The search for a new president of the Community College of Philadelphia, which ended with the selection of Dr. Donald Generals Jr., the chief academic officer of Mercer Community College in New Jersey, unfolded in a number of unusual ways.
The faculty had minimal representation on the search committee of 18 members, a large number by conventional standards. Before the college’s Board of Trustees unanimously chose Generals, the faculty union held a straw poll on the three finalists. Generals was the least favored.
Dr. Donald Generals Jr., who had no experience as a community college president, says that “was not one of the qualifications” for becoming Community College of Philadelphia’s president.
“It sounds like it’s a most unusual situation,” observes Dr. John Roueche, an expert on community college governance and president of the Roueche Graduate Center at National American University.
The oddities in the search process provoked a campus controversy about the qualifications of Generals, a seasoned community college administrator, after the board announced him as its choice. The final vote was taken April 3.
Since the decision, the incoming president and faculty leaders have expressed a desire to move beyond an irregular process that has raised questions about the mayor’s role and faculty governance at the community college, which receives 15 percent of its budget from the city. The mayor appoints the college’s 15 trustees.
“I prefer not to comment on the presidential search. I had nothing to do with that,” Generals, who took over July 1, tells Diverse. “But I do think it is important that you have shared governance between the faculty and the administration.”
