Stakes High for Local Colleges

One is considered the crown jewel of Ventura County’s three community colleges, a two-year school where the graduation and university transfer rates rank among the highest in California.

The other is often compared to a diamond in the rough, a college long overshadowed by its older and bigger sister institutions, but primed to fulfill its potential.

Yet Moorpark and Oxnard colleges have something in common this semester: Both are searching for new presidents at a time when community colleges across the nation are competing for a shrinking pool of qualified applicants to fill a rising number of top-level vacancies.

Within the next month, screening committees made up of faculty and staff members, administrators and student representatives, will begin combing through dozens of resumes and applications from across the country. After narrowing the field to about a dozen candidates, the committees will forward the names of five finalists to the college district’s board of trustees and Chancellor Phillip Westin, who will make the final decision.

Of the two institutions, Oxnard College may have more at stake.

The 8,153-student campus has had five interim and permanent presidents during the past eight years. It has been without stable leadership since the December 2000 retirement of Steven Arvizu, who left for health reasons after serving 2 1/2 years.

An effort to name Arvizu’s successor ended unsuccessfully in October after Westin rejected two finalists for the job.

Westin said neither had the skills nor experience to help boost enrollment and meet the educational and job-training needs of the college’s increasingly diverse and comparatively under-prepared student body.

“We are definitely looking for stability,” said Mary Jones, president of Oxnard College’s Academic Senate and a member of the presidential search committee.

Jones said the need for strong stewardship has become more vital with the planned departure of the school’s executive vice president, Anthony Tricoli, who is leaving in May to assume the presidency of West Hills College in Coalinga.

Meanwhile, Moorpark College faces a different challenge as it seeks to find a replacement for James Walker, who is retiring this year after a decade as the college’s chief executive. With 14,660 students, Moorpark is the largest of the county’s community colleges and has enjoyed a reputation for innovation and excellence during Walker’s tenure.

In addition to setting high academic standards, the new college presidents, who will be paid about $139,000 annually, are expected to be technologically savvy and skilled at fund-raising, public speaking and negotiating contracts.

But each college has distinct challenges and the “type of person who would be a good fit for one school wouldn’t necessarily be a good fit for the other,” said Norm Nagel, president of the college district’s board of trustees.

For instance, at Moorpark, where overcrowding is a problem, a major issue will be finding ways to accommodate more growth while maintaining quality, Nagel said.

At Oxnard College, where enrollment jumped 13%, the issue will involve development of an infrastructure and a school identity that appeals to businesses and residents, he said.

“Historically, a lot of the students from Oxnard have gone to Ventura College, and we need to get the programs and facilities in Oxnard to the point where the community can identify with the school so the students want to go there,” Nagel said.

Last fall, for instance, 181 Oxnard High School graduates enrolled as first-time students at Ventura College, just eight fewer than the number who elected to attend Oxnard College.

Community college trustee Art Hernandez, who represents the Oxnard area, said the new president needs to be someone who is comfortable “talking to Chamber of Commerce leaders and parents who live off the Gold Coast, as well as parents who work in the fields all day.”

“I want someone who sees Oxnard College as an opportunity, who sees it as ‘I can come in and make a difference,’ not ‘I can come in and fix this,’” he said.

Given the requirements of a president’s job, it is not surprising that community college districts throughout California “are having a tougher time getting a deep and diverse pool” of qualified applicants, state community colleges Chancellor Tom Nussbaum said.

The problem is expected to get worse with the aging of the nation’s community college presidents, many of whom are expected to retire within the next decade. As a result, Nussbaum’s office is working to revive several doctoral programs that would train academics for leadership positions in higher education.

Nagel said it may be easier to attract top-notch candidates if voters approve a $356-million bond measure on the March 5 ballot that would pay for renovation and construction work at the district’s three campuses.

“In the eyes of a candidate, that could be a big selling point,” he said. “It’s always better to be in a place that has money to spend.”