Pierce College Hires Lee as Its President : Education: She will serve at least two years, succeeding Lowell Erickson, who goes on leave April 11.

In the late 1980s when officials were looking for someone to lead Pierce College, Mary Lee, president of Valley College, was named to the search committee. But she ended up quitting the panel to take a run at the job herself.

“As I drove around Pierce, I decided there is no one who can do what needs to be done out there other than me,” Lee recalled. College district officials, though, had other ideas and picked another administrator for Pierce, leaving Lee at Valley College in Van Nuys.

Now, however, Lee’s going to get her chance.

The nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District confirmed Friday that the 54-year-old Lee, president of Valley College since 1981, will become Pierce’s acting president on April 11 for at least a two-year stint. Departing president Lowell Erickson plans to take a one-year leave of absence and perhaps return to teaching, officials said.

Sources familiar with the change said Lee, known as a strict and efficient administrator who also is an avid horsewoman, has marching orders to try to rescue the Woodland Hills campus from a downward spiral of declining enrollment, deteriorating facilities and flagging morale.

At a meeting Friday afternoon with some Pierce College instructors, Lee said as much herself. She listed as her top three goals the return of Pierce to its former status as the college with the district’s highest enrollment, to resolve its troubled finances, and to “regain its premier reputation” in the surrounding community.

“I just think Pierce has potential it hasn’t lived up to,” Lee said.

The Chatsworth resident was already talking on Friday of changes to boost enrollment for the fall semester and planning a series of meetings with campus groups for next week.

“I sought out Dr. Lee for this new assignment because of her strong leadership abilities, her experience, her proven capability in the administration of a large college campus and her familiarity with Pierce College,” said Neil Yoneji, interim chancellor of the Los Angeles district, which started the school year with nearly 102,000 students.

Although enrollments districtwide have been dropping, the falloff in recent years has been particularly severe at Pierce. Enrollment this spring fell to 14,663 students, down about 13% from a year ago and to its lowest level this fall in 25 years. Pierce now is the district’s second most populous campus behind Valley, which has 15,879 students.

Lee, a hard-charger who once attended a truck driving school to get a commercial license and who has been studying for a law degree, is no stranger to Pierce. Her first job with the college district in 1977-78 was as its dean of development and acting vice president for academic affairs. She also took agriculture classes there.

One of her biggest challenges will be shaping the future of the agriculture department and its 250-acre farm, once the heart of the college but now fallen on hard times. “It will never be revived the way it was,” Lee said. But she talked generally of trying to run programs that that will involve the broader community.

Another headache will be a $1-million deficit facing the college because administrators there this year relied on getting that amount from the developers of the Warner Ridge project in exchange for their placing fill dirt on an unused part of the campus. But that deal fell through recently when the development project stalled.

Lee also will have to overcome skepticism by Pierce College faculty and staff, who have seen five other presidents before her come and go since the late 1970s. Complicating the situation will be the fact that she, like most of the others, has been placed there by district administrators without any input from the campus community.

Colleagues said Erickson, 58, who had transferred to Pierce from Mission College in mid-1991, initiated the change by asking district officials about a leave of absence, particularly after the Jan. 17 earthquake caused more than $2 million in damage. “It just wasn’t working for him,” a colleague said, citing frustrations over the damage and the college’s varied problems.

A district spokesman said Lee’s annual salary will remain $89,934. Erickson’s salary has been $88,855, and his leave apparently will be on paid status.

Lee will be replaced at Valley by Tyree Wieder, 46, the college’s vice president for academic affairs, who also is expected to serve at least two years. Wieder earns $73,580, but probably will get a raise.