Kim’s undergraduate experiences reinforced her goal to pursue a career in immigration law.
Across the United States, higher education is in turmoil. The high school graduate population is shrinking, public skepticism about the value of a college degree is growing, and an affordability crisis is making higher education feel less accessible for many families.
What’s often overlooked in the headlines is the impact a university has on the vitality of its local community. When universities close (as many have in the Bay Area recently), so do opportunities for local communities to access pathways to social mobility.
Dominican has been central to the Marin community for more than 130 years. Our community partners — nonprofits, businesses and government agencies — are critical to our work, serving as co-educators. In turn, our alumni often come to know them as employers.
Dominican is the only four-year university in Marin offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. We develop, intentionally, programs to meet our community’s specific needs for an educated workforce. That’s why you will find Dominican alumni working in every local school and hospital. Marin’s small business ecosystem and local government is powered in no small part by Dominican graduates.
In the mid-2010s, our student profile was changing remarkably. Our learners were reflecting the growing diversity of our state, looking like the future of the country. We invested in developing academic and co-curricular community programming to meet the distinctive needs of a new generation of learners.
We built an educational experience that, today, places Dominican among a small group of colleges and universities nationally that have refocused around a clear vision for hands-on learning with community partners, personalized mentoring and life-skills development.
Thanks to that foresight and our learners’ admirable drive, our students’ strong outcomes continue to impress. Dominican’s four-year graduation rate is now almost 30 percentage points higher than the California State University system. We have almost eliminated the achievement gap between Latino and non-Latino students (the statewide gap is about 12%, compared to Dominican’s 1%). And we’re moving the social mobility dial. The U.S. Department of Education’s “college scorecard” shows median earnings for Dominican alumni who received federal aid as students is $95,437, significantly higher than the $60,428 midpoint for all U.S. colleges.
And our impact in the community continues to grow.
Every semester, our nursing students perform more than 11,000 hours in clinical placements and preceptorships at local health facilities. Our counseling psychology students complete practicums with more than 50 community agencies and schools. About 500 undergraduates participate annually in service-learning courses with about 25 community partners.
Higher education is imperiled, but we are up for the challenge — exploring new opportunities to enhance our students’ education and remain a force for good in our community.
We are calling on you — our neighbors, partners and champions — to recognize and invest in Dominican’s value to our region. Join us in delivering opportunity and critical service to Marin’s today and tomorrow.
Nicola Pitchford has been president at San Rafael’s Dominican University of California since 2021.
