A Step Forward for Colleges

Marshall Drummond, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, wants to see a new search underway by September to name a Mission College president. And he wants to concentrate on making the new search work rather than trying to figure out what went wrong with the last one. He told Times editors last week, “I’m more interested in the next step than in going back and seeing who didn’t listen to whom,” a good philosophy for everyone involved.

Last month the LACCD Board of Trustees decided to reopen the search rather than choose one of three candidates recommended by a search committee, a decision that stirred noisy objections from some of the northeast San Fernando Valley college’s neighbors. Assemblyman Tony Cardenas and state Sen. Richard Alarcon, both Sylmar Democrats, pressed the trustees to reconsider the three finalists, particularly one they favored. Cardenas, Alarcon, Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla and about 20 others formed a group called the Valley Coalition for a Responsive Community College District.

But this is not your same old community college district. Three of the seven trustees were newly elected in April, and Drummond started his job in June. Drummond plans to hold a workshop for selection committee members and trustees before the new search begins, and he will meet with the committee every month. In other words, he promises a hands-on--and responsive--administration.

Drummond even has answers to the coalition’s contention that the district is too big, and the three Valley community colleges--Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Valley College in Valley Glen and Mission--would be better off forming their own district. He believes that the size of the district has seldom-mentioned advantages, from shared work crews to substantial political clout.

Plenty of critics, in the Mission College neighborhood and elsewhere, will be watching to see whether the district’s big plans pan out. But that is the direction to be looking--ahead, not behind.