A commitee is formed to find a new president for Riverside City College by September 2016
Lawrence Manns | Assistant News Editor
Nov. 13, 2014
Riverside City College is in the process of searching for a new president. Dr. Irving Hendrick and Sylvia Thomas are leading the effort to find a candidate qualified enough to fill the role.
The new president will take office on the 100th birthday of the college, in September of 2016.
The search team, comprised of Hendrick, Thomas, and a committee made up of representatives from the college staff, Associated Students of RCC, RCCD and Riverside. In all, there are eight members of the committee and they will work together to screen and judge the qualifications of the applicants.
“The role of the search committee is to identify from the total pool of candidates a smaller group of candidates who appear from their applications to meet well the qualifications specified in the presidential profile,” Hendrick said. “The Committee will interview this sub-set of applicants by asking them a series of questions which the Committee will be developing.” Each candidate will participate in an interview with the committee and every candidate will be asked the same questions.
Depending on each applicant’s answer to the set of questions, the committee will review the group of candidates a second time, taking both their answers and pre-interview application into account.
The candidates will then be brought to RCC to meet with various campus groups and participate in a forum and will likely be brought to meet with members of the local community. The exact plan as to how all this will be achieved has not yet been decided by the committee.
“From past experience, one can make a reasonable guess that the number of finalist candidates will be in the neighborhood of three to five,” Hendrick said.
Thomas’ and Hendrick’s role in the search is to supply the search committee with candidates, and advise the search committee.
“In effect, our job is to make the job of the search committee difficult by supplying them with a large and highly qualified pool of applicants from which to select,” Hendrick said.
As well as advertising the search for potential candidates, they will facilitate the transportation of all the candidates that come to RCC.
They have also put together a profile, detailing the roles of the president and the qualifications necessary to be considered. According to the presidential profile, the candidates must have an outstanding record of academic leadership, financial stewardship and business acumen in a higher education system. The applicant also must have been a successful student.
The chosen candidate will become responsible for a multitude of things, including being the chief financial manager, finding sources of funding, ensuring the success of the students, recruiting and managing staff, being a liaison to K-12 schools and providing career opportunities to students.
At this time, there have not been any applicants, as the search has yet to be formally announced. However, Hendrick and Thomas have already begun to advertise the position, putting up a notice on RCC’s main webpage.
“Ms. Thomas and I have advised several major state and national professional groups that the search will be announced soon, so a number of candidates likely are considering the prospect of applying once they read the presidential profile” Hendrick said.
Hendrick expects the search to run according to plan, but expects challenges of a mental nature. “The expectation here is that the Chancellor and the RCC community will settle for nothing less. That, I suppose, does impose considerable pressure and accountability on all involved with the search process,” Hendrick said.
The overall cost of the search will not be known until it is completed. There not any extra expected costs, unless extra advisors are brought on to the team.
