3 Latinos Among 4 Vying to Lead Mission College

Three are college vice presidents, and one is a former president. Only one is from California. All have served in predominantly Latino institutions. And all aspire to be the next president of Mission College, the northeast San Fernando Valley’s only community college.

All four have had to grapple with issues that Mission College has faced: financial shortfalls, first-generation college students and internal politics.

The current presidential search at Mission is the second since Bill Norlund stepped down last summer. The first group of three finalists was rejected by the Los Angeles Community College District board because it lacked administrative experience and ethnic diversity.

Under pressure from legislators and community activists in the East Valley, the board made changes this time around, including hiring a search firm, streamlining the search committee and placing a greater emphasis on administrative experience and diversity.

Last year’s search yielded no Latino finalists for the mostly Latino campus of about 7,000 students.

The finalists are:

* Thomas D. Morales, vice president of student affairs at City College of New York;

* Celia Barberena, vice president of student services at Hartnell Community College in Salinas;

* Adriana D. Barrera, an educational consultant and former president of El Paso Community College in Texas;

* Karen Sue Grosz, chief academic and student affairs officer of the Connecticut Community College System.

The four will visit Mission College for public forums today and Tuesday. They will interview with the Board of Trustees and district Chancellor Mark Drummond on Tuesday and Wednesday. The board could choose a campus leader by the end of the week.

Morales, 51, has been a vice president at City College of New York since 1994. The school is one of the oldest public institutions of higher learning in the country. Morales is the only male candidate.

He grew up in Brooklyn and divides his time between upstate New York and Yonkers. Before moving to the 11,000-student City College--a four-year university in Harlem--Morales was an assistant dean at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

He was also an assistant vice president for student affairs at SUNY, New Paltz, and director of the school’s Educational Opportunity Program, an initiative to provide greater educational access to disadvantaged youths.

Candidate Raised Student Morale

City College interim President Stanford Roman said Morales has “changed the whole tone of the relationship of students with the college” by raising morale and increasing campus participation.

Morales also had an important effect on the school’s curriculum, serving on a committee that reviewed the School of Education.

“Tom’s a leader,” Roman said. “He’s forthright and he articulates what he believes.”

Roman said Morales’ style has worked well at City College, which has one of the oldest faculty unions in the country.

“What I bring is 25 years of experience working with historically underrepresented students and first-generation students,” Morales said. “I am intrinsically committed to those students.”

Morales said he was undaunted by the political agendas swirling around Mission College.

“I’m a New York City boy,” he said in an interview last week.

Finalist Increased School Enrollment

Barberena, 51, has been vice president of Hartnell Community College in agriculturally rich Salinas for four years and has presided over several enrollment increases. Hartnell, a campus of about 6,600 full-time students, is struggling with budget shortfalls and low teacher pay, according to administrators and faculty members. Barberena is the only candidate from California.

She was a dean of special programs at Modesto Junior College before going to Hartnell. In Modesto, she ran the Educational Opportunity Program and was an adjunct English teacher. Before that, she was a consultant to Sacramento City College and executive director of Oficina Hispana, a Boston-based nonprofit offering vocational and English classes to Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Larry Carrier, Hartnell’s vice president of administrative services, called Barberena “an organized, forward-thinking and collaborative person.” He praised her ability to bring in grant money and to keep up good relations with factions inside and outside the college.

“The biggest challenge for us all has been to fund everything,” he said.

Cheri Gray, Hartnell’s director of matriculation and enrollment, said money management is one of Barberena’s strong suits.

“She always wants to go after whatever money is available, and she got resources that I wouldn’t have had time to explore,” Gray said.

Although Barberena has little control over salaries, the Hartnell administration has been criticized recently for paying professors far less than most California community colleges.

“Our campus is going through some upheaval with faculty and salary negotiations, and it’s been kind of ugly,” said a Hartnell administrator who asked not to be identified. “She is one of the top management, and as a group they are often judged by the rest of the campus.”

In interviews last week, Barberena said she recently won a $3-million grant for the school and organized a major youth conference. Both the grant and the conference are intended to attract young Latinos to Hartnell.

Failed to Win New Contract

Barrera, 49, became an education consultant after she left the presidency of the three-campus, 18,000-student El Paso Community College District. The district’s Board of Trustees voted not to renew her contract in 1998 after disagreement over personnel matters.

A native of Benavides, Texas, Barrera said that her parents didn’t finish elementary school and that all but one of her six siblings went to college.

She was an executive assistant to the president of El Paso Community College from 1992 to 1993, when she became the interim president. Before that, she was assistant to the president and a grant writer at Austin Community College.

Barrera was appointed president of El Paso Community College in 1994 during a difficult period. The Southern Assn. for Colleges and Schools accrediting agency had threatened to strip the school’s accreditation. In response, she set about making the agency’s recommendations a reality, including creating a more democratic system of decision-making and expanding the campus with five new buildings and two outreach sites in the toughest parts of the county.

“These are areas without sewer systems,” she said. “Some don’t have roads. We were trying to bring the educational facilities and work-force training to them.” The expansion will allow the community college to serve an additional 3,000 students.

By 1998, most of the board members who supported her reforms had moved on and several who remained disagreed with her on personnel decisions, according to El Paso Community College Trustee Innocente Quintanilla.

“She was cleaning house,” Quintanilla said. “And some of those people who were not doing their job had friends on the board.”

Quintanilla said he and another trustee were elected to the board two years ago on a pro-Barrera platform. But the new trustees still fell one vote short of a majority.

“In the community, she had support,” Quintanilla said. “But she didn’t lobby the community. She was very professional.”

Barrera didn’t fight her opponents because she didn’t want to damage the school’s reputation, Quintanilla said.

“That could be viewed as a shortcoming--that she did not fight for the position,” he said.

Non-Latino Finalist Serves in California

Grosz, 56, is the only non-Latino candidate. She has been the chief academic officer in the Connecticut Community College System since 1995.

On paper, she has had the most statewide administrative experience. Before moving to New England, Grosz was dean of Language Arts at San Jose City College. She was a member of the California Community College Board of Governors from 1989 to 1991 and president of the state Academic Senate from 1987 to 1989. She also taught English at Santa Monica College for 20 years.

In Connecticut, Grosz has tried to create a smoother student transition from community colleges to four-year universities. Connecticut’s community college transfer rates are among the lowest in the nation, and she has taken a leadership role in remedying the situation, colleagues said.

“We have a state higher education board that is often more conservative than we at the community colleges would like,” said Andrew McKirdy, interim chancellor of the 40,000-student system. “Karen has been a major advocate for us.”

With so many small, private liberal arts schools in the Northeast, many states have neglected their community colleges, McKirdy said. Grosz has worked hard to get four-year universities to accept community college graduates as juniors, something that is already done in California.

Grosz has also been a pioneer in online classes and “distance learning” in Connecticut, said Tom White-Hassler, dean of information technologies at Connecticut’s Manchester Community College.

Celia Barberena will address the public at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Mission College. She will be followed by Karen Sue Grosz at 7:45 p.m. On Tuesday, Adriana D. Barrera will speak at 6:30 p.m., and Thomas D. Morales at 7:45 p.m.