Dr. Maria Ferrier, Interim President of Texas A&M University–San Antonio, uses her personal story to inspire others to succeed.
Her life is a journey a journey from wife to mother, mother to provider and provider to student. Her story is a mirror a mirror of the struggles of any single parent, working full time to put food on the table and going to school part time to plan for the future. But her legacy is this journey and this story that encourage others just like her to strive for more, work for more and in the end, be more.
Plainly put Dr. Maria Ferrier is an inspiration. An inspiration to single parents wanting to further their education in hopes of providing a better life for their children, an inspiration to college–goers over 30 who finally have the means and desire to go to college, but above all, she’s an inspiration to people everywhere no matter their age, gender or socioeconomic status that college is possible.
As the newly named interim president of Texas A&M University–San Antonio, Dr. Ferrier is embracing her inspirational aura to stress to others that education is the key to success.
“What my mom does gives me goose bumps,” says Ferrier’s daughter, Cynthia Ponce–Marshall. “People, no matter where they live, deserve and need opportunities and my mom is helping to bring this realization that education is possible right in their back yard.”
Her Story
“Maria, why don’t you go to college,” Carol Tuell says.
“I’m not college material.”
“Yes you are.”
This small, yet impacting conversation was the beginning of Dr. Ferrier’s path to success.
“All it took was for one person to believe that I was college material,” Dr. Ferrier says reflecting back on that defining moment in her life. “I grew up in a wonderful, loving home, but in the 50s it was not an expectation and there certainly wasn’t a push for women to go to college.”
At the time, Ferrier was working as an aide in a child development center, working with profoundly mentally challenged children.
“The director of the center was a wonderful woman named Carol Tuell,” Ferrier says. “She was a speech pathologist and was charged with diagnosing and prescribing speech therapy for each child. My job was to change diapers, feed and implement the speech therapy program that was prescribed for each child.”
During this time, Tuell recommended to Ferrier that she go to college. At first, Ferrier was a bit hesitant to take her advice.
“I grew up in San Antonio’s west side barrio where love and faith abounded but money did not, and yet, I had no idea that we were poor,” she says. “As was the custom for poor Mexican girls in the 50s there was no expectation that I would ever go to college, indeed, the subject never even came up. I was to finish high school, get married, have children, and be a good wife and mother. And I did. Yet at the age of 30, I found myself alone, now a single mom with two young children to raise and no education.”
Although the thought of college seemed unnatural at first, with a little push from Tuell, who she now refers to as her mentor, the right choice was evident.
“Carol was relentless and finally asked me that if she were able to find a way to help me pay for a semester at San Antonio College, would I give it a try,” Ferrier remembers. “I was making minimum wage and providing for my children was a challenge, so with fear and trembling I accepted her wonderful offer.”
Ferrier remembers her first day of college.
“That first day at SAC was a true revelation,” Ferrier says as her eyes beam with excitement. “All of a sudden it was as if the Lord had opened my mind and I understood everything the professor was saying. I went on to make A’s and a tremendous love of learning was born.”
And some 30 years later, Ferrier is the interim president of A&M–San Antonio with a bachelor’s degree in speech, a master’s degree in counseling and a doctorate in educational administration.
Her story is a story she likes to tell others as a means of inspiration.
“So many of our students have experienced what I experienced,” she says. “They have had many of life’s experiences that left them doubting themselves and yet they are bright, capable and caring. They know that education is the key to the American dream for themselves and their families. They found the courage and jumped right in with both feet. They are on their way!”
A Southside Dream
“It is my dream to help bring a Texas A&M University System campus to the south side of San Antonio to provide all children an opportunity to receive a quality college education regardless of where they live,” Frank Madla once said.
As the interim president, Ferrier is the driving force behind making the late Senator Madla’s dream come true.
When Ferrier came to the university as the executive director in 2008, it wasn’t long before her guidance and leadership guided the university to a 63 percent growth in enrollment from spring 2008 to spring 2009. These achievements ultimately aided the passing of Senate Bill 629 enabling A&M–San Antonio to become a stand–alone university. In addition, $40 million in tuition revenue bonds were allocated for the university to build its first building on the near 700–acre site located on San Antonio’s south side near Zarzamora and Loop 410.
Ferrier is adamant that she stands on the shoulders of so many others who have fought long and hard to turn Madla’s dream into a reality.
