NIC trustees choose interim president
The North Idaho College board of trustees has selected a former president of a community college in Western Washington to be the NIC interim president while the school searches for a permanent replacement.
Priscilla Bell, president of Highline Community College from 2000 to fall 2006, will begin at NIC on Feb. 26. She replaces Michael Burke, who will start as president of San Jose City College in March after nearly nine years at NIC.
The Highline college board terminated Bell’s contract in November, but she said she wouldn’t characterize the move as a firing.
“It was not exactly that,” she said in a phone interview Thursday. “The board and I began to see things a little differently. … I had a buy-out clause in the contract that we agreed to exercise.”
Bell, 57, declined to discuss specifics that led to her departure.
“I’m really more interested in talking about North Idaho College,” she said. “That’s where my future is right now. … That’s a lot more interesting than the past.”
“I had a great 6 1/2 years at (Highline),” she added. “It’s a wonderful college.”
According to minutes from the Nov. 16 Highline board of trustees meeting, “the board decided that it was in the best interest of the college to terminate (Bell’s) contract.”
Several trustees said at the meeting that the decision was very difficult and that they appreciated all Bell had done for Highline. The college’s union leader expressed shock and dismay at the contract termination and said the union was not consulted. Some students and faculty members expressed dismay with Bell’s contract termination, according to the Highline student newspaper, The Thunderword.
“I think you could count on your fingers the number of people who believe philosophical differences were the issue,” economics instructor Bruce Roberts, the chairman of the Highline social sciences division, told The Thunderword. “This has led to wild speculation and rumor as to why Priscilla was fired.”
A Seattle newspaper called the termination a firing but gave no details other than the “philosophical differences” that the board chairwoman cited in a news release.
Rolly Williams, chairman of the NIC board of trustees, said the board was aware of the contract termination but knew it was a mutual agreement and that Bell had left Highline on good terms.
“She just impressed you as a type-A personality that gets things done,” Williams said.
Though the board considered a number of candidates, Bell was the only one interviewed, Williams said. The Association of Community College Trustees, a national organization that assists in presidential hirings, introduced her to the board.
Bell said she has known Burke since the early 1980s. They earned their doctorates from the University of Texas in Austin at about the same time.
“I have known Dr. Burke for many years, admire his leadership and am enthusiastic about continuing the excellent work of his administration,” Bell said in an NIC news release.
Highline Community College, in Des Moines, Wash., has about 18,000 students – about four times as many as NIC.
Before being hired as president of Highline, Bell was president of Fulton-Montgomery Community College, a 4,200-student school in Johnstown, N.Y., from 1995 to 2000.
Bell, who isn’t married, will arrive in Coeur d’Alene on Feb. 23. She’ll earn the same salary as Burke, roughly $11,300 per month, until a permanent president is hired, Williams said. NIC hopes to have a selection made by the start of fall term.