Acting President Among 3 Finalists for Mission College Position

SYLMAR —  Mission College’s acting president and a college administrator in Long Beach are among the three finalists for the permanent president’s job at the San Fernando Valley campus, sources said Tuesday.

After completing two days of interviews, a campus search committee has recommended William Norlund, Mission’s acting president since early last year, and Kamiran “Kim” Badrkhan, academic affairs vice president at Long Beach City College, the sources said.

Those two names, along with a third as-yet unidentified finalist, were forwarded Monday to officials of the Los Angeles Community College District. The district’s Board of Trustees is expected to pick a new leader for the district’s smallest and youngest campus by next month.

But the new president will oversee a campus beset by increasing troubles. Enrollment has fallen from a peak of more than 7,400 in 1992 to only 5,844 this spring. And the college is expected to have a $1.5-million budget shortfall this year, the largest in the nine-campus district.

Norlund, 58, of Granada Hills, said Tuesday he is “very happy and pleased” that he is a finalist for the job. Before coming to Mission College, he had been an academic affairs vice president at Pierce College in Woodland Hills since 1990.

Badrkhan, a San Fernando Valley resident and former assistant dean at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, another district school, said Tuesday he had not yet heard from the district. He recently was a finalist for the president’s job at Pierce College that was filled earlier this year.

Irving Weinstein, a retired district administrator hired to head the Mission search, said only that his committee interviewed seven candidates and forwarded its three finalists to Chancellor Neil Yoneji.

Norlund said he expected to interview with Yoneji in late May and with the district’s Board of Trustees by perhaps mid-June. Several sources said the final announcement for the Mission job might be delayed until then by the district’s search for a new chancellor.

Unlike former Pierce College acting president Mary Lee, who angered some on her campus and was not chosen as a finalist for the Pierce job, Norlund is known for his affable and low-key style and has been a popular administrator during his tenure at Mission.

Faculty union representative Ed Raskin said he did not know the identities of the finalists, but was pleased to hear Norlund was among them. “We like Norlund, the faculty, the union and the Senate. We think he’s been doing an excellent job,” Raskin said.

The Mission job became open when Jack Fujimoto, the college’s president since 1989, left the campus in late 1994 to take a district administrative job downtown. In recent months, he has been serving as acting president at Pierce College.