SYLMAR : Mission College Chief to Help District Find Funding
Mission College President Jack Fujimoto will take a leave from his job for at least a year to help the financially ailing Los Angeles Community College District find public and private funding, district officials said Wednesday.
The announcement of Fujimoto’s departure from the Sylmar campus is expected today at a district-wide meeting, officials said.
William E. Norlund, vice president for academic affairs at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, will replace Fujimoto as interim president at Mission.
The news of Fujimoto’s transfer downtown comes as the district, the nation’s largest two-year college district, seeks sources of outside funding--including federal grants--in the wake of state budget cutbacks, declining enrollment and other financial stresses on the district’s nine campuses.
Fujimoto, 65, is considered an expert at finding and cultivating sources of education funding.
But his departure will leave Mission College, the youngest and smallest college in the district, without steady leadership at a time when enrollment is down nearly 19% from its peak in 1992. The college’s enrollment dwindled to fewer than 6,000 this fall.
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