College of the Canyons’ governing board spent Tuesday in closed-session meetings interviewing the four finalists for the college’s superintendent-president position.
Those four finalists are the result of a search, conducted by consulting firm PPL Inc., that promised to be exhaustive and nationwide. The 28-name list of candidates who met the position’s minimum requirements was whittled down by a 14-member search committee comprised of undisclosed school employees, a community member, a student government representative and the consultants hired by the district to conduct the search.
Each of the 10 employees who served on the committee was chosen to represent a faction of college employees, such as the academic senate.
The governing board went into closed session shortly after 8:30 a.m. Tuesday to begin interviewing the four candidates. The board’s Tuesday meeting agenda included the provision that a second special meeting may have been convened Wednesday “if needed,” but the college announced Tuesday night that the second meeting would not be held.
The closed-session board meeting followed a public question-and-answer session held Monday that was intended to enable the community to become familiar with the candidates.
The four candidates all hold leadership positions at various California community colleges:
- Marvin Martinez, Rancho Santiago Community College District chancellor.
- Lataria Hall, West Hills Community College District interim vice chancellor of educational services and institutional effectiveness.
- Jeffrey Archibald, West Los Angeles College vice president of academic affairs.
- Jasmine Ruys, current interim superintendent-president of College of the Canyons.
Much of the work to select the position’s final four happened between late February and early March, said COC spokesperson Eric Harnish.
There were 46 total applicants for the position, and of those, 28 met the role’s minimum requirements. The college’s human resources staff determined which candidates met those minimum requirements.
On Feb. 18, the search committee reviewed and scored the 28-person list. There were 10 selected for first-round interviews with the committee during the week of March 9, Harnish said, and of those 10, four were selected for final-round interviews with the board.
Back in December, when the list of college positions that’d be included on the committee were announced, human resources head Miranda Zamudio said the names of the committee members would be kept secret to protect them from being influenced.
