APTOS >> Cabrillo College’s Governing Board will soon make itself whole again after selecting a candidate this week to fill a seat that has been vacant since July.

With a unanimous vote delivered at its meeting Monday, the board selected Manuel Bersamin, a school administrator and former member of the Watsonville City Council, to fill the Area 5 seat for the remainder of the current term through November. The seat opened up after Martha Vega, a Watsonville planning commissioner and Pajaro Valley High School teacher, resigned in July after serving in the role for about 16 months.

The appointment is a historic one for the seven-voting-member governing body, as once Bersamin is sworn in next month, he’ll become the first Asian American and Filipino American to serve in the role in the school’s 65-year history, according to a Cabrillo release.

Vega beat out Bersamin and former Watsonville City Councilmember Rebecca Garcia for appointment to the seat in February of last year during another special session after the role was vacated by Felipe Hernandez who had recently been elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

Vega, after initially not publicly sharing her reasoning for stepping down, later posted on Facebook that the move reflected her “desire to open the opportunity for new voices and perspectives.”Bersamin has served as director of the Hartnell College Student Support Services programs since 2006 which recruit and provide supportive services to first generation, low-income students at the community college until they transfer to a four-year university. Before that, Bersamin was director of the College Assistance Migrant Program at CSU Monterey Bay, the director of the Early Academic Outreach Program at UC Santa Cruz and was an adjunct professor of Chicano and Latin American Studies at CSU Fresno.

“I’m so grateful to have someone on our Board of Trustees who has dedicated their entire career to serving first generation, low-income students,” said Cabrillo Governing Board Chair Dan Rothwell in the release. “As a Community College administrator and the second former faculty member to serve on our Board, Manuel knows firsthand what it means to really serve students, and I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Cabrillo’s Area 5 includes the southern portion of Freedom as well as the city of Watsonville, a local jurisdiction Bersamin is already very familiar with. Bersamin was on the Watsonville City Council from 2003-2011, including a stint as vice mayor in 2005 and mayor in 2006.

He is also familiar with Cabrillo College itself, as he began studying there in 1982 as a first generation, low-income student before transferring to UC Irvine to earn a bachelor’s degree in social ecology. From there, Bersamin went on to work as a migrant education counselor before turning his focus to college and university administration while attending Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. While at Stanford, he earned fellowships for a doctorate in higher education studies at the University of Arizona including research for how to improve access, retention and graduation rates for Latino, Black, Indigenous, and other students of color, or BIPOC.

“I’ve worked in higher education for 30 years, but what makes me unique is that I’ve also studied it as a student of higher education,” said Bersamin in the release. “I was a student at Cabrillo, and as a Watsonville resident, have watched Cabrillo for several years now. As it enters a perfect storm of declining community college enrollments statewide and rebounds from the CZU fires and the Pajaro floods, I know I have the expertise to help Cabrillo through these tough times, expand adult and noncredit education, and help the residents of Watsonville.”

After assuming the role in October, Bersamin will serve out the remainder of the current term for about a month until the Area 5 seat appears on the Nov. 5 ballot for a new four-year term. According to the release, Bersamin is running unopposed for the full term.