Santa Ana College President Ousted

The Rancho Santiago Community College District trustees voted unanimously this week to remove the president of Santa Ana College from the job she held for five years.

Rita M. Cepeda will become one of three district vice chancellors, a move faculty and a former administrator describe as a demotion.

Trustee Lisa Woolery said Cepeda would help Chancellor Edward Hernandez with “district-wide projects. This just happened,” she said. “We’re still working it out.”

Woolery said Hernandez recommended during Monday’s meeting that the seven-member board move Cepeda out of her job. Neither she nor trustees Lawrence Labrado and Phillip Yarbrough would explain why they removed Cepeda.

Peter Bostic, who recently resigned as director of the Santa Ana College Foundation, the two-year school’s fundraising arm, said Cepeda had been battling with Hernandez over funding.

She thought the district’s other school, the newer Santiago Canyon College, was receiving the bulk of the district’s resources, he said.

“She lost every battle she was trying to negotiate as the president,” Bostic said.

Neither Cepeda nor Hernandez could not be reached for comment. Cepeda began a three-week vacation Wednesday, said Ruth Cossio-Muniz, a spokeswoman for the college.

District spokeswoman Joan Barnes said John Didion, the vice chancellor for human resources and education services, will serve as acting president.

Cepeda will continue to earn the $141,480 a year she made as president until her contract expires June 30, 2006.

Several faculty and staff members questioned Cepeda’s removal.

In a letter to the chancellor, Chemistry Department Chairman Jeffrey McMillan asked the board to call a special session to reconsider its action.

“This is just a bad decision,” McMillan wrote. “Dr. Cepeda is the best thing to happen to Santa Ana College, perhaps the entire district, in a long time. This is a major operational change for the college that was made with no faculty consultation and input.”

George Wright, chairman of the Criminal Justice Department, said he could understand a change if faculty and the administration were fighting, but they got along.

“I’ve been through five college presidents, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Before coming to the college, Cepeda was interim president of Mission College in Santa Clara. She also served in the State Chancellor’s Office for Community Colleges in Sacramento for 18 years.

Cepeda is the third administrator to leave recently. Bostic resigned in May, and John Nixon, vice president of academic affairs, quit.

“We all feel as if we have been blind-sided,” said Paula Garcia, who has worked in the outreach department for 20 years.

“All of us are walking around feeling that we have been [sent to] death row. [The district is] saying, ‘This was done, and you guys have to live with it.’

“It is very hurtful and disturbing.”