“Beginning with the dream of the late Senator Frank Madla and then continued with the work of Senator Carlos Uresti and Representative, Joe Farias, we have had a great deal of support from our Bexar County elegation, the city of San Antonio, the county, our chambers, the TAMUS Board of Regents, TAMUS Chancellor, Dr. Mike McKinney and all of those who love this city and understand the need for a public university on the south side,” Dr. Ferrier says.
Dr. Ferrier has very high hopes for the A&M–San Antonio campus, which is scheduled to open in 2011.
“The campus itself will have a mission, Spanish–like look,” Ferrier says as she proudly points to the campus specs on her wall. “We want it to reflect San Antonio and who we are. We want Texas A&M–San Antonio to be a destination campus where people say, This is where I want to get my education, this is where I want my kids to get their education,’ because it’s welcoming, warm and it says San Antonio.”
As for the university itself, Ferrier is confident that students will receive a first class education an education where the graduate, once the employer sees that they graduated from A&M–San Antonio, will be their candidate of choice because of the high quality education that the employer knows that student received.
“My ultimate goal is for A&M–San Antonio to be a world–class university serving the South Region of Texas and beyond,” Ferrier says, “A university that is a major player in the Texas Higher Coordinating Board’s Closing the Gaps initiative bringing the dream of higher education to a talented yet underserved segment of our great state.”
In addition, Ferrier also plans to focus heavily on teacher preparation as a means to lower the dropout rate in San Antonio.
“With our area having such a high dropout rate, we know that we as universities have a role to play,” she says. More and more, especially in areas that have been neglected for some time and in pockets of our region where parents have not had the opportunity for an education or where parents themselves find school settings intimidating, sometimes children begin their elementary education without some of the experiences that children from affluent families have,” she says.
“Every parent at every socioeconomic level wants the best for their children, its just some are more experienced than others. When we look at the dropout problem, we have to stop blaming families and our society and start looking at ourselves at the university level and how we are preparing our teachers at all levels to work in those environments.”
Ferrier believes high expectations for teachers will result in high expectations for students.
“Too often we have low expectations of students who come from a lower socioeconomic status and thus it becomes a self–fulfilling prophecy, instead of having well–prepared teachers who can reach all students and help them be academically successful,” she says. “This is something we at higher education have control over. We don’t have control over children’s experiences in the home, but we do have control over what happens in the classroom in the six to seven hours while they are at school.”
Through the university, Ferrier hopes to implement what she thinks is the cure for the dropout rate in San Antonio.
“If we can give teachers the tools they need to get their students to reach real academic success, this will create true self esteem and a desire for education for these students, which will turn the dropout rate around,” she says. “This will result in a ripple effect that will create that college–going culture that we so desperately need in our region.”
Ferrier is confident that these goals can be reached with her staff by her side.
“I know that no success comes from any one person,” she says. “It is a team of committed individuals with the same vision and drive to make things happen. When a leader looks for people’s strengths and builds on those rather focusing on perceived weaknesses, real progress can be made in an effective and efficient way.”
The real progress Ferrier refers to is the better preparation of students for the work force.
“It is not about us, it is about our students and the tax payers who have entrusted us with ensuring that our graduates have the skills and knowledge that our educational, governmental, civic and business communities need,” she says. “That, after all of their sacrifice to earn a degree, they actually have a job.”
Marilu Reyna, director of Public Relations and Marketing at A&M–San Antonio, was one of the first people Dr. Ferrier hired when she came to the university in 2008.
“Right away I could tell that she is an inspirational director and motivational leader with very distinct qualities that stand out,” she says. “She leads by example I truly believe that she wouldn’t ask someone to do something that she wouldn’t do herself. She’s a visionary, which is something that is very evident based on the tremendous growth we’ve seen at the university in such a short amount of time. She has a great deal of experience in public relations and fundraising, and has amazing leadership skills all of which are a combination of traits that are not only desirable, but in this day in age, essential for a university president.”
Though Ferrier has a resume that is highly impressive with years upon years of leadership experience at the local, state and national levels in the area of education, her genuine concern for those around her is far more impressive and reflective of her kind, caring and passionate demeanor.
“I was really downright scared when I first started going to school because it was really intimidating, but knowing that I truly couldn’t provide for my children making minimum wage gave me the courage, along with Carol’s belief in me and my faith in God, to do it,” Ferrier says. “I want to motivate other single mothers by my own story. If I who never dreamed that I was college material can do it, you can certainly do it. Too often young women sell themselves short. My desire is to help them believe in themselves just like Carol Tuell helped me believe in myself.”
