Welcome

I am Irma Alvarez, Dean at Southwestern College located in the southern part of San Diego, California. I am in charge of two of our outlying Higher Education Centers in Otay Mesa and San Ysidro. Both Centers are located near two significant US/Mexico border crossings.

Otay Mesa is a new site less than two years old, and San Ysidro is an older site that came into being in 1988. It is built on the site of a McDonald’s Restaurant where a horrible, widely publicized massacre took place in July 1984. The citizens of San Ysidro along with the San Diego City Council chose to provide the site to Southwestern College for the worthy purpose of providing higher education for the area.

I am proud to be involved with both of these Centers. My goal is to continue developing them into thriving and dynamic educational institutions that will positively affect the region of San Diego County. This will also have an impact on the development of the related region of Tijuana, Mexico and beyond.