College Trustees Delay Hiring of President Again

Despite mounting pressure, community college trustees Tuesday again brushed aside pleas to hire a new Oxnard College president from an existing pool of candidates and voted instead to forge ahead with an expanded search.

Nearly 100 instructors, employees and community members packed the board meeting, urging trustees to reverse their July 16 decision to pass over two finalists from within the district and look for new applicants.

“For the sake of this college’s future, we implore you--hire a permanent president from the pool that already exists,” said Gary Morgan, president of Oxnard College’s Academic Senate, which is an advisory group that makes policy recommendations to the board.

But trustees, who have mentioned the dearth of candidates from outside the district, voted 4 to 0--with board member Allan Jacobs absent--to continue with a new hiring process.

“The board’s intent is to appoint a president for Oxnard College who will cause the college to grow and prosper into the 21st century,” board President Pete Tafoya said after the vote, which came during a closed session.

As an initial step, the board Tuesday finalized the hiring of Judith Valles, a retired president of Golden West College in Huntington Beach, as Oxnard College’s interim president. Valles, who once worked with Chancellor Philip Westin at the Orange County college district, will be paid $8,500 a month.

Ruth Hemming, Oxnard College’s acting president from February until about a week ago, was one of two top candidates for the permanent position.

The trustees’ unanimous decision three weeks ago to scrap the district-led hiring process and pay a search firm to help find an administrator to fill the $102,000-a-year post triggered a flurry of criticism.

After a group of angry instructors and others converged on his office last week, Westin agreed to place an item on the board’s Tuesday night agenda that would have allowed trustees to reverse their decision.

Before the trustees voted, instructors and others blasted the board, saying a local screening committee made up of instructors and community members had already given trustees names of several highly qualified candidates from among 14 the committee interviewed.

“A hiring process is in place for a reason--to be adhered to,” said Steve Buratti, president of the city of Oxnard’s Interneighborhood Council Committee, a community organization. “Don’t spend your money hiring a headhunter when you already have qualified candidates.”

Among the special committee’s top picks were Hemming, who has returned to her job as vice president of administrative services at Ventura College, and Darlene Pacheco, a vice president of instruction at Moorpark College.

“Those two candidates have between them over 60 years’ experience in our district,” Carmen Guerrero-Calderon, a screening committee member and vice president of Oxnard College’s Academic Senate, said before the meeting. “The learning curve for either one of them would be practically nonexistent.”

Citing the confidentiality of personnel matters, the board has remained tight-lipped about its reasons for starting the hiring process over again.

But Tafoya said some original applicants had not been given sufficient consideration, because of missing recommendation letters and other clerical mishaps, warranting the new start.

“This led me to believe that we did not have a full screening of all the possible candidates,” he said.

Tafoya said the board has selected the American Assn. of Community College Trustees in Washington, D.C., to help with the search.

Two members of the Ventura County grand jury who showed up at Tuesday’s meeting said they were there to gather information on the hiring flap and other issues. They said they had no plans at this time to conduct a formal investigation.

“We are interested in whether there has been a change in [hiring] policy,” said grand jury member Dot Engel, adding that she planned to make a later appointment to talk with Westin.

Instructors and community members hissed after the board announced its decision. Many have said the college needs a permanent president before school begins Aug. 19 because this year, the college is launching a dental hygiene program and opening a satellite campus in Camarillo.

“They don’t really care. It says that they didn’t listen,” Guerrero-Calderon said of the board’s vote.