Colleges’ New Leader Wins Praise While Bringing Swift Change

The honeymoon isn’t over--yet.

Last week, Philip Westin passed the 100-day mark in his tenure as chancellor of Ventura County’s community college system.

In that short time, college and district officials who praised their new hire in his first week as a forward thinking, open-minded manager say he’s turned out to be just that and more.

“There is always a honeymoon period,” said Ruth Hemming, interim president of Oxnard College. “And everyone assumes that things can be better. Usually that wears off. But Westin is doing just fine so far.”

Fine is an understatement, judging by the comments last week of everyone from teachers--who say they have never been happier to come to work--to trustees who describe their feeling about the new chancellor as “euphoric.”

Even Larry Miller who, as faculty union president, holds a position often occupied by a chancellor’s harshest critic, has only one complaint: “I hope he doesn’t kill himself doing too much work. You die very early and you are ineffectual if you don’t get the rest you need.”

The 50-year-old former president of Golden West College in Huntington Beach hasn’t won such kudos by tiptoeing around controversial matters. Since arriving, he has made dramatic changes at the district level, ranging from dismissing his top budget official to hiring as a temporary advisor a former administrator forced to resign five years ago amid accusations of mismanagement.

Some have voiced concerns that he is doing too much too fast.

But most are filled with praise for their new leader. And they insist it’s not the 5.1% raise they all just received or the district’s rosier financial outlook, which will allow scores of new classes and off-campus centers to open in the fall. Westin has won over the troops with an open-minded, open-door policy, they say.

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Since taking office Jan. 2, Westin has found a president for Ventura College, launched plans to boost enrollment, begun bringing the district’s ancient computer software up to date, negotiated raises with two unions at record speed, tackled next year’s budget, given college presidents more control of their own spending and moved forward with a long-awaited reorganization of the district office that will bring two new top-level administrators to the three-college system by fall.

He has also raised eyebrows by moving Oxnard President Elise Schneider to the district office as provost of international affairs; recommending that trustees not renew the contract of budget chief Jeff Marsee; asking Tom Kimberling, a vice chancellor of administration who was forced to resign five years ago amid accusations of mismanagement, to advise him on budget issues until he hires his own deputy chancellor.

All were moves rife with the opportunity for controversy. But Westin has so far left very few waves in his wake.

Another example of his popularity came this month, after the district filed suit against the service employees’ union.

Union officials say their contract binds the district to promote from within their ranks before considering outside applicants. But, concerned that the contract may violate state affirmative-action and equal-opportunity laws, the district filed suit seeking a legal decision on the matter.

Leanne Colvin, president of the local service employees’ union, said union officials felt blindsided by the move.

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Nonetheless, Colvin says Westin still has the union’s full support.

“If in six months this were still continuing, I may feel differently,” she said. “But except for this one thing he has followed on everything in a very timely matter, so I don’t want to judge him on just this one incident.”

Throughout the district and at all three colleges, students, administrators and teachers say that Westin’s ability to come out on top in such incidents is a testimony to his management skills.

“He is obviously a brilliant administrator,” said Elton Hall, an instructor at Moorpark College.

The key, say Hall and others, is his relentless search for consensus.

Westin, they say, not only returns phone calls of everyone seeking his ear, he places them first.

“He calls up and says, ‘There is something on the board agenda I want to talk about’ or ‘I’ve changed something,’ ” said faculty union leader Miller, also a Moorpark College instructor. “I never once had a phone call returned from the former chancellor or one memo answered, so you can see it is quite a change.”

Gary Morgan, president of the Oxnard CollegeAcademic Senate, agrees.

“He doesn’t show us a [plan] and say, ‘This is going to the board.’ He says, ‘We are going to discuss this . . .,’ ” he said. “That type of open flow of communication and consultation has not occurred in this district in a long time.”.

Examples of Westin’s brand of consensus-building abound.

According to Board of Trustees Chairman Pete Tafoya, Westin went so far in efforts to keep the trustees abreast of every step of his district reorganization plan that he phoned each trustee individually to let him know he had decided not to follow a committee recommendation to call his top assistant a “vice chancellor,” preferring “deputy chancellor” instead.

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Although seemingly surprised by the rave reviews, Westin said consensus building is a mantra he lives by.

Speaking of his plans to rethink a formula the district uses to divide state money among the colleges, Westin said: “Success will be everyone from the gardener to every board member saying we can live with [this formula] and we support it.”

The results?

Westin’s plans are sailing past the five-member Board of Trustees. Trustees now spend more time complimenting the chancellor on a job well done than debating the fine points of his plans.

All but two actions proposed since Westin took over--sabbatical issues long questioned by some trustees--have been approved unanimously.

“In my 32 years in this district, I have rarely seen such cordiality and unanimity of opinion on the board,” said Hemming, Oxnard’s interim president.

Of course, Westin inherited a district rebounding from the recession.

Austerity measures--including layoffs and cuts in courses--taken by the former chancellor seem to be a thing of the past.

In June, the district will end its fiscal year with $5.8 million in reserves. This year, for the first time in eight years, the district was taken off a state watch list for community college systems in financial trouble.

That leaves the district with more money to approve popular instructional courses, such as the proposed dental hygiene program at Oxnard College, new class sections and the expansion of all three colleges to off-campus sites from Ojai to Thousand Oaks.

And everyone in the district--including college managers, instructors and non-teaching staff--received raises of 5.1%.

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But, they all say, their newfound happiness has less to do with the district’s flush reserves than Westin’s approach.

“Yeah, we got a raise,” said Deborah Ventura, president of Ventura College’s Academic Senate. “But it was the way in which we got the raise. It wasn’t an adversarial climate we won after a long battle. Westin was clearly pleased that we got it.”

Lynn Fauth, an instructor at Oxnard College, agreed.

“The money is always nice,” he said. “But from my perspective, I happen to think it is Westin and the attitude he exudes. He comes over, looks at an idea and says, ‘Well, let’s try it.’ ”

That can-do spirit has spread throughout the district, sources say, dispelling the inertia that had gripped the three-college system after Chancellor Thomas Lakin’s death in 1994.

“Morale has improved 100%,” said Oxnard educator Morgan. “I have found his positive effect to be infectious.”

So far, Westin seems to have few critics.

But some officials say it may be too early to tell. The community college system is simply operating in a prolonged honeymoon mode right now, they say.

“If you were doing a score card right now, [he] would get 100-plus points for every one minus point,” said Moorpark instructor Hall.

“But we are keeping tabs. It’s just too early to tell.”

Other supporters worry that Westin may be doing too much, too fast.

“The thing I am most concerned about, if you can call it a concern, is that he moves very quickly and our organization is not used to that,” trustee Tafoya said. “One has to be careful. You move too quickly and you don’t allow the organization to move with you.”