Summary of the January 6, 2026 Board of Trustees Meeting

Published on Jan 6 2026

In this first regular Board meeting of the calendar year Trustee Carol Mathews assumed the role as Board President, Trustee Richard Dorn as Vice President, and Trustee Lorraine Pedrotti as Clerk and the Trustees approved the firm that they will use to assist them in identifying CR’s next president.  President Mathews appointed trustees to several Board committees: Co-Chairs of the Ad Hoc President/Superintendent Search Committee—Richard Dorn and Dr. Colleen Mullery; Ad Hoc President/Superintendent Evaluation Committee—Carol Mathews, Lorraine Pedrotti, and Sally Biggin; Ad Hoc Board Self-Evaluation Committee—Sally Biggin, Dr. Colleen Mullery, and Jack Rice; Audit/ Finance Committee—Richard Dorn, Lorraine Pedrotti, and Sara Dronkers; Board Representatives to the CR Foundation Board—Jack Rice and Dr. Colleen Mullery; Ad Hoc Committee to Review Chapter Two Board Policies and Administrative Procedures—Jack Rice, Sara Dronkers, and Carol Mathews. Below is a summary of a few agenda items from this meeting. I refer you to the minutes of this meeting if you want to know the details of each specific agenda item.

Consent Calendar Action Items

Tatianna Robinson’s employee change of status was approved. Tatianna will move from her Academic Affairs Analyst to the Evaluation Specialist position. Also, by Board action at this meeting, we welcome Robert Child (Biology) and Jocelyn Heaney (English) as new associate faculty members starting this spring semester and they ratified my decision to accept the resignation of Ashleigh Johnson from the Early Childhood Education Associate position. 

The Board approved a petition to change the minimum faculty qualifications for the History discipline. While this is an infrequent occurrence; I applaud Dr. Justine Shaw, Dr. Stacey Anne Salinas, and Dr. George Potamianos for changing the qualifications to support student success. For those not familiar with the process, faculty must meet minimum qualifications that are at least equivalent to the minimum qualifications set out in the regulations of the Board of Governors. Discipline faculty may review these minimum qualifications and decide by majority vote of full-time tenured faculty with an FSA in the discipline under review to add additional requirements for qualification. Currently, the Chancellor’s Office’s guidelines to teach history at the college level are a Master’s degree in history OR a Bachelor’s degree in history AND Master’s degree in political science, humanities, geography, area studies, women’s studies, social science, or ethnic studies OR the equivalent. The Petition, which was approved by full time faculty noted previously, the Faculty Qualifications Committee, and by the Academic Senate revised the minimum qualifications to a Master’s degree in history OR Bachelor’s degree in history AND Master’s degree in Ethnic Studies OR the equivalent. The other disciplines (political science, humanities, geography, area studies, women’s studies, and the “nebulous” social science) were removed as they are not, in the opinion of the full-time faculty, suitable to prepare someone to teach college-level history. It is important to note that the revised requirements for qualification shall only apply to faculty hired going forward.

I am incredibly pleased to write that the Board approved the recommendation to engage Community College Search Services (CCSS) as the consulting firm to lead the search for the next president of CR. Dr. Will Lewallen and Dr. Joan Smith from CCSS will serve as consultants for the search. Dr. Lewallen has twelve years under his belt as a college CEO including seven years as Superintendent/President of the Hartnell CCD. Dr. Smith has ten years’ worth of experience as a college CEO with seven years as the Chancellor of Yosemite CCD. Both consultants have conducted CEO searches for several rural districts/colleges including Mendocino-Lake CCD, President, West Hills Lemoore, Siskiyou CCD, Gavilan JCCD, and President, Woodland Community College. The fee for conducting the search is $38,000. This fee includes the preparation of up to three comprehensive reference reports on the finalists. The fee for additional comprehensive reference reports is $1,750 each. Here is a link to the CCSS website: https://ccss.solutions

President Mathews directed to me reach out the leadership of Academic Senate, CSEA, and the Management Council about appointments to the Applicant Review Committee (Committee) according to BP 2431. President Mathews also directed me to identify an administrator for the Committee. I will ask the leadership to forward their suggestions to me by January 16, 2026. 

Informational Reports

In the recognition report, we acknowledged Julie Gilbride for her recent graduation from Cal Poly Humboldt with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Procurement fraud is one of the leading causes of financial losses and reputational damage for higher education institutions. Thanks to the sharp eyes, mindfulness, and diligence of Jordan Kauffman we avoided paying an imposter nearly $35,000. Thank you, Jordan! 

Organizational and Administrative Reports

In her Management Council report, President Leigh Dooley wrote that members of the Student Services & Equity subcommittee of the AI Task Force, which includes two Management Council representatives—Heidi Bareilles and Anthony Finck—discussed their work, sixteen managers and directors indicated interest in participating in Pivot in 60, and under the guidance of Anna Duffy, Financial Aid Manager, the Financial Aid Office is participating in a pilot of Cali Bot, a text-based communication tool supported by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office in partnership with Mainstay.  

In my administrative report, I noted that the ACCJC will host four convenings in 2026 to discuss how return of investment (ROI) data can be embedded into institutional planning and culture to ensure students graduate into living-wage careers. I also shared the team grade point averages for several of our athletic teams for fall 2025: Volleyball-3.65; Women's Basketball- 3.60; Men's Basketball-3.32; Men's and Women's Rodeo-3.20; Football-3.07; Men's and Women's Cross Country-3.00; Women's Soccer-2.60; Men's Wrestling-2.55;  and Men's Soccer-2.30. The cumulative GPA for all fall sports was 3.03.  Kudos to all of the coaches for this fabulous achievement.

In Julia Morrison’s written report, she noted that under the guidance of the Life Safety Committee, the District’s Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (IIPP) is being updated and the Executive Cabinet will continue to assess each personnel position request for necessity and alignment with District mission and goals. She verbally shared that we have been notified that the District is required to secure a conditional use permit from Del Norte County for the Del Norte Healthcare and Revitalization project.  As part of the process, the County may require the project to include additional improvements that were not initially planned for, such as pedestrian walkways adjacent to campus and a traffic analysis. We are consulting with bond counsel, general legal counsel, and the design team to work through this new development. It is too soon to determine what the potential timeline or dollar impact may be. 

Crystal Morse noted that her office has entered the final implementation stages of Ad Astra, a course predictive scheduling platform for academic scheduling and resource optimization. Ad Astra will help us to continue better aligning course offerings with actual student demand, ensure institutional efficiency and accelerated student completion, and optimize the Student-Centered Funding Formula (SCFF). On-site training sessions begin in February 2026 with a go-live date of Summer 2026. 

Marty Coelho’s report noted that The Eureka Elk Lodge #652 established a new general scholarship – the Leo Frank Memorial Scholarship that will provide two $1,000 awards for CR students entering their second year of schooling. He also noted that the December Holiday Campaign raised about $30,000.