Rabecca Rogers
The Corsair
For years, Martin Gonzalez has been in the educational field. He has worked for many schools in the past, as a teacher, dean, and administrator. He has traveled to many cities for numerous jobs in the educational field.
His latest position is the Vice President of Instructional Affairs at Pensacola State College. Now, Gonzalez is in his final weeks at the college, as he will be retiring at the end of this semester.
But before he worked his way to VP status, he began as a math and science teacher in Biloxi, Miss. There he taught children in the middle school for three years. He then went on to the world of manufacturing as an human resources manager and later on, he went back to graduate school where he pursued his master’s degree in Business Administration at Delta State in Cleveland, Miss.
After receiving his master’s, Gonzales taught at Ouachita Baptist University, a church related liberal arts university in Arkadelphia, Ark. Finally, after teaching for ten years at OBU, Gonzalez and his wife decided to locate to Columbus, Miss. According to Gonzalez, there were really only two major reasons why he decided to move there; one was because they had a job for him, and the other was because there was an opportunity for his wife to get her master’s degree in Dietetics.
“I’ve had four wonderful places to live in my career. I liked teaching middle school, I liked teaching at Ouachita Baptist University, and of course here,” Gonzalez said.
After teaching in Columbus for some time, Gonzalez and his wife decided to try Pensacola.
“I applied for the job at Pensacola State, didn’t think I’d get it because so many people wanted to move to Florida, but luckily I did and we moved,” Gonzalez said. “The main reason I had an interest in coming to Pensacola State was that they had a job comparable to the job I had where I was before, and we kept coming here on vacation, so we thought it would be really cool to live at the beach.”
Gonzalez’s life at what was then Pensacola Junior College started in 1988 as the head of the Business Department and he has been with the college for 24 years.
“To young people it’s a long time. To old people like me, it seems like yesterday,” Gonzalez joked.
After six years in that position, he then became provost of the Pensacola Campus in 1994, and in July 2002 he became the provost of the Milton Campus. Finally, three years ago he began his latest position as Vice President of Instructional Affairs.
“Now I’m basically an enabler or an assistant to helping all departments have all the resources, whether its human resources, physical resources, supplies, computer equipment, or any other equipment they need to conduct their classes and students,” Gonzalez said.
In his current position, Gonzalez has plenty of work to do each day. His position is over all instructional programs at the college, including college credit courses, vocational courses, continuing educational courses, basically everything the college offers.
Over the last 24 years, Gonzalez has seen many changes. According to Gonzalez, the college has made many transitions for the better.
“I feel the institution has progressed very well. Enrollment has increased, the variety of programs have expanded tremendously, and the quality of programs have been enhanced both equipment-wise , and instructional-wise, so I am very pleased with the transitions we’ve made over the years that I’ve been here,” he said.
And not only is Mr. Gonzalez a very hard worker, he’s also been an avid student while working in schools. Over the years, Gonzalez has taken courses while simultaneously teaching them.
“I’ve always enjoyed being a student, and I’ve always enjoyed learning,” he said.
Now that Gonzalez is retiring, he plans on taking more courses relating to his hobbies. His other plans for retirement include visiting with his grandchildren for the summers.
“There are two reasons why I think it’s time for me to retire,” he said. “One is my age – I’m 66 years old. I’ve worked continuously and have been in school since I was 15 years old. Another reason I would like to retire is that I have two grandchildren living in Chicago and I would like to see them grow up and know who I am. I think it’s very important to do that now rather than later.”
Gonzalez has enjoyed every bit of his time at Pensacola State.
“It’s provided me a great opportunity to work with wonderful people here at the college,” he said. The faculty and staff have been absolutely amazing. The students have been great; I think we provide a wonderful service for our community for the students.”
While working at the college, Gonzalez has been faced with many trials, giving him more experience and knowledge with each trial he’s been through.
“It’s given me many good challenges working here at Pensacola State, and has enabled me to develop new academic programs here,” he said.
A new Vice President of Instructional Affairs has not been named, but he or she most definitely will have some hard-earned shoes to fill.