MPC board announces superintendent/president finalists
MONTEREY >> The Monterey Peninsula Community College District has announced five finalists for superintendent/president including the current interim head of the college, David Martin.
Online public forums will be held Oct. 19-20 to let the community learn more about Martin, Pamela Ralston, Tammy Robinson, Mark Sanchez and Christopher Villa. The finalists were recommended to the board of trustees by what it described as a diverse search committee made up of faculty, staff, students and community members after a nationwide search.
MPC faculty, staff, students and community members are encouraged to attend the forums to hear directly from each of the candidates and provide their feedback via an online form that will be posted just before each candidate’s scheduled forum time. For instructions on how to attend the online public forums, go to bit. ly/2I5pknT.
The board of trustees will conduct interviews of the finalists Oct. 22-23 and approve an
employment contract for the successful candidate in November. The anticipated start date for the superintendent/president is as early as January 2021.
Villa recently served as campus president for Portland Community College-Rock Creek, with an enrollment of approximately 20,000 students. He previously served as vice president of Student Services at three California community colleges: Los Angeles Mission, Fresno City and Long Beach City.
Ralston became executive vice president of Educational Programs at Santa Barbara City College in 2018. She leads academic and student services programs at the 111-year-old college. She previously
served as vice president for Student Learning at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, overseeing the academic affairs of the college. Before that, she spent eight years as dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.
Robinson serves as the vice president of instruction at Cañada College in Redwood City. Before that, she served as the dean of Global Learning Programs and Services and Dean for Social Science and Creative Arts at Skyline College in San Bruno. Robinson has over 20 years of experience as a community college administrator and faculty member.
Sanchez currently serves as the assistant superintendent/vice president of Student
Success and Support Programs,
College Centers at Cuesta College in San Luis
Obispo. He previously served as dean of Student
Affairs, Counseling at Hartnell
College, dean of
Student Services,
C ou nselin g at
Fresno City College and director of Student Support Programs at
Evergreen Valley College in San Jose.
Martin took over as interim superintendent/president of MPC in July 2019. He previously served as the vice president of administrative services at MPC. Martin also served as the chief financial officer and as an interim vice chancellor at City College of San Francisco.
In 2018, Walt Tribley announced plans to retire from MPC the following year before accepting a position as president of the Northern Wyoming Community College District in 2019. After Tribley announced his plans to leave MPC, the board in November 2018 hired a consulting firm to find candidates.
The board announced two candidates in May 2019: Denise King of Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland, Tennessee, and Arturo Reyes, superintendent/ president of Mendocino College in Ukiah. Reyes withdrew himself from consideration for the post just hours before he was to appear at an open forum after acknowledging he was a finalist for two other executive positions at California community colleges. King completed her open forum but the board announced it would continue to look for a replacement superintendent/president a few days later.