It appears Pima Community College may have a top candidate for the chancellor position.
During today’s Pima Community College governing board meeting, the board voted to authorize travel for two board members and three employees early next week to visit Lee Lambert, president of Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, Wash., a Seattle suburb.
According to C.J. Karamargin, PCC’s vice chancellor for public information and government relations, the visit is part of the search’s due diligence process.
“Clearly Dr. Lambert has emerged as the leading candidate to be the next chancellor,” Karamargin told The Range today.
Comments on feedback forms online and in person as part of the search process has a clear preference for Lambert. However, there remain other formalities before the board votes to give Lambert the job.
Karamargin said the plan from the beginning as the board formed the search process was to select a new chancellor by spring 2013 and have someone hired by July 1. Interim chancellor Zelema Harris is on board through June with a possibly extension offered if needed through August.
“There’s a time element here and another reason to move quickly,” he said. “The Higher Learning Commission and the college’s probationary status.”
The college must file its first report to the commission by Aug 1. The board wants to have a chancellor in place before that deadline.
According to an April 21 story in the Shoreline-Lake Forest Park Patch, this is what the Shoreline Community College board president had to say about Lambert and his PCC candidacy:
“I love Shoreline and I’m happy to continue the work we are doing,” Lambert said. “At the same time, I am “We want President Lambert to stay at Shoreline, period. However, the Shoreline Community College Board of Trustees understands that the same qualities that make him so valuable and effective at Shoreline also make him attractive to other community colleges,” Board Chair Phil Barrett said. “College employees, students and the communities we serve should know that regardless of the outcome, the Board is committed to the academic values and institutional goals that are in place and that President Lambert is pursuing with such success.”
Here’s what Lambert had to say about PCC:
“There are challenges, but I enjoy addressing challenges,” Lambert said. He noted that the probation notice doesn’t cite anything related to academics. “Pima has good academic programs and faculty and staff who are very committed to student success.”
This article appears in May 9-15, 2013.
Now’s the time to dig up whatever you can find on him, before it’s a done deal.
Hopefully the search will come up blank and we can move on beyond the Flores travesty.
Next step = recall those awful 4 board members.
This is very misleading. The teacher’s union, which represents approx 1/2 of the teachers found all candidates to be weak, with Mr. Lambert the best of the lot. They also recommended that the interim chancellor be offered a contract that would keep her in the position until PCC made it’s way through the probationary process/timeline.
The information on their vote included pie charts of the voters impressions on a variety of characteristics of each candidate. The employees union signed onto and agreed with the teacher’s union’s evaluation.
I do not understand why this story is being portrayed in this fashion.
Any Chancellor approved by the four scandal tainted board members is a no-go. They have an interest in protecting the fifedom and what they probably knew about the multiple Flores transgressions yet while not acting to protect the college and 7 other women that did not need to become victims. The board members and lawyers seem to be only looking after themselves – at the student, faculty, and PCC accreditation expense. Such board members should be prohibited from holding any future public office, should be responsible to the victims, and their law firm should face subrogation to return any money rec’d for the defense that allowed this protracted serial victimization and promulgation of the unlawful culture of fear and retaliation towards victims and supporters.
I thought that they may be on to a candidate here until he made the comment about how none of PCC’s troubles relates to academics.I ask if you think it is possible for a Community College to have the type of trouble it has within the Administration without it affecting the Academic side of the school,impossible.It is a bit like another staple of Tucson,the cockroach.If you see one,you have an infestation.If this candidate does go further into the selection process (and I hope he does as I really think he has a chance to breakup the “good ole boy” attitude within Administration) perhaps a question can be placed to people that have recently used PCC,ask them about potential issues.I must say to the candidate,do not be so easy fooled into believing that there are not issues within the Academic side of the school also, just ask.
Just convert it to a charter high school.