Scc President Pushes Diversity, Technology Williams, In Running For District Job, Visits Sfcc Campus

As president of Spokane Community College, James Williams knows his way around the campus machine shops, greenhouses and kitchens.

But during Tuesday’s crosstown tour of sister school Spokane Falls Community College, Williams discovered prosthetics classes, saddle-making, commercial photo labs and a student playwright who invited him to attend her one-act performance, “Outside Reality.”

“That’s sort of like being chief executive officer” of the Community Colleges of Spokane, Williams joked.

He may yet find out.

Williams is one of two finalists vying to replace Terrance Brown as head of the CCS district. Brown, who resigned effective July 1, leads a district of 23,000 students who attend SCC, SFCC or the Institute for Extended Learning.

Also competing for the $112,000-per-year job is Charles Bohlen, 55-year-old president of Cheyenne, Wyo.-based Laramie County Community College.

Bohlen interviewed Monday in Spokane.

Either Bohlen or Williams could be hired this month by the five-person CCS board of trustees. But the board could postpone the decision to conduct more interviews with these candidates or others.

The next chief executive will wield considerable influence over a district that reaches into six counties. In addition to managing 1,100 employees and an $85 million annual budget, the chief executive will hire a permanent president at Spokane Falls. Should Williams become chief executive, he also would hire his own replacement.

In a series of public speeches, Williams outlined a 14-point formula for turning the CCS into a “world class” district, beginning with a strategic plan to determine where it should spend its money.

Williams called for CCS to fight a movement in Olympia to shift more tax dollars to four-year colleges. He denounced the “current anti-affirmative/diversity movement that is sweeping the country.”

“We cannot afford to cave into that kind of pressure,” Williams told Spokane Mayor John Talbott and 20 other community leaders during his visit to SFCC.

Williams called for CCS to be a leader in technology, but later warned that it should move cautiously to ensure that it can afford to update equipment and software as technology advances.

Williams advocated competitive salaries for employees and an open, democratic district where employees feel free to express unpopular views without retribution.

One view that Williams might find disagreeable comes from Rex Hollowell, Spokane Falls philosophy professor. Hollowell asked both candidates to differentiate between standards and standardization, administrators and managers, education and learning.

Hollowell gave Bohlen a C-minus grade on the test, which is designed to show how well the candidates can express the importance of obtaining an education. He gave Williams a D.

“I get the feeling that this is a person for whom the history of thought has meant absolutely nothing,” Hollowell said.

Williams, 52, holds a doctoral degree in education from Washington State University. For nearly two decades, he taught courses in ethnic and women’s studies at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona.

In 1995, Williams was named president of SCC, where he launched a successful reorganization plan that he said has “broken down barriers” between employees and eased tensions that had existed for years. He stressed campus diversity and lobbied for an alumni office to assist in fund-raising.

Williams last year was embroiled in a dispute with the board after he signed a letter of understanding to extend employment and tenure review to an SCC teacher. The board revoked Williams’ action, saying it alone had authority to determine who should get tenure.