From first-generation college student to President of Las Positas College, Dr. Dyrell Foster’s leadership journey is centered on education, opportunity, mentorship, belonging, and helping others see possibilities for their own future.

Sometimes the most powerful leaders are those who remember what it felt like before anyone saw them as a leader.

For Dr. Dyrell Foster, President of Las Positas College in Livermore, California, that perspective has remained central throughout a career spanning more than 25 years in higher education.

He was the first in his family to attend college. He did not grow up automatically imagining himself one day sitting in a college president’s office. Instead, his journey was shaped by family sacrifice, mentors who believed in him, educational opportunities that opened doors, and a growing realization that leadership could be used to create those same opportunities for others.

Today, Foster leads Las Positas College with a philosophy that can be summarized in one simple but powerful idea:

When you climb the ladder, leave it down for the people coming behind you.

For Foster, leadership is not ultimately about occupying a position. It is about using that position to help other people discover what may be possible for them.

A First-Generation Journey

Foster’s understanding of higher education began personally.

As a first-generation college student, navigating college meant entering an environment his family had not previously experienced. While attending the University of California, Davis, he benefited from the Educational Opportunity Program, which helped connect him with resources and navigate university life.

That experience would eventually influence the direction of his career.

College became more than a place where Foster earned a degree. It showed him how access, encouragement, mentorship, and institutional support can change someone’s trajectory.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Behavioral Science from UC Davis, where he also served as co-captain of the Aggies football team. He later earned a master’s degree in Counseling from California State University, Long Beach and a Doctor of Education in Higher Education Administration from the University of Southern California.

His professional path increasingly centered on a question that continues to guide his work today:

How can educational institutions help more students succeed?

Lessons That Began at Home

Long before Foster became an educator or administrator, his understanding of leadership was being shaped by his parents.

His father served 28 years in the United States Air Force. Foster credits him with teaching lessons about courage, kindness, perseverance, and believing in other people.

His mother came to the United States from Korea and learned English as a second language. Her resilience and work ethic provided another powerful model of determination.

Foster describes his experiences as a Black and Korean leader as an important part of the perspective he brings to his work.

Those experiences helped shape values he identifies as central to his leadership: empathy, perseverance, integrity, courage, and listening.

They also contributed to his belief in the importance of representation.

When young people see leaders whose experiences or backgrounds resonate with their own, leadership can begin to feel less distant.

Possibility becomes visible.

More Than 25 Years Serving Students

Before becoming president of Las Positas College, Foster built a career across multiple levels of higher education.

He served as Vice President of Student Services at Moreno Valley College, Dean of Student Affairs at Rio Hondo College, Associate Dean of Counseling and Director of Student Life at Mt. San Antonio College, Director of Student Life at Evergreen Valley College, and Activities Coordinator at San José State University.

He has also taught future education professionals as a part-time lecturer in Colleges of Education at California State University, Long Beach and California State University, Fullerton.

The positions changed, but the focus remained remarkably consistent:

Students.

Access.

Belonging.

Mentorship.

Achievement.

Opportunity.

Each role provided another perspective on what students need not simply to enter college, but to continue moving forward once they arrive.

Leading Las Positas College

Foster became President of Las Positas College in 2020.

Las Positas College serves the Tri-Valley as a comprehensive community college offering pathways toward university transfer, associate degrees and certificates, career education, workforce preparation, and lifelong learning.

Foster’s presidency began at an extraordinary moment.

Within weeks of his arrival, higher education across the country was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For a new president, it meant leading during a period when traditional assumptions about how a college operated were suddenly being rewritten.

Students, faculty, staff, and administrators had to adapt quickly.

Through that disruption and the years that followed, Foster continued emphasizing a student-centered learning environment built around access, achievement, belonging, and opportunity.

His philosophy is straightforward:

Meet students where they are and help them get where they want to go.

Leadership Through Listening

One of the images accompanying this Sanj Talks feature captures Foster spending time with a group of Las Positas College students and listening to their conversation.

It is a simple scene, but perhaps one of the most revealing.

The moment reflects something central to his leadership philosophy: students need more than institutions—they need to know they belong within them.

As a first-generation college student himself, Foster understands how meaningful it can be to encounter leaders and mentors who are present, accessible, and genuinely invested in a student’s success.

His approach emphasizes listening directly to students, understanding their experiences, and creating a campus culture where students can see possibilities for themselves that they may not yet have imagined.

Leadership, from this perspective, does not happen exclusively from behind the president’s desk.

Sometimes leadership means sitting down and listening.

Turning Leadership Into Opportunity

Foster believes values matter most when they become action.

