I have been a community college Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for over 12.5 years and am the 12th longest-serving CEO in the California Community College system. Yet, I am still learning about what it takes to do this job. I know that I don’t have all of the answers (Many times I still do think I do)– I am guided by the needs of our current and future students, and every day, I reaffirm my commitment to unapologetically show up for them and the communities we serve.
But if I’m being honest (I always am, hate it or love it), being a college CEO is hard. I see my fellow college administrators struggle on the daily, working long hours to help our students access a postsecondary education. There is SO much need out there in our student bodies, and we try our hardest to help our students meet it, but sometimes we’ve exhausted every avenue, and there’s nothing more we can do. It keeps me up at night.
And this is just just the beginning, because we also have political influences that are increasingly impacting our already complex work. College personnel, particularly those who have worked hard to advance racial equity, are seeing their offices lose funding or see their jobs disappear. It is a scary time to be an unapologetic leader. Then again, it’s an important time to stand up, too.
Instead of worrying about the interplay of politics into our work, practitioners should focus on:
- increasing enrollment
- addressing racial equity
- improving student success
- improving student retention and persistence rates
- recruiting and retaining personnel
- implementing and expanding dual enrollment
- monitoring unrestricted and grant funds
- engaging our communities
- advocating at the state and federal level
- making ourselves accessible to students
- being responsive to faculty, classified professionals, and our local governing board
It is easy to see how this added layer impacts our ability to move our institutions forward, and, as a result, many leaders are retiring or resigning sooner than they might have otherwise. According to a November 2022 report released by the Community College League of California, the national average tenure of a college president was 6.5 years in 2016, down from 8.5 years in 2006. Here in California, the average tenure of CEOs was 5.1 years in 2012, a decrease from 6.8 years (the average term for a California CEO from 2002-2012.)1 When the demands of the job begin to draw leaders from institutions, it is the students and the economic future of the region that suffer.
From meeting with local, state and federal officials to responding to follow-up items, monitoring state and federal legislation, and the ongoing national conversations as they relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion (I have many thoughts on this topic that I save for another future thought) it sometimes feels like our work never ends. But then I remind myself of our students and how they need us and remember that this work is always worth doing.
Lately, much of my work has been in coordination with the Compton College administrative team, faculty, classified professionals, and students on how to operationalize legislation or respond to myopic legislation that could negatively impact students. Here’s one example of that work: In 2016 -2017, the state budget included funding for Guided Pathways. Since we received funding, Compton College was able to reorganize our academic divisions under the guided pathways framework, hire a dean of counseling and guided pathways, establish a campus-wide Guided Pathways committee, revise the job descriptions for counselors, hire additional student services advisors for the student services department and for each academic division success teams, and provided ongoing funding to support the activities of each academic division success team. For us, operationalizing our work is critical, and each year, I am working to implement key legislation to ensure we spend all our state and federal allocations.
As a CEO, I am getting better each day in this job, and it is my hope that other leaders can learn from my many mistakes over the years. Our students need experienced, decisive, empathetic and unapologetic leaders. However, I genuinely feel your career as an education leader can be over by a political misstep, a thoughtless comment to the wrong person, or by even less. But I don’t know how to be any way than unapologetically myself, just a kid from Compton.. At the end of the day, leaders are here to provide access to quality education for all students, regardless of the demands, and to create an environment that clears the barriers to student success.
References:
- Maze, R. (2022). (rep.). California Community College CEO Tenure & Retention Study (10th ed., pp. 1–12). Sacramento, CA: Community College League of California.