Students and faculty gathered in the WINN center on Cosumnes River College campus on May 7 to discuss the expectations they hold and what they are looking for in a new chancellor at the Los Rios chancellor search.

The Los Rios Community College District Chancellor, Brian King is retiring after 13 years of leadership.

The search was hosted by the Los Rios Community College District Board President Kelly Wilkerson. Wilkerson said the forum was only the beginning of the search for a new chancellor.

“This is a process and a journey that we want you [students and faculty] along with every step of the way,” Wilkerson said.

Benjamin T. Duran, the president of PPL Inc, a search firm that’s helping with the search, noted the importance of being on CRC’s campus and gathering input from those who are directly affected by the chancellor’s decisions.

“It’s our way, it’s actually the [board of] trustees’ way, of making sure that not only this process is transparent, but that we are hearing and listening to the faculty, to the classified service, to the students,” he said.

Music professor Maxwell Kiesner said he and other faculty are hoping for the next chancellor to be an advocate for the arts.

“I think arts is related to the broader vision of liberal arts as it’s important to the ongoing education of our community,” he said. “We need somebody who is the antidote to the AI driven commodification urge that a lot of students are getting.”

Brian Rickel, the dean of arts, media and entertainment division, said we as an educational institution are always talking about STEM, but we could place an emphasis on the arts and become a gigantic STEAM institution.

STEM is an umbrella term for science, technology, engineering and mathematics while STEAM covers those areas and includes arts.

“We do a lot of ‘out of the box’ thinking here, our president is proof of that. I would like to see somebody that not only thinks outside of the box but doesn't even think the box exists,” he said.

College President. Edward Bush said he would like to see a chancellor that owns student success outcomes.

“If student outcomes fall or succeed they [the chancellor] feel a personal investment in order to move the needle, that it is something the chancellor can impact and change,” he said.

Duran said Bush’s concern is a common theme that has been expressed throughout the district.

Mehdi Sougrati, a 19-year-old biology major, said the number of students in attendance is a unique strength of the Los Rios Community College District.

“We have one of the largest districts in all of the state. I think a chancellor that can comprehend that number and really bring themselves forward and really communicate with all of its student body, that’s a chancellor that I would want and I’m sure a lot of other students would want as well,” Sougrati said.

Rickel said proper marketing of what the district and each college has to offer can combat the stigma surrounding college and how it is seen to be an elite luxury.

“We teach everything here and I would like to see some pushback on that publicly,” he said. “We market ourselves as a district but we’re also four individual colleges that have very special things on our campus that can and should be marketed individually.”

There will be a national search for a new chancellor who is expected to be appointed within the next 8-9 months after review of input forms, search committees, impression groups, background checking and interviewing with finalist candidates, said Jim Riggs, vice president of PPL Inc.

The survey to provide input is now closed, but there will be other opportunities for additional feedback from the community throughout this process in the months ahead.