Chapman Adds Sanchez to Board

Chapman University alumna Loretta Sanchez was named to the school’s board of trustees this week, several years after faculty members began lobbying for the Democratic congresswoman’s appointment.

“It’s so great,” Sanchez said Tuesday. “It’s so wonderful.”

The appointment of Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) comes at a time of change in the university’s leadership. George Argyros, a 26-year trustee and major donor who was recently appointed U.S. ambassador to Spain, will step down as chairman in January but will remain on the board.

Chapman President James L. Doti said Sanchez was elected unanimously Monday at the trustees meeting. Although faculty members had pressed previously for her appointment, Doti said she had never been nominated before.

Sanchez’s appointment shows “you don’t have to be a rich, white Republican to be part of Chapman,” Doti said.

Sanchez took three classes from Doti when he was teaching economics at the campus in Orange. He endorsed Sanchez in her first race for Congress, in 1996 against incumbent Republican Robert K. Dornan, a move that angered many of Chapman’s Republican trustees and donors.

By winning that election, Sanchez became the first woman and first Latina elected to Congress from Orange County. Sanchez, who has since been reelected twice, joins Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) on the Chapman board.

Chapman was seen as slighting Sanchez when university officials rejected a 1997 recommendation of a faculty-student committee to invite her to be the commencement speaker. Instead, trustee and wealthy GOP donor John Crean spoke to the graduating class.

Sanchez said Tuesday that she couldn’t have attended the commencement anyway because she was speaking at another graduation.

Faculty Senate President Fred Smoller said professors were pleased with her appointment. “She is one of our most successful alums, and she has a growing national reputation, and she will strengthen our university,” he said.

Doti said Sanchez could serve as Chapman’s representative in Washington, perhaps even help its natural science professors gain more federal grants. He also said she could help reach out to Latinos who might be interested in attending Chapman.

Among the most important tasks for Chapman trustees is raising money for the 4,440-student campus, which in recent years has added a law school and numerous buildings, and raised its academic profile. Doti said trustees personally have donated $190 million of the $200 million Chapman aims to raise in its five-year capital campaign.

Doti said the logical candidate to succeed Argyros as chairman would be Donald E. Sodaro, the board’s executive vice president and chairman of Hanford Hotels Inc., a Newport Beach hotel management company.

Also appointed to the board were Robert Gray, chairman and chief executive of St. John Knits International Inc., and David Wilson, chairman and chief executive of Wilson Automotive Group, a network of car dealerships in Southern California and Arizona.