Board Votes Pierce College President Out

Unhappy with persistent budget deficits and declining enrollment at Pierce College, the trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District have voted not to reappoint President E. Bing Inocencio to another three-year term when his first one expires in June.

“Last year Pierce had the largest deficit of any college in this system, and the year before it was one of two colleges with the largest deficits,” said Elizabeth Garfield, president of the board of trustees.

Although the other school, Mission College in Sylmar, has managed to attract more students and balance its budget, Pierce has continued to founder, she said.

“Mission did a spectacular job,” Garfield said. “Pierce, on the other hand, this past year had the largest decline in student enrollment” in the nine-college system. Inocencio also resisted numerous district requests to name a vice president of administration to manage the college’s finances, she added.

The 5-1 vote not to retain Inocencio, taken in closed session Wednesday, reopens a revolving door at Pierce through which three other college presidents have passed since David Wolf stepped down a decade ago. Then as now, Pierce was beset by controversy over the future of the college’s farmland.

This week, a committee at Pierce began considering three proposals to build a golf course and other facilities on 240 acres of agricultural land on campus. Inocencio--who once declared that “Traditions have to be supported by money”--backed the plan to develop the land to raise money for Pierce, which had a $1.8-million deficit for the fiscal year ended in June.

Garfield said Inocencio’s relationship with residents of the surrounding area was another major concern for the district board.

“With the issue of the utilization of the Pierce land, I had some very serious concerns that Bing was not hearing people,” she said. “And I had [received] numerous complaints, as had the other board members.”

Inocencio could not be reached for comment Friday. He was visiting relatives on the East Coast, a trip planned long before the trustees’ action, said Carmelita Thomas, Pierce’s vice president for academic affairs.

Thomas said the college president, who attended the board meeting where his termination was announced, called afterward to inform her of the board’s decision. “I would say he was surprised,” she said.

District Chancellor James Heinselman made the recommendation to the board not to reappoint Inocencio, an experienced educator who had moved from New York to accept the job. Under state law, Inocencio’s term as president would have been renewed automatically for another three years if the board did not act before Dec. 1, six months before his current appointment expires, according to district officials.

Heinselman said Inocencio’s rocky relationship with the surrounding homeowners “didn’t help any. But it’s really fiscal [problems] and enrollment. Those are tough challenges for any school, but they’re particularly tough at Pierce.”

Once the flagship of the community college system, Pierce weathered about a 10% drop in students this fall, according to figures provided by the college district.

Only one trustee, Julia Wu, opposed the decision on Inocencio, and another, board vice president Gloria Romero, was absent for the vote. Neither returned calls for comment.

Philip Stein, who has taught anthropology at Pierce since 1964, said he was not surprised by the board’s vote. He said Inocencio had “lost touch with the faculty” and lacked connections with the surrounding community. Many local residents were disappointed by the cancellations of the annual Fourth of July celebration and the intercollegiate rodeo at Pierce under Inocencio’s tenure, said Stein, a former dean at the college who served on the selection committee that chose Inocencio in 1996.

Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said Inocencio’s actions often undercut his words.

“We invited him to come and speak to the organization when he first came, and he went through a whole litany of all these marvelous things, none of which he ever attempted to achieve,” he said. “He met with me about four times, agreed with me, and then went on to do whatever he wanted to do. He blamed everything on the faculty.”

Reaction to the board’s decision was mixed on the Woodland Hills campus. Mayar Zokaei, a 19-year-old sociology major, praised the outgoing president for pushing 7 a.m. classes to 8 a.m. and holding more classes on fewer days, giving students more free time. “I don’t think it’s right,” he said. “The students didn’t get a say.”

Thomas, the academic vice president, agreed that Inocencio had been a good president. “I don’t know what I should say that is appropriate, but as far as I’m concerned, Dr. Inocencio is still our president,” she said.

But 61-year-old Patrick O’Brien, a former Hughes Aircraft worker studying for a second career as a farmer, said he thought Inocencio had been an ineffective leader. “He has consistently ignored all kinds of suggestions for improving this institution,” O’Brien said.

The district will begin the process of finding a successor at the next trustee meeting, Dec. 2, Garfield said. The first step will be to set up a search committee.

“The goal is to create an educational program that is truly responding to the needs of the students,” Garfield said. “And you can’t do that when you’re continually struggling financially.”