The Foothill-De Anza Community College District's board of trustees announced four finalists in the search for the district's next chancellor, with the candidates slated to participate in open forums at Foothill College.
Longtime leader Judy Miner is retiring on Sept. 1 after 35 years in the district and eight years as chancellor. The board has named Farouk Dey, Lee Lambert, Richard Storti and Rowena Tomaneng as her potential successors.
Dey is currently the vice provost of integrative learning and life design at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He previously served as a dean at Stanford.
Lambert is chancellor of Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, a post he has held for nearly a decade.
Storti is the executive vice chancellor of administrative services for the San Mateo Community College District.
Tomaneng is the president of San José City College. Earlier in her career, she taught at Foothill and De Anza, and held leadership positions at De Anza.
The finalists were chosen after a national search and the Foothill-De Anza board plans to make a decision in June, according to a press release from the district.
Trustee Gilbert Wong has been instructed by his colleagues to recuse himself from the process of picking a new chancellor, as part of a censure he received last month. The board voted 4-1, with Wong dissenting, to censure him after finding probable cause that he subjected De Anza College President Lloyd Holmes to "unlawful harassment and discrimination on the basis of race or color" in a December one-on-one meeting. The board also determined that Wong improperly divulged information to Holmes about the chancellor search process.
In an email that Holmes sent to Wong after the Dec. 9 meeting, he said that he had been considering whether he would be a "viable candidate" for the chancellor position. Holmes did not respond to a request for comment on the chancellor search before this news organization's press deadline.
Forum schedule
The four finalists are each scheduled to visit and participate in additional interviews and a public forum. The forums will be held in the district board room, located in building D700 on Foothill's campus, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. The forum schedule is:
• 1 p.m. on Monday, May 1: Lee Lambert
• 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2: Farouk Dey
• 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3: Rowena Tomaneng
• 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 4: Richard Storti
The district also plans to make the forums available via Zoom and post recordings afterward. For more information about the candidates and forums, visit fhda.edu/chancellorsearch/finalists.html.
Comments
Registered user
Midtown
on Apr 30, 2023 at 12:22 am
Registered user
on Apr 30, 2023 at 12:22 am
Foothill-DeAnza board meetings where members of the public can comment are usually in the evening, so why are all these forums in the middle of the day when most people are working or in class? This timing shuts out many--perhaps most--of the people who would want to participate in this process.
I am very disappointed by this timetable, and the last-minute announcement--these forums are next week! How can these forums be properly publicized, and people find the time to attend on such short notice?
However, the continuous cuts in programs and classes that began with the 2008-2009 recession, combined with the 2020-2021 COVID shutdowns, have gutted this once outstanding community college district--as well as other community college districts across California--and it's not clear that a change in leadership will have much effect on the decline: the California legislature and other government/policy organizations mandated most of the cuts and policy changes that have devastated Foothill-De-Anza--particularly Foothill--over the past fifteen years, so without action by the state legislature--which generally seems oblivious to or uncaring of its own destructive role--I don't think we'll see much positive change or renewal in the Foothill-DeAnza district anytime soon.
I would love to be proven wrong, but I've watched this process unfold since the "Great Recession", and it's been very depressing to see.