PORT ANGELES — Luke P. Robins has been selected as the Peninsula College trustees’ choice for the institution’s sixth president in the 50-year-old college’s history.
Peninsula College trustees voted at about 2:50 p.m. Tuesday to offer the job to Robins, who was one of four finalists.
“He is a strong match for the presidential profile created by our committee and board,” said Julie McCulloch, president of the board of trustees.
Robins’ experience in strategic planning at three colleges, in increasing enrollment and new campus construction, and his support for baccalaureate degrees at community colleges heavily influenced the trustees’ decision, McCulloch said.
McCulloch also cited Robins’ teaching experience, appreciation and respect for diversity.
The next step is to begin negotiations on the terms of his contract.
The next president, expected to begin work in July, replaces Tom Keegan, who left in February to be Skagit Valley College’s new president after 10 years of leading Peninsula College.
Brinton Sprague, a retired community college leader now living in Port Ludlow, is serving as interim president.
Robins — who is now chancellor of Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe, La., and who said he is “in his 50s” — visited Port Angeles, Forks and Port Townsend on Feb. 5-6, and took part in several community and college staff and faculty forums.
During his visit, he stressed his experience in an entrepreneurial approach to college funding, including using vocational programs as profitable programs for the college.
He has been chancellor of Louisiana Delta, a two-year college with 2,700 enrolled students, since 2006.
The trustees chose Robins and three other finalists — all of whom hold doctorates — from a field of 23 applicants Feb. 21.
“In my eyes, it has been a stellar process,” McCulloch said.
All four finalists had strong qualifications, and the college had good candidates to choose from, she said.
The other finalists were:
■ Cheri A. Jimeno, president of New Mexico State University at Alamogordo.
■ John R. (Ron) Langrell III, executive vice president of Riverland Community College in Austin, Minn.
■ Dorothy J. Duran, vice president for academic affairs at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
During the Port Angeles forum, Robins noted that Peninsula College was able to replace nearly all of the school’s old buildings over the past decade, during a challenging economic era, and expand the school’s educational offerings.
He compared that with the work he did at Louisiana Delta, saying he had applied there because of the challenge and unique experience of directing a new college, which opened its main campus in 2001.
Delta received full initial accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 2009, and the school’s nursing program admitted its first class in January 2010.
His marching orders were to get the college out of its 16,000-square-foot space and get the emerging college accredited.
By 2010, he had achieved both — a fully accredited two-year college and a $45 million campus, he said.
Robins and his wife, Mary Jane, have two children in college.
“I’ve lived in the West before, and I love the Northwest,” Robins, an avid fisherman, said during his February visit.
Robins has served as executive vice president and chief academic officer at National Park Community College in Hot Springs, Ark., and dean of instruction at Eastern Idaho Technical College in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
He received his doctorate in educational administration with a specialty in community college leadership from the University of Texas at Austin; his master’s degree in English, community college teaching track, from Illinois State University in Normal, Ill.; and his bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
