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SBCC President Andreea Serban Keeps Her Sights on the Future
By Jenn Kennedy, Noozhawk Contributor | 
| Published on 01.21.2010
Dr. Andreea Serban was born to lead. She emotes a powerful combination of charisma and commitment that makes you want to join her cause. She took the helm as president/superintendent of SBCC in 2008, and she bubbles with passionate vision about what’s to come.
Serban said she sees community colleges as a generous concept of higher education in the United States.
“They are the miracle worker of higher education,” Serban said. “We take everyone, no matter their skill level or readiness, and give them support. We offer exceptional education at an affordable price.”
It’s somewhat paradoxical, as the recession descends, enrollment has skyrocketed at SBCC to more than 20,000 credit students and 45,000 continuing education students annually. Yet it has been forced to cut classes to make up for its 10 percent budget reduction.
Serban paints a picture of the SBCC student. The median age is 24, although the college has students ranging in age from 17 to 80. She says many are making the transition to a new field and balancing a family with their schoolwork. They hail from more than 50 countries and represent all intellectual and income levels.
“We have a microcosm here that uniquely represents the world,” Serban said. “Their interests are extremely diverse, so we try to be all things to all people.”
Serban began her career as a math teacher at the high school and then university levels in her native Bucharest, Romania. She decided to pursue administration when she had the opportunity to come to the United States to pursue her master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University at Albany, State University of New York. As a graduate assistant, she felt inspired and found that research, planning and administration came naturally to her.
“It’s not just a job; it’s my life,” she said. “You can’t ever turn it off, which fits my personality.”
While the state offers minimal funding, Serban said, “The state money allotted to community colleges funds only mediocrity; if we want excellence, we must do our own fundraising, through grants and private donations.”
Serban is emphatic about SBCC being “an amazing college.” She knows she must turn out students who are competitive and employable, adding that “employers today want people who bring ideas and who think and work globally.”
Serban cites the talented, dynamic people she works with daily as her favorite part of her job.
“They help create an engaging environment, one with tremendous dialog that makes every day new,” she said.
Walking from one side of the campus to the other for a photo shoot, she must have greeted at least nine people by name. Everyone from the gardener and the security guard to other faculty gave a friendly wave our way.
Serban acknowledges that everyone in town has some affiliation or connection to the college — be it as a student, a donor or perhaps just that they use the track or other facilities.
“We make a tremendous impact on this community,” she said. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, and therefore status quo is never acceptable.”
Serban reaches out to connect local organizations to SBCC students whenever possible. For example, the college has programs with Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department and United Way of Santa Barbara County, among others.
Looking ahead, Serban recognizes that today’s students need very different skills than even those who attended college a decade ago.
“Sometimes I have to fix things that aren’t even broken,” she said. “We must consistently innovate and improve systems.”
Improvements in technology have made information readily available, and Serban said SBCC must strive to teach students how to take this information and turn it into knowledge. She says the college must remain fresh and edgy to appeal to today’s students, who tend to be more technologically savvy and group-oriented.
Serban first came to Santa Barbara in 1999, working as an administrator at SBCC before leaving for the South Orange County Community College District in Mission Viejo. She was selected as SBCC’s first female president in 2008, succeeding John Romo, who had retired.
She said she loves Santa Barbara’s climate and the spirit of its residents.
After much debate, she named The Harbor Restaurant her favorite dining spot in town. She said the stunning sunset view “just feels like Santa Barbara.”
— Noozhawk contributor Jenn Kennedy can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Click here to see more of her work.
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» on 01.21.10 @ 09:48 PM
She makes over 220k per year. Let’s fundraise, no problem there, but how about you take a 5-10% pay cut?
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» on 01.22.10 @ 07:12 AM
Why is it, in a town that graduates approximately 2200 high school seniors every year, that we have a junior college with an enrollment of 16000? Even if half the local graduates attended SBCC this would imply that the college needed to support an enrollment of 2200 (2200 graduates/year x 50% attendance x 2 years of study). Double that to account for re-training and those who take classes for fun to 4000 to 5000 students tops. Considering the impact on traffic, crowding, rental prices, social services, etc. why doesn’t SBCC downsize and get back to being Santa Barbara’s junior college, not CSU Santa Barbara? This is a school that actively recruits foreign students and out of state students, and has an education abroad program. Their tuition certainly raises income for the school, but we really don’t need a bigger SBCC. In fact, it ought to be much smaller than it is now. The school needs no more buildings, and needs to shut down some small programs in order to pay for more vocational programs.
California is debt with a persistent budget crisis, one way to relieve this is to raise the cost per unit to where it actually covers the costs of the instruction (which is heavily subsidized by the state government now). Downsizing SBCC via students (and their parents) paying the actual cost of what they purchase an idea whose time had come, and would benefit Santa Barbara. Its simple economics that artificially low taxpayer subsidized prices raise demand to a level higher than it would be if price was high enough to cover the actual costs. This will be painful doubtless, but shifting cost of college to those who receive the benefit of college is morally the right thing to do. Flame on.
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» on 01.23.10 @ 12:24 PM
“She’s committed to ensuring that the college and its programs adapt to the students’ — and the world’s — changing needs”
You are totally right, SBCC and Andrea Serban only care about the students, no that they should not care, that’s where the money comes and from the fundraising for the “students”.
SBCC is elitist and discriminatory for Adjunct Faculty. They can not have good students graduating without good teachers teaching them.
SBCC and its president do not care about good teachers, it is about business so she can get pay big bucks and enjoy full benefits for life with the full time teachers (few compared to the Adjunct Faculty who are for the most part women and do most of the job).
Andrea has a view of talking to Faculty once in a while in an Auditorium, where nobody can get personal. Unlike Jonh Romo, her predecessor, who had a true policy of an open door, she is too precious and her time also to be spoiled with a personal story.
I went to SBCC and I am forever grateful to my teachers, as for the system of money making at SBCC it is another story, we ought to realize that good deeds cannot be complete if you have to sacrifice one side to give to the other. Andrea needs to touch reality with Adjunct Faculty because that is the world that is never changing around her.
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