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A college president is gone: How it happened

School presidents lost independence under state chief

Katie Kerwin Mccrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 25, 2007 at midnight

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A long-running power struggle between Nancy McCallin, head of Colorado's community college system, and some of the presidents she supervised set the stage for the public ouster of Christine Johnson as president of the Community College of Denver and for intense scrutiny of the 116,000-student system.

Former and current employees of the community college system say that when McCallin took over the colleges in 2004, she inaugurated an era of centralized power, financial audits and close supervision of once-independent college presidents.

Mandated by the legislature, McCallin also had to slash spending and create a centralized computer system that has cost $26.5 million but failed to consistently handle payments and register thousands of students.

Hundreds of e-mail exchanges obtained by the Rocky Mountain News reveal a strained relationship between Johnson and McCallin prior to a final showdown that led to Johnson's highly public departure.

Under McCallin and the board that oversees the community colleges, college presidents had to sign contracts that included loyalty oaths, spurring what some said was a climate of fear.

"Nancy did not respond well to any criticism or questioning of her decisions," said one former high-ranking official in the community college system who asked for anonymity. "Disagreement was viewed as insubordination."

Another high-ranking official still in the system said the loyalty oath could have a "chilling effect" on some leaders.

The loyalty section of the contract reads: "The community college presidents' primary loyalty and responsibility are to the Board and the System President, and the college presidents must impartially advise the Board and the System President on system wide strategies that balance the total revenue and expenses of CCCS (Colorado Community College System) in a manner that provides affordable, accessible and high-quality educational programs to all students served by CCCS."

Barbara McKellar, chairwoman of the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education, which oversees the system, said the language is meant to unify a system that was once too disparate and fostered destructive competition between institutions. The board changed the contract language and started using the new version at the end of 2004, right around the time that McCallin took over.

"Our system is so well-regarded and has such tremendous leadership," said McKellar, who volunteers on the board and runs her own commercial real estate firm.

"I don't see any power struggles. Nancy has been a phenomenal leader. She is extremely sensitive to listening to everybody and has been extremely inclusive. We're 100 percent behind her."

McKellar said there's no "shut your mouth and do what we say policy."

"There's no sense of presidents being afraid to speak their mind. Nancy doesn't micromanage. The board doesn't micromanage."

Measuring improvements

McCallin came to CCCS from then-Gov. Bill Owens' Republican administration, where she served as his budget director. Prior to that, she had served as the nonpartisan economist for the state legislature. Critics complained that McCallin was an outsider and an Owens emissary on a mission to chop spending, not improve educational opportunities for Colorado's most at-risk students.

McCallin, who is a registered Democrat, bristles at that criticism.

She said Owens did not want her to apply for the job and would have preferred if she had kept working for him. She said he did nothing to get her the job, and her political views have played no role in her priorities at CCCS.

She said she took the top job at a time when the community colleges were in deep trouble. The legislature had set up a task force to review the system and had mandated several fixes.

Despite the immense challenge of having to slash costs by 25 percent while simultaneously setting up a new computer system, McCallin said she has made huge progress: restoring stability to the system and bringing its ranking in graduation rates up from 23rd in the nation in 2003 to 8th by 2005.

She said costs are down, funding from various sources is up 33 percent, students can transfer more easily to 4-year-colleges, enrollment has climbed 4 percent over last year and the much-maligned computer system, known as Banner, is finally working.

"I am proud of what we've done with Banner," she said. "I am proud of all the colleges for pulling this together. Prior to Banner, we had a lot of old systems that were breaking down routinely."

McCallin said that before she came to the system, the state auditor mandated long-overdue audits that eventually uncovered problems with Johnson's management. McCallin said she places great value on integrity and honesty. Prior to agreeing to ever work for Owens, she said she asked him point blank: "You won't ever make me change a number, will you?"

Changing numbers has become the central focus of allegations against Johnson, who is accused of telling her top financial officer to under-report her college's financial reserves.

Johnson declined to speak with the Rocky. When she lost her job in June, she said she was "framed" because she spoke out about fiascos with the computer system. Now, her lawyer, Laura Schwartz, would only say that "Dr. Johnson will be exonerated."

'System is in chaos'

Johnson was not alone in criticizing the system. Tom Gonzales was president of Front Range Community College for 14 years and is a three-decade veteran of community college systems around the country. He retired in 2004, months before McCallin took over. Gonzales now lives on the Western Slope in Cedaredge and works as a consultant to community colleges around the country.

Like many people, he had great respect for Johnson. He doesn't know what allegations might surface in an ongoing audit, but he said Johnson and other presidents have suffered under McCallin's administration.

