CSUMB student wins top CSU Trustees’ Award

By Mark Muckenfuss

After years of working quietly on her own, putting in long hours and navigating challenges independently, Marlene Ramirez said she feels grateful and humbled to suddenly be in the spotlight. 

Ramirez, a Master of Social Work student at Cal State Monterey Bay, has received one of the highest awards available to students in the CSU system. She is this year’s CSU Trustee Emeritus Ali C. Razi Scholar.

Each year, the CSU Board of Trustees recognizes one student at each of the CSU campuses with the CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement. Those students are then considered for several emeritus scholarships, including the Razi scholarship. By receiving that award, Ramirez’ scholarship rose from $7,000 to $18,000. 

“At Cal State Monterey Bay, we believe education transforms families and communities. Graduate Social Work student Marlene Ramirez embodies this Otter spirit,” said CSUMB President Vanya Quiñones. “Marlene’s own personal history allows her to meet people where they are with compassion and empathy, showing them that even those who have faced difficult circumstances can still build a better life for themselves and their families through education."

"I truly appreciate this recognition,” Ramirez said. “It has lifted me up and motivates me to keep going."

Ramirez is not only a full-time student, but also a child welfare social worker with the Monterey County Department of Social Services, where she has served for over 12 years. She is also the founder of Marlene’s Community Connections, an online social platform that offers consulting services and collaborates with individuals, agencies, businesses and community organizations to improve access to social and community resources.

Ramirez feels she is effective in her work because she has walked the same paths many of her clients are on.

“I was born and raised on the east side of Salinas,” she said. “My community faced many challenges, including financial hardship, systemic barriers and the daily struggles of raising children. These conditions often contributed to substance abuse, gang involvement, domestic violence, frequent police presence and a lack of trust in systems.”

On a personal level, she said, “I had a lot of early childhood experiences that impacted me, and I didn’t have the coping strategies or the support that I needed. It led me to a path that wasn’t constructive. I was repeating the cycles I was seeing.”

She had her first child at 15 and a second two years later. After graduating from high school, she said she went through a difficult period of making choices that created a lot of hardship in her life. In time, she began to learn from her mistakes and create a better path forward. 

In the work world, she said, “I was around people who saw my potential and they would say, ‘Marlene, you have a good head on your shoulders, you should go back to school.’”

She didn’t want her own children to face the same future she was looking at.

“I realized things needed to change,” she said. “I could sit here and complain and be a victim, or I could do something about it. I could do something to become someone who can really help our community and someone who represents us.”

She enrolled at Heald College, earning a business degree. However, when the school later shut down amid widespread closures of for-profit colleges, she found herself one of many students left with a large amount of student loan debt and a degree that meant little to other institutions. She learned her credits could not be transferred to a university. 

Her debt was eventually forgiven through a federal relief program. But getting the education she needed meant almost starting from scratch. 

Instead of going to CSUMB as she had hoped, she enrolled in Hartnell College, she said, and “spent time redoing a lot of the work I had already done.”

It didn’t diminish the love she had developed for education nor her determination. And when she finally made it to CSUMB, it felt like a huge payoff.

“When I walked on campus the first time, I was so relieved,” she said. “I had worked so hard to get there. It was very surreal and exciting. It was exciting for me to show my kids that we keep trying no matter what.”

After completing her bachelor’s degree, earning a master’s seemed a logical choice. She hopes to eventually earn a PhD.

“I would like to be in a leadership position,” Ramirez said. “I’ve seen a lot of issues and barriers and things that could be changed in systems, and I’d like to be part of creating change.”

The Razi scholarship will help make that happen. 

When she got the news about the scholarship, she said, “I literally took this big breath and cried. I felt such a big weight off of me. It was like, ‘Wow!’ It eliminated the financial stress of attending school and getting through.”

Ramirez said she hopes her success can be an inspiration to others. 

“I want to use this spotlight for motivating other students,” she said. “I’m one of those students who was an underdog. College is something I thought I would never do.”

Once she started, she didn’t want to stop. 

“One person told me getting a degree is like climbing a little mountain,” she said. “Once you get up, you’ll see things differently, and the next mountain won’t seem as impossible. And you might even want to climb higher. It was true. I wanted to keep going. Every time I finished a goal, I wanted to reach for the next one." 

It’s now something both of her children are pursuing as well. As a first-generation college graduate, she is proud that both of her children are continuing their educations at the university level.

It’s one way in which she has broken the pattern she once feared being stuck in, and one way in which she feels she is changing her community. 

“My journey also serves as a reminder of the importance of supporting, advocating for and empowering students,” she said. “Schools can either create barriers or open doors to opportunity and success.”