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Officials hope hunt for new CCD boss aids healing

Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 25, 2007 at midnight

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Leaders of the Colorado Community College System hope that the search for a new president of the Denver campus will help heal wounds from the dismissal of former president Christine Johnson.

"It's time to move on to a positive, healing process, because that's the best thing for the college, the staff and the students," said Rhonda Bentz, spokeswoman for CCCS. "We need to get the stability back."

Johnson was ousted as president of Community College of Denver in June after managers discovered e-mails allegedly showing that she told her finance manager to under-report financial reserves.

A 20-member search committee has been formed to find a new president for the 8,000-student college in the heart of Denver.

System President Nancy McCallin has made direct appointments of a couple of system presidents. But, in this case, she is setting up a full-blown search to try to find Johnson's replacement.

The search committee includes several community representatives, student and faculty representatives from CCD and managers from the CCCS office. Representatives from CCD nominated their representatives for the committee. And members of the community will be part of the process.

"There will be a lot of give and take," Bentz said.

Managers are using a headhunter and advertising in minority higher-education publications to try to attract a diverse field of contenders.

The committee will select five to 10 finalists to interview in teleconferences. Then, committee members will invite the top four candidates to visit CCD to participate in student and faculty forums along with face-to-face interviews with the search committee. Bentz said those who attend forums will be allowed to anonymously fill out feedback forms for the committee and McCallin to review.

At the end of the process, the committee members will recommend their favorite candidate. Then, McCallin will interview the finalists and make the final decision.

Bentz said managers hope to have a new president in place by January, in time to kick off the second semester.