The chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District will leave his post in a year, after the district’s board decided not to renew his contract.
Rick MacLennan has been chancellor – the college district’s top administrative job – since 2022. His current contract runs through June 30, 2027.
The agenda for the Board of Trustees’ most recent meeting, on June 9, included a closed-session performance evaluation for MacLennan. The board did not make any public announcement of any decision in that closed session. But on June 17, MacLennan sent an email to the district’s faculty that said the board had notified him that his contract would not be renewed.
MacLennan was not available for an interview on June 18.
“Leading this district has never felt like a job to me,” MacLennan in his email to the faculty. “It’s a responsibility I’ve been truly honored to carry.”
He wrote that until his tenure ends, he intends “to be fully present and fully engaged in supporting our students, our employees, and our colleges.”
The district will now begin a search for a new chancellor, MacLennan’s email said.
As chancellor, MacLennan earned $372,000 a year, according to a copy of his contract provided by the district. He was eligible for health and retirement benefits from the district, but was never paid any of those benefits, according to pay and benefits data from the California Controller’s Office.
If the board were to terminate MacLennan without cause, the district would have to pay him for the time left on his contract.
MacLennan’s tenure has been tumultuous at times. Union leaders representing faculty and other employees have sometimes blasted his leadership during public meetings. And there has been a high degree of turnover at the top of two of the district’s three colleges.
In 2024, MacLennan hired new presidents for Ventura College and Oxnard College.
At Ventura College, Claudia Lourido-Habib lasted a little more than a year before she resigned. Her replacement, Luca Lewis, took over as interim president at first and was hired permanently in May.
At Oxnard College, Roberto Gonzalez is still the president of Oxnard College, but he has been on leave for undisclosed reasons since March. One of the college’s vice presidents is also on leave, and the other two vice president positions have been vacant for months.
Bernardo Perez was a member of the district Board of Trustees from 2010 to 2024. He said he doesn’t think MacLennan should take the blame for the turnover in the top jobs at Oxnard College and Ventura College.
“It’s a very complex and nuanced situation anytime you’re talking about human interaction and personnel,” Perez said. “I have always and continue to be impressed at how Rick approaches such situations. He’s even-keeled.”
Perez said that hiring MacLennan in 2022 “was one of the best things that the board ever did during my tenure.”
He praised MacLennan for his work to unify the district’s three colleges so that their programs, services and philosophies would be better coordinated. MacLennan also excelled in building relationships with school districts, business leaders and local governments, Perez said.
“I used to say that our community college district was one of the best kept secrets in Ventura County,” Perez said. “One of the goals we had for Rick was to get out there amongst the community and let the community know the good work that’s going on in our three colleges and the district office, and what programs and services we have for our students and for the community.”
Perez said he’s “disappointed, but not surprised” that the board decided not to renew MacLennan’s contract. He said he thinks it’s because too often, board members want to go around the chancellor and deal directly with district employees or make decisions about day-to-day operations of one of the colleges.
“The board is about policy and direction, not about operations,” Perez said. “That is the chancellor’s purview. That is why we hire a chancellor.”
During its most recent evaluations of Ventura County’s community colleges, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges renewed the accreditation for all three colleges, but only after requiring a follow-up report to make sure the district complied with all accreditation requirements.
The standard that the district wasn’t meeting at first, according to a letter from the ACCJC to Ventura College, was a requirement “that the governing board delegates full responsibility and authority” to the chancellor “to implement board policies without board interference.”
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura County college district will have a new chancellor next year
Reporting by Tony Biasotti, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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By Tony Biasotti, Ventura County Star | USA TODAY Network