"The current leadership wants to create a very top-down, my-way-or-the-highway approach," Gonzales said. "The communities look at the colleges as a way to assist their students and their families toward a better education. If presidents aren't given flexibility, then the state loses."

He said former leaders of the system allowed presidents to be "spontaneous and proactive, to use all their leadership skills to do the right thing for students."

"The system is more bureaucratic, more top-down, more like the Wal-Mart model. That just doesn't work for the communities. I think it's a cost to the communities. One size doesn't fit all."

Gonzales said Gov. Bill Ritter needs to step in and assess the colleges.

"If you want to get the system to a different level, where it was and should be, then leadership for the system needs to be reviewed," he said. "You can't lead a large system and run such tight controls that you stymie people's professional credibility. Right now, many people feel the system is in chaos and needs some attention."

Contention over computer

That sense of chaos emerges clearly in e-mail exchanges.

As recently as January of this year, the computer system was not properly handling online credit card payments.

Bill Hudak, an accountant at Community College of Denver, reported then: "We have a total mess going on with credit card payments. We are receiving funds that should be going to other schools, other schools are receiving funds that should be coming to us . . . There is money floating everywhere and students are getting upset."

At that same time, Johnson was reporting to bosses that computer snafus were preventing grades from being correctly posted to student accounts, which was jeopardizing their financial aid.

"That is everything for the student who needs it," Johnson wrote. "If they don't get financial aid, they don't attend college. It may seem minor to you, but it is huge, and students get angry at us and their faculty."

The problems with the computer system had been ongoing for several months.

In August 2006, Johnson complained, "Nothing is working satisfactorily, and our students have never had worse customer service with no end in sight in the foreseeable future. Our staff is frustrated and worried about uncollected tuition for which we are held accountable without tools to do the job at a time they are breaking their backs to enroll the students. Unfortunately, we have gone from being operationally average to operationally substandard."

McCallin replied: "You saw my message on this earlier today. We are putting all resources on deck and they worked through the night."

Johnson said that she appreciated McCallin's focus on fixing problems. Then she made some suggestions of her own: Having technology experts work around the clock, including weekends. Johnson said the lines had gotten so long that she was trying to keep the students happy by serving coffee, soft drinks and cookies. "But they have jobs, so they leave, and all our effort . . . seems wasted."

Then, Johnson made a prescient comment. She asked about the payments being properly credited and asked about the status of the audit.

"I am worried about this year's audit," she wrote.

McCallin replied that the computer system had been down only twice the previous day for about 45 minutes each time. She defended the system and said there had been "vast improvement" and applauded everyone for getting enrollment up. She wrote that the computer snafus will have no impact on the audit.

Overruling the numbers

The strain of the computer problems had been causing people to quit, Johnson wrote.

In July 2006, Johnson told McCallin she feared that her chief financial officer was going to leave.

"I have a new and very talented CFO who is looking for another job, totally frustrated with Banner," she wrote. "She gave me that as the reason, and said her staff is frustrated, too. It was hard to find her, and I'm worried other good people across our system are leaving, and many for the same reason."

Johnson and McCallin also routinely sparred over how much funding the urban colleges would get. The urban colleges had larger enrollments, and therefore subsidized the rural colleges, which Johnson said was unfair. McCallin also challenged Johnson on one of Johnson's most passionate concerns: statistics on minority students.

In December 2005, right before Christmas, Johnson gave her boss her enrollment targets and statistics.

"We are at 57 percent, not 45 percent," Johnson wrote of her minority enrollment.

A few weeks later, McCallin told Johnson that her enrollment targets were unrealistic.

"I lowered your enrollment target to being flat," McCallin wrote. "I very much appreciate your desire to try for a 1 percent increase, but I do not think it is attainable. The numbers I have show that your fall enrollment decreased, so I think that being flat will even be difficult."

Then, she told Johnson she was going to overrule her on her statistics and use the Colorado Commission on Higher Education's numbers, which showed minority enrollment at 46.6 percent.

Displeased by media role

The two also sniped at each other about media coverage. Johnson had long had good relationships with the media. On Jan. 15, 2006, McCallin wrote: "Nice article today in the (Denver) Post, but I was very surprised to see it. I did not know anything about it. In the future, would you run these articles by me beforehand? I need to know what is going on and have a coordinated message."

Johnson said she had been asked to write editorials and would let her boss know next time. "If there is something that didn't fit system direction, let me know," she wrote.

Then, in February, Johnson had another opinion piece in the Post.

