Not enough competition in presidential search

On Saturday, MHCCD board members announced that Debra Derr would be our next president. For those who aren’t paying attention, a presidential forum was held Friday and two candidates — Derr and Jacob Ng — made short presentations and then answered questions from a packed Visual Arts Theater audience.

Last week, in our editorial, we encouraged the district board to look at its options and to consider reopening the search given the limited number of candidates for the MHCC presidency.

This week, it appears we never had a choice.

At the forum, Derr was challenged by a slew of questions from faculty for which she had strong answers. One question, from English instructor Jonathan Morrow, garnered applause from the faculty sitting in the audience. He asked what Derr was going to do to change what he called, “an interim era” or rather, how was she going to make lasting change for MHCC?

Derr said it was her intention to come to Oregon, to return to her family (many of whom live here) and retire in Oregon, which would give her a sense of permanence at the college. Derr went on to give examples of her achievements as president at North Iowa Area Community College.

Jacob Ng flew in from the Los Angeles area for the forum and also was challenged by MHCC faculty in the time provided for questioning. The question that stood out as the most controversial came when a faculty member asked about his affiliation with the Missouri-based Christian Worldview Leadership Academy, which Ng could have answered better.

He more or less sidestepped the question by thanking the member for bringing it to his attention and “educating him on it” because, he said, this is the first he had heard (although he is listed as a board member) of the group’s stance on religion and education: “Any philosophy of education that pursues truth and an accurate perception of reality must be at its core Christian.”

Ng went on to answer questions substantially and even asked ASG Vice President Antonio Guerrero-Jimenez to join him at the podium while he answered his questions. After the theatrics, MHCC philosophy instructor Chris Jackson asked the candidate again about his affiliation with the Christian association, and Ng supplied a similar response.

As much as we wanted to feel as if we had a say in a choice of MHCC’s next president, it just didn’t go that well for Ng. Also, Derr was a strong candidate, which is, of course, a good thing when it comes to MHCC. She clearly was the stronger of the two options.

Derr seems like a good fit for MHCC and The Advocate looks forward to how she will function at the college.

But, given the situation with Ng and the last-minute withdrawal of candidate Suzanne Miles, we have no way of knowing if Derr was the best available candidate for the college, and would have preferred to see more options.