SBCC Trustees Approve Search Committee for New President, Keep Mum on Commission Report

College officials defend their decision not to publicly discuss or release the preliminary findings of a state oversight board

SBCC trustee Marsha Croninger speaks during Thursday’s discussion about a search committee that will look for a new president for the college. (Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

By Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @magnoli | updated logo | Published on 02.09.2012

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The SBCC Board of Trustees on Thursday approved a 16-member search committee to find a new president/superintendent for the college, following the dismissal last summer of President Andreea Serban.

Staff and community members will help screen the candidates, led by co-chairmen Ron Gallo and Dean Nevins. Gallo is president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Foundation, and Nevins is the former chairman of SBCC’s Computer Science Department and a board member for the Goleta Union School District.

The SBCC Board of Trustees will make the final decision and Thursday chose the “prism through which (the search committee) views these candidates” by approving a list of criteria, according to board President Peter Haslund.

The Stanton Chase International search consultant firm SBCC is using has already received 30 applications. A candidate is scheduled to be selected by mid-May — after interviews, site visits and at least one public forum, according to the projected timeline included in Thursday’s agenda.

The board has been the subject of controversy since it dismissed Serban and put her on paid administrative leave through the end of her contract in June 2012. The cause was never made public since the many evaluation meetings occurred in closed session, campus officials have said.

A complaint was sent to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges last summer alleging the board was out of compliance. The ACCJC visited the campus in the fall as part of its investigation. SBCC received a draft report of its findings on Monday but refused to disclose or even discuss its contents, saying it’s a draft and is therefore confidential.

“Prudence and utmost caution is urged here,” Sue Ehrlich, vice president of human resources and legal affairs for SBCC, said Thursday, adding that the contents of the document shouldn’t be released by discussing or distributing the document since it’s not final.

“The college has 30 days in which to make a confidential response to the draft,” SBCC said in a statement issued Tuesday. “The commission will not render any decision until it has received and considered the college’s response.”

The commission’s own policies state that details of the investigation are to be kept confidential until a decision is issued.

Acting President/Superintendent Jack Friedlander said he didn’t know when the final decision would be made, adding that he had made three unreturned phone calls to the commission’s Jack Pond, vice president of team operations and communication.

Trustee Joan Livingston called Friedlander’s statement that the investigation is ongoing “unfair.” The site visit and interviews occurred months ago — it’s the process that is ongoing, she noted. No decision has been made, Friedlander said in response.

“What does confidential mean as far as documentation?” Livingston asked. “Does confidentiality mean it’s not discussed in general terms, or do we just pretend it doesn’t exist, or what? I mean, confidentiality has a lot of behavioral choices.”

Friedlander said the draft report shouldn’t — and won’t — be discussed, and Ehrlich agreed.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

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» lou segal on 02.10.12 @ 01:11 AM

Dean Nevins ran for the Santa Barbara School Board as a union endorsed, hyper-liberal status quo candidate. It is comforting to know that our highly partisan SBCC Board chose to make a political appointment to head this selection committee. I wonder if this report from the state commission, which has something in there they don’t want to see the light of day, was critical of the highly politicized decision-making of the SBCC Board.

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» youngat85 on 02.10.12 @ 11:26 AM

I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the board of trustees for anything in the world. They were selected for the purpose of eliminating the job of a president who was doing a very great job and selected only after a careful study was made. She was supported by the majority of the large donors to the college. The process by which she was removed was mindful to me of the old John Birch Society practices. Although I support the selection committee, I still am appalled that very few of the students on campus are aware of how much money has been wasted. There may even be a good possibility that entrance fees may eventually have to be raised, while a lot of money has been wasted by the practices of the present board. God Bless and I certainly hope I am wrong in my assessment.

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» Dean Nevins on 02.10.12 @ 02:05 PM

A correction: I am the former Chair of the Computer Science Department at SBCC; the current Chair is Associate Professor Jacqueline Kuehn.

@lou Although you try to make it seem that my appointment as a co-chair on the selection committee by a unanimous vote of the board was some nefarious political plot, I suspect that my position as the academic senate president probably had more to do with it than a two-year old run for the Santa Barbara board.

@youngat85 Thank you very much for your support of the selection committee. I hope that you can attend the Candidate forums to help vet the candidates. It’s important that the community is involved in the process.

I just wanted to mention that the unfortunate thing about fee increases, other than the obvious burden it places on students, is that the state just deducts the increased fees from what they give us, so we see no additional money.

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» lou segal on 02.10.12 @ 03:26 PM

Mr. Nevins, unless you can offer more than I am the Academic Senate President, I think you are a political appointment by this Board.