McCallin was miffed and shot an e-mail off right away on Sunday morning: "I once again saw your article in the (Denver) Post today. It was good, but again, I had no idea it was running. I thought you and I had discussed that you would run these articles by me. We talked about many things last week, but this never came up. I am sure you can relate to my situation - if one of your employees had written an op-ed and the first time you saw it was on the editorial page of the Post, wouldn't you be concerned?"

Johnson replied on Sunday evening: "Hi Nancy. I would like to discuss with you in person. I don't require my staff to consult with me on what they write. I ask that they not contradict system or college direction. I did let you know both papers have asked me to write education topics broadly, not just community colleges. I also accepted the request of the RMN (Rocky Mountain News) to be on their advisory council."

By March 2006, McCallin was clearly concerned about the support of her staff. Johnson wrote to McCallin saying she had heard from a colleague that "you are not feeling supported by all presidents. I hope you know that I support you and have said that you are an ethical, principled leader (which is most important). My only concerns have been around Banner (computer system) costs and I know you are working on them . . . I also know you have done A LOT at CCHE and legislature to get more money for community colleges, and no one could have done it as well as you."

The positive footing didn't last long.

In April 2007, just two months before her firing, Christine Johnson's college was getting kudos in The New York Times for "its long-term commitment to the success of low-income students."

The story, which highlighted only a handful of community colleges around the country, praised Johnson for working to retain Hispanic students who weren't returning for their second year, finding private funding for undocumented immigrants and sending a high percentage of students to 4-year colleges. McCallin sent a kind note of congratulations.

Weeks later, the audit had raised significant concerns about possible financial mismanagement and violations of academic integrity. And McCallin said she felt she had no choice but to ask for Johnson's resignation.

"I have a great deal of respect for Christine," McCallin said in an interview. "She did care about the students. We all do.

"But there were a number of issues that were very wrong in the college."

Christine Johnson

• Age: 54

• Educational background: bachelor's degree from New Mexico State University; master's degree and doctorate from University of Colorado

• Professional background: President of Community College of Denver; vice president for educational services for the Colorado Community College System; director or urban initiatives for Education Commission of the States; various administrative and teaching positions in K-12 schools.

Nancy McCallin

• Age: 48

• Title: President of the Colorado Community College System; salary is $255,700

• Educational background: Bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.; master's degree and a doctorate from University of Colorado

• Professional background: Hired by the nine-member state Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education in 2004; budget director for former Gov. Bill Owens; chief economist for the Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly; economist with United Banks of Colorado, now Wells Fargo.

Community College of Denver

• Former president: Christine Johnson

• New president: A search is under way; president should be in place by January

• Locations: Auraria campus and five other Denver locations

• Undergraduate students: 8,782 (2006)

• White: 37.9 percent

• Hispanic: 33.8 percent

• Black: 14.7 percent

• Asian: 6.6 percent

• American Indian: 1.4 percent

• Unknown or other: 5.6 percentSource: Colorado Commission On Higher Education

Colorado Community College System

• Number of students: 116,000

• Number of colleges: 13

• Largest college: Front Range Community College

• Tuition: $2,236 for a full-time student

• Graduation rates: 25.9 percent in 2005, up from 20.1 percent two years ago.

• State funding: $2,922 per student (2006-07)

• Financial aid: Students received $106 million of state and federal aid in 2005-06; half of students qualify for federal aid

CCCS colleges

Arapahoe Community College

Colorado Northwestern Community College

Community College of Aurora

Community College of Denver

Front Range Community College

Lamar Community College

Morgan Community College

Northeastern Junior College

Otero Junior College

Pueblo Community College

Pikes Peak Community College

Red Rocks Community College

Trinidad State Junior CollegeSource: Colorado Community College System

Employment contract loyalty oath

Whereas, the community college presidents' primary loyalty and responsibility are to the Board and the System President, and the college presidents must impartially advise the Board and the System President on system wide strategies that balance the total revenue and expenses of CCCS in a manner that provides affordable, accessible and high-quality educational programs to all students served by CCCS.

The series

• Today: Hundreds of e-mail exchanges obtained by the Rocky Mountain News depict a strained relationship between former Community College of Denver President Christine Johnson and her boss, Nancy McCallin, president of the Colorado Community College System, prior to the final showdown that led to Johnson's dismissal.

• Wednesday: Allegations of academic misconduct in Johnson's ouster center on the Community College of Denver's relationship with a part-time math professor from Iran who recruited his own students from the Middle East and taught them off-campus.

• Thursday: A 2003 magazine story heralded a new era of diversity at the highest levels of Colorado's community colleges. Leadership had begun to mirror the student population at the gateway institutions for higher education. But, four years later, there are no Hispanics or presidents of color left at any of the state's 13 community colleges.

Staff writer Jeff Kass contributed to this report.

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