Mission College Chief Announces Retirement

Mission College President William E. Norlund announced Wednesday that he will retire in June.

Citing pension incentives, he said he wasn’t forced to step down after he lost a $4.7-million state grant last year to expand the campus.

He said changes in the college retirement system offer a more lucrative deal that will increase his package by 20%.

“I decided to retire when the governor passed the retirement legislation late last year,” said Norlund, a former physics instructor and longtime community college administrator. “I’ve been in education 38 years and there are other things I want to do.”

With the departure in June of Pierce College President E. Bing Inocencio, whose contract was not renewed, the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees now faces the task of filling three presidential vacancies, two in the San Fernando Valley, the other at Harbor College.

Georgia Mercer, the Valley’s only trustee, denied that Norlund was pressured to step down.

In four years at Mission, Norlund, 61, is credited with increasing enrollment by nearly 40%, stabilizing the school financially and opening a $12-million library and learning resource center.

Mission was one of two schools in the nine-campus L.A. Community College District that didn’t end with a deficit in 1998. East L.A. was the other.

But many on campus said the loss of the state grant showed Norlund’s weak relationship with the community.

Mission lost the money allocated for campus expansion because the college was unable to meet a state deadline to use, or lose, the $4.7 million by Dec. 30, 1998.

Norlund apologized for the loss at a forum, admitting that he and other administrators did not work with the community to develop a spending plan.