East L.A. College Gets New Chief

The new president of East Los Angeles College will be Omero Suarez, now head of a junior college division of the University of New Mexico, Los Angeles Community College District officials announced Thursday.

Suarez, 42, is credited with leading the Valencia division, located south of Albuquerque, from a tiny storefront operation in 1981 to a permanent campus of more than 1,000 students, half of whom are Latino. The son of Chicano migrant workers, Suarez has a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

He will assume his duties July 1 at the East Los Angeles campus in Monterey Park, where 68% of the 12,300 students are Latino and 20% are Asian. He will succeed Arthur Avila, president for nine years, who was forced out last September after disputes with faculty and district trustees.

Of the three finalists, Suarez was the only one from outside the Los Angeles district. Observers said the district wanted a fresh face to deal with administrative turmoil and a high student dropout rate. The other finalists were Evelyn Wong, acting president of Los Angeles Trade-Tech College, and Raul Cardoza, a vice president at East Los Angeles.