CORONA DEL MAR : Irvine College Acting President Supported

Anna L. McFarlin, acting president for Irvine Valley College, is the recommended candidate to permanently head the 7,500-student campus in South Orange County.

Saddleback Community College District Chancellor Richard J. Sneed, who will make the recommendation at the college board’s meeting on Monday, said he based his decision on dozens of interviews and consultation with faculty and student leaders, as well as classified staff.

“They overwhelmingly urged her appointment and that came after she was selected the finalist by our search committee,” Sneed said.

McFarlin, through a district spokeswoman, called the recommendation “a dream come true.” She was out of town Wednesday.

If the board approves the $81,000-a-year job, McFarlin would become Irvine Valley’s first top woman administrator since the college’s establishment in 1979, and the second for the district. Constance M. Carroll, president of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, was appointed in 1983.

McFarlin, 55, is a founding faculty member of Irvine Valley, and has been with the Saddleback district, which has two campuses, in various administrative positions since 1969.

During her tenure at Saddleback College, McFarlin founded the Women’s Studies Program and served as director of the women’s center from 1975 to 1978.

In 1979, she left the Saddleback campus to join the faculty at the then-satellite campus in Irvine.

She was appointed vice chancellor of administrative services for the district in 1987, then became acting president of Irvine Valley in June, succeeding Ronald Kong, who resigned to become president of Alameda Community College in Northern California.

Sneed said he is confident the college district’s board will select McFarlin because she “knows Orange County and the district very well.”

Sneed added, “She is going to be able to hit the ground running.”