PORT ANGELES — Recruiting students, fundraising, community involvement, workforce education, continuing education and sports are all important for a community college, said Cheri A. Jimeno, a finalist for president of Peninsula College, at a Port Angeles public forum this week.
In answer to a question about sports at the Tuesday evening forum, she said: “Athletics helps the institution be front and center within the community,
“We have to make sure it keeps a nice balance.”
Jimeno, 61, has served since 2007 as president of New Mexico State University at Alamogordo, which is a two-year associate degree-awarding school with an enrollment of 4,000 students.
It is a branch of the four-year state university based in Las Cruces, N.M.
Trustees chose Jimeno and three other finalists — all of whom hold doctorates — from a field of 23 applicants Feb. 21.
March 20 deadline
The trustees expect to name a new president at the board’s regular meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the Cornaby Center, Room A-12 following a noon executive session on the Peninsula College main campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd. in Port Angeles.
Once selected, the new president will replace 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.
The other finalists are:
■ Luke P. Robins, chancellor of Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe, La.
Robins visited Port Angeles and Forks on Monday and Port Townsend on Tuesday.
■ John R. (Ron) Langrell III, executive vice president of Riverland Community College in Austin, Minn.
Langrell appeared at community forums in Forks and Port Angeles on Wednesday and will attend a forum in Port Townsend today.
■ Dorothy J. Duran, vice president for academic affairs at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Duran will appear in Forks and Port Angeles today and in Port Townsend on Friday.
All candidate public forums in Port Angeles begin at 5:30 p.m. in Keegan Hall on the main campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The Forks gatherings are at 11 a.m. at the Forks Extension site at 71 S. Forks Ave.
The Port Townsend forums are at 1 p.m. at the chapel at Fort Worden State Park.
No ‘main campus’
Jimeno sees no “main campus” for community colleges, which serve widely scattered communities.
Instead of referring to the Port Angeles campus as the “main campus” and the Port Townsend and Forks offices as “satellite campuses,” Jimeno explained that she prefers the terms “Port Angeles campus,” “Port Townsend campus,” and “Forks campus.”
“The Extension sites are just as important as the central campus,” she said.
“They just have a different mission.”
Jimeno said access to a college education, especially for first-generation students, is a key component of the community college mission.
Access is more than finding the funding and a place for those students, she said; it also entails ensuring those students have the support they need to navigate the college system.
“We need to make sure students are where they need to be,” she said.
That means not just in recruiting students, she said, but also in student retention and program completion.
Jimeno said she is seeking the position at Peninsula College partly because of the school’s academic reputation and partly for the natural wonders the area offers.
“This is a beautiful location,” she said.
New Mexico State University at Alamogordo, located 70 miles northeast of Las Cruces, in the southern portion of the state, was founded in 1958 and serves nearby Holloman Air Force Base, the Mescalero Apache Reservation and about 20 villages and towns in the area.
Working with tribes
Working with tribes often means being sensitive to the specific needs of each individual tribe, she said.
“We don’t expect one tribe to have the same needs as other tribes,” she said.
Jimeno, who grew up in Montana, has served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Montana State University, Northern, in Havre, Mont., and as dean of the School of Education, Business and Technology at the University of Montana, Western, in Dillon, Mont., where she also was an associate professor of business and department chair.
Jimeno and her husband, Tom Yahraes, have five adult children.
She has family in the Pacific Northwest, including a sister in Bellingham and a son attending college in Oregon, she said.
Each of the four finalists is meeting with Peninsula College trustees this week in closed executive sessions on the Port Angeles campus.
Robins met with trustees at 5 p.m. Tuesday and Jimeno at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Langrell is scheduled to meet with them at 5 p.m. today and Duran at 5 p.m. Friday.
For more information on the finalists and the college president search, visit www.pc.ctc.edu.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
