Interim Chancellor Susan Lamb Steps Up
A Closer Look at City Colleges New Chancellor
By Marco Siler-Gonzales
Susan Lamb had one foot out the door of City College when she announced her plans to resign as vice chancellor of academic affairs last February, but that was before State Chancellor Brice Harris offered her the opportunity to take over as interim chancellor of the college.
“Ms. Lamb has been serving as vice chancellor of academic affairs since 2013 and her knowledge of the college and of accreditation makes her an excellent leader for the next phase of development of the college,” Harris and Special Trustee Guy Lease wrote in a joint letter to the college in June.
Since the Board of Trustees granted her two-year contract in July, Lamb has been working with City College constituents preparing the school to meet standards set by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges by November 2017. Reaffirmation of City College’s accreditation by the commission is vital to keeping the school open.
“We have a lot of confidence in Susan and her ability to get us to the finish line,” Board of Trustees President Rafael Mandelman said. “We want to give her time to work with enrollment, accreditation issues and the all-around stability of the college.”
As an administrator, Lamb has experienced firsthand the survival mode City College is now in.
As the former vice president of instruction at Diablo Valley College, Lamb worked through the same process to reaffirm the school’s accreditation after it was placed on “show cause” status by the accrediting commission in 2008.
Lamb became City College’s vice chancellor of academic affairs on Nov. 1, 2013, just as the accrediting commission terminated the school’s accreditation. The restoration process for the school had not yet been implemented.
Race for Equity Services
In the final stage to restore accreditation, Lamb must push the school toward certain administrative and financial standards, including the improvement of student equity. Lamb said plans to upgrade equitable student services had not made much progress by the time she took over as chancellor.
“ We have a lot of confidence in Susan and her ability to get us to the finish line.”
In August, Lamb created E.A.S.E (Equal Access to Success Emergency task force), comprised of students, faculty and administration to develop a plan to improve student equity services. Lamb aims to work with unions and constituency groups to refine student service plans in September and October, and implement the changes by next fall.
Lamb said her idea is to prepare, refine and evaluate these changes to student services before the accrediting commission’s restoration team visits for their evaluation next year.
Contract Negotiations
Other than the chancellor and vice chancellor, faculty and administrative salaries are now 3.5 percent below what they were in 2007 and 2008, Lamb said. With new contract negotiations underway, faculty hopes to recover those wages.
The decrease in pay ultimately reflects the college’s sudden plummet in enrollment, Lamb said, and a loss of about 9,000 full-time students since the accreditation crisis began in 2013.
With fewer students, the state cuts public funding.
In 2014, Sen. Mark Leno passed a stability fund for City College in order to save it from a total budget crash. If the enrollment stays the same, the stability fund will allow City College to lower its budget in manageable increments.
While full-time faculty are working harder to keep classrooms running, and the school is facing substantial budget losses, Lamb said contract negotiations won’t be easy.
For herself, Lamb requested an eight percent salary reduction from the previous chancellor’s pay rate. Those earnings were equal to thechancellor’s salary in 2008.
The Future of ACCJC
A state task force has now insist- ed another accreditor replace the current accrediting commission, but Lamb does not see this as a sure fix.
For Lamb, all accreditors have standards, and a school hinges upon the college’s and accreditors’ abil- ity to work together in a “collegiate fashion.”
What Lamb wishes to see in the next few years is an accreditor who will work with the school effectively, whether that’s the current commission or another accrediting agency.
Lamb’s Future
Lamb’s interim contract ends June 5, 2017. She is interested in the chancellor position.
Her candidacy rests on whether she and Board of Trustees feels she has been effective chancellor after filling the role for two years.
“I truly love this college. I don’t say that lightly,” Lamb said. “City College has made a profound impact on me. I want to do right by it and see it be the best that it can be.”
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