Last week Leonie H. Mattison EdD reached out to me regarding her personal experiences on immigration and the recent July 15 Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting regarding the same.
Mattison is currently transitioning from her three-year contract with Pacifica Graduate Institute as its CEO. She explained that during this time of reflection for her, she attended the July 15 BOS meeting on immigration and felt compelled to comment publicly on it, driven by her personal experiences growing up as a Black woman and daughter of a Jamaican immigrant farmer in the United States.
Here is our interview brief, and an excerpt from her response to the BOS which she hopes will inspire and heal.
Q. Explain your leave of absence from Pacifica Graduate Institute?
A. I am currently on a planned and voluntary leave of absence from Pacifica Graduate Institute, with my three-year contract as president and CEO set to conclude next month. During my tenure, I led the institution through a comprehensive transformation, securing reaffirmation of accreditation, launching a bold 2030 strategic plan, growing enrollment and academic offerings, advancing a new philanthropic, campus consolidation, and scholarship strategy, and rebuilding stakeholder trust across governance, faculty, and community partnerships. I am proud of the results we achieved and the culture of care, excellence, and innovation we cultivated.
Where are you going next in your career? Are you relocating?
I am actively discerning the next horizon of service, seeking opportunities where I can leverage my full portfolio of experience: leading systemic transformation, advancing inclusive excellence, and driving sustainable innovation and growth. While I remain deeply connected to the Central Coast and its people, I am fully open to the right opportunity where purpose, leadership, and impact converge. I also remain committed to my service as a Commissioner with BeWell, Santa Barbara County’s behavioral health commission.
What led you to attend the BOS July 15th meeting?
I care deeply about people and how policy decisions shape the well-being of our communities. I attended the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting to stay informed about critical issues, support civic engagement, and embody the kind of engaged, visible leadership our times demand. Whenever possible, I prioritize being present because informed, accountable, and accessible leadership are values I believe are essential to leading with integrity.
Have you experienced similar issues to what immigrant farmworkers face today?
Yes, I did experience similar issues. As a Black woman and the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant who worked as a farmworker, I know firsthand the trauma of injustice, invisibility, and the quiet strength it takes to persevere. My father immigrated to the United States through the H-2A guest worker program and labored in Southern fields as a farmworker. He did not own land; instead, he worked on it day after day to secure a better future for his children. My mother, meanwhile, worked as a home health aide and housekeeper, caring for others while holding our family together. Their sacrifices shaped the values I carry today. As a mother, first-generation college graduate, and senior executive, I’ve lived through the same systemic exclusion that many farmworker families still face. So when I witness today’s immigrant farmworkers navigating systems that rely on their labor but disregard their dignity, I don’t see strangers, I see my own story. That lived truth fuels my lifelong commitment to building institutions that honor labor, restore dignity, and ensure no one is left unseen.
There are moments in a society’s life when a deeper question rises above the noise, one that invites us to reflect on what we are doing and who we are choosing to become. Such questions emerge in seasons of disruption, when the weight of the collective experience demands more from our leadership, our policies, and our public imagination. The question before us now is whether our responses truly reflect the compassion, courage, and shared humanity that we claim to value.
As an immigrant Black woman, the daughter of a U.S. farmworker, and a scholar-practitioner in organizational development and trauma transformation, I do not observe this moment from the margins. I inhabit it. I know what it means to carry the weight of systemic invisibility while holding space for healing, innovation, and structural renewal. My experience, healing, and work have taught me that unaddressed trauma becomes embedded in the DNA of our institutions. But when healing is made central to how we govern, we can regenerate trust, build collective resilience, and rehumanize the very systems designed to serve us.
This is precisely what made the July 15, 2025, Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting such a defining moment for public leadership. I was present for the full ten-hour meeting. What took place in Santa Barbara that day echoed these ancestral practices, a collective ceremony of civic truth-telling. Together, their presence became a sacred enactment of dignity, relational intelligence, and public integrity. The Board of Supervisors remained grounded, attuned, and open. They offered the world a living example of what soul-centered public service can look like: rooted, courageous, and quietly powerful.
From that day, five enduring lessons rise as guideposts for any institution, whether civic, nonprofit, or academic, seeking to lead with wisdom, relationality, and care:
1. Lead with clarity rather than concealment: Fear multiplies in the absence of clarity. When the distinctions between local and federal authority remain ambiguous, communities are left to fill in the silence with anxiety. Transparent communication is not only an operational best practice; it is an act of public care that stabilizes trust and centers psychological safety before fear escalates into crisis.
2. Uphold the law while honoring human dignity: Justice and compassion are not opposites. They are essential companions. Public safety is most sustainable when policies are enforced with fairness, empathy, and respect for every person impacted. Upholding the law with moral clarity strengthens the credibility of our institutions and restores the emotional contract between governance and the governed.
3. Resource healing as a form of infrastructure: Healing is not auxiliary to systems change; it is the foundation that allows institutions to withstand disruption without fragmenting. Budgets and policies must account for trauma-responsive training, culturally rooted mental health care, and structured recovery after high-impact events. When intentionally resourced, resilience becomes an organizational design principle rather than an aspiration.
4. Co-create safety through shared wisdom: Communities do not need saviors. They need to listen. Those with lived experience bring insights that no external expert can replicate. When residents are invited to help shape messaging, protocols, and policies, they move from the margins into shared ownership, and trust is rebuilt through relationships rather than rhetoric.
5. Reweave institutional culture from the inside out: The emotional tone of a workplace is not separate from its outcomes. It drives them. Psychological safety, transparency, and belonging must be cultivated not as soft ideals but as core leadership competencies. When staff feel seen, held, and empowered to respond with care, they become the living infrastructure of public trust.
What the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, employees, leadership, and residents demonstrated that day was a model of soul-centered governance, quiet, grounded, and transformational. It is a model worthy of deep study, courageous adoption, and national visibility
While immigration reform remains a national imperative, the work of care begins here, through the daily ways we listen, respond, and tend to the human spirit. What I witnessed on July 15 was a rare and powerful example of that care in action. To the residents who witnessed and spoke with truth, grace, and quiet strength, and to the Board of Supervisors, county staff, and leaders who met that truth with humility, presence, and moral courage, thank you. Together, you modeled what leadership rooted in dignity, emotional intelligence, and shared humanity can look like. To every leader reading this: your care matters too. When you tend to your grief and exhaustion, you become a steadier presence for those around you. When healing begins within, transformation becomes possible around you. So, ask yourself, with care and courage: What in me needs restoration? What might leadership look like if care for others and myself came first?”