Maybe you can answer a few questions for us, so we can determine if I am wrong:

What was your position regarding the Board’s dismissal of Serban?

Who did you support in the last SBCC Trustees election?

Were you endorsed by the Santa Barbara Teachers Association in the SB School Board election? Do you support the existing tenure and seniority rules?

Were you supportive of Serban’s position of having non-credit adult education classes funded by the users of these programs?

I will be looking forward to your answers.

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» publius on 02.10.12 @ 03:55 PM

Rather than start a pissing contest into a stiff public breeze, can’t we focus on the larger issues?

The issues of college and continuing education funding and priority focus that
were articulated by the old board majority and the former president have been
reconfirmed by the new president, the statewide chancellor, and the governor.

State subsidies for many continuing education classes are about to vanish.

The “make a few phone calls and knock on some doors in Sacramento” to dodge these realities, as promised by trustee Marty Blum, has failed to happen. The cavalry is not riding to the rescue.

It’s essential for all community factions to pull together, to help find new, local funding to protect the best parts of Continuing Education, to make them affordable for most residents into the future, to rebuild trust among trustees.

As Dr. Friedlander seems to be doing a good enough job at crisis management, and since the new board majority’s understanding and acumen on issues like restructuring and expanding funding seem suspect, why not cancel the “search”, and give Friedlander a two-year contract to show community and trustees what he could do as SBCC president?

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» lou segal on 02.10.12 @ 04:25 PM

Publius, when you say new local funding sources, are you referring to additional parcel taxes for property owners. If not, what else do you have in mind.

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» Dean Nevins on 02.10.12 @ 09:56 PM

@lou Well technically you are correct since the co-chairs were appointed by the Board and all of the Trustees are politicians. Therefore, everything they do is political. I also noted in my original response that my appointment was by a unanimous vote of the entire board. Could you please elaborate on what you mean when you say “political appointment”?

The Academic Senate President is elected by the full-time faculty to represent them in matters dealing with the administration (among other duties). My membership on the hiring committee is quite normal. It actually would have been odd if I wasn’t on the committee. By the way, the co-chairs only run the meetings and co-ordinate with the hiring firm. That’s pretty much it.

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» lou segal on 02.10.12 @ 11:45 PM

Okay, Dean, since the new members of the Board in their infinite wisdom thought it was in the best interest of the college to tell Serban to take a hike, I am thinking that rather than hire a new President who is a great administrator and will continue to ensure that SBCC continues as one of the best junior colleges in the country, they, instead, are appointing a search committee who will find someone who will carry out their agenda of subsidizing the art, sewing and cooking adult education classes at the expense of the credit and vocational courses for high school graduates. To me that would be politicizing the process to the detriment of the students who are most in need of the services of SBCC.

The school needs an educator and a superb administrator who has a demonstrated track record of doing more with less. Whoever this person is, he/she will need to stand up to the Board and even the faculty when some goofy idea is proposed by these trustees who have no experience running a college. So I hope the person who is appointed has a spine and will not be easily intimidated. The community will be watching.

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» Sy Prey on 02.11.12 @ 06:20 PM

Several tests required to exempt disclosure a public document under California Public Records Act:

1. Is it labeled preliminary draft?
2. Are the documents pre-decisional notes or memoranda?
3. Is the document retained in the ordinary course of business?
4. Does it contain facts?
5. Are the facts tightly intertwined with opinion?
6. What public interest is served by disclosure?
7. What public interest is clearly served by non-disclosure
8. Will the fundamental and necessary right of every person to have access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business chill candor and robust debate if this document is disclosed this stage in the final process?
9. Is the exemption narrowly or broadly construed?

Citizens for a Better Environment v. Department of Food and Agriculture (1985)
171 Cal App 3d 704

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» John Locke on 02.16.12 @ 12:04 AM

The “prism through which (the search committee) views these candidates”? Where do they learn this babble? Is there some politically correct bureaucrat school where this wierd language is taught? Can they be closed down?

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» youngat85 on 02.16.12 @ 01:09 AM

I believe the school you are thinking of is the school of selfish interests and it is taught by Gullible individuals who honestly believe their own rhetoric.

They have never been taught that personal responsibility is the cheapest price anyone can pay for freedom and they honestly believe that they can legislate others to pay for their freedom. They never want to hear that they are personally responsible for everything they want and they have a jaundiced opinion of reality based upon their own thinking.
I truly would not want to be in their position of running a school without experience and trying to please a vocal faculty.

We have lost some wonderful citizens who have proven themselves by having the schools best interest at heart and they were blindsided by a group of individuals more progressive than themselves who thought they could legislate more benefits for the faculty in truly hard times Without any feedback.

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