Throughout his career, his work has included expanding college access through Promise and dual-enrollment programs, developing support for first-generation and lower-income students, building stronger relationships between colleges and local schools, securing grants and partnerships, improving pathways toward degrees and certificates, and advancing institutional efforts focused on student achievement.

At Las Positas College, one tangible example is the President’s Scholars Program, created under Foster’s leadership to help remove financial barriers for students and their families in the community.

But the vision extends beyond financial assistance.

The program combines scholarship support with leadership development, mentoring, service learning, and opportunities for students to represent the college.

It reflects Foster’s broader philosophy that access to college is only the beginning.

Students also need encouragement, relationships, experiences, and opportunities that help them recognize their own potential.

For a leader who once entered college as a first-generation student himself, helping another generation move forward carries particular meaning.

Someone helped make his path possible. Now he is helping create pathways for others.

Students at the Center

Another image accompanying this story features Foster with Las Positas College President’s Scholars.

The photograph represents more than a scholarship program.

It reflects Foster’s belief that students should remain at the center of institutional leadership.

Financial barriers can prevent talented students from pursuing opportunities even when they possess the ability and determination to succeed.

Programs that combine financial assistance with mentorship and leadership development can address more than one barrier at a time.

They can help students enter college, remain engaged, develop confidence, and begin imagining what might come next.

For Foster, that progression matters.

A student receiving assistance today may become the educator, entrepreneur, scientist, healthcare professional, public servant, or community leader of tomorrow.

Representation Creates Possibility

Foster speaks openly about not initially seeing himself as a leader because he rarely saw people in senior leadership who looked like him.

That experience has informed another dimension of his mission.

Representation matters not because everyone must follow the same path, but because seeing possibilities can expand what people believe is achievable.

A student who never imagined becoming a professor might meet one who changes that perception.

A first-generation college student might encounter a mentor who understands the uncertainty of navigating higher education without a family roadmap.

An emerging professional might see a college president with an unexpected journey and begin reconsidering assumptions about his or her own future.

For Foster, reaching a leadership position creates a responsibility to make the path more visible for others.

That is what it means to leave the ladder down.

Education as Community Impact

Las Positas College is not isolated from the community surrounding it.

Its students become employees, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, technicians, educators, scientists, public servants, artists, and community leaders.

The college works with schools, employers, laboratories, community organizations, and regional partners to connect education with opportunity.

Foster has emphasized partnerships as an important part of strengthening both student outcomes and the broader community.

That approach reflects his belief that education can change more than one person’s future.

When one student succeeds, the effect can extend to a family.

When more families gain opportunity, communities become stronger.

And when colleges connect education with the needs and possibilities of their regions, their impact extends well beyond campus boundaries.

Leadership Is Not the Title

Perhaps the most important idea in Foster’s story is also the simplest.

Leadership is not the title.

A title may provide authority, but leadership is demonstrated through what someone does with it.

For Foster, that means creating conditions where other people can succeed.

It means listening.

Mentoring.

Removing barriers.

Building partnerships.

Opening doors.

And helping people recognize potential in themselves that they may not yet see.

His own journey—from a first-generation college student uncertain about his place in higher education to the presidency of Las Positas College—provides a living example of that philosophy.

His background did not prevent leadership.

It helped shape the kind of leader he became.

And now, the opportunity is to make the journey easier to imagine for those coming next.

Leaving the Ladder Down

Success is often described in terms of how high someone climbs.

Foster’s philosophy offers another way to measure it.

Perhaps success is also about how many people have a better opportunity to climb because you were there.

A scholarship.

A conversation with a student.

A mentor who listens.

A program that removes a financial barrier.

A partnership that opens another educational pathway.

A leader whose presence allows a young person to imagine, perhaps for the first time:

Maybe I can do that too.

Taken individually, these moments may seem small.

Together, they can change trajectories.

That is the larger story behind Dr. Dyrell Foster’s journey.

He climbed the ladder.

Now he is working to make sure it remains within reach for others.

A Question Worth Thinking About

Most of us can remember someone who opened a door, offered encouragement, provided an opportunity, or simply believed in us before we fully believed in ourselves.

Dr. Dyrell Foster describes leadership as creating conditions in which other people can succeed—and leaving the ladder down for those coming behind.

What do you think?

As you advance in your own career and life, are you leaving the ladder down for someone else?

Who helped you see possibilities that you might not have imagined on your own?

And perhaps most importantly:

Whose future could you help change today?

Tell us in the comments section below. Your experience may encourage someone else to mentor, support, or simply believe in the potential of another person.

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