New CEOs
Peggy F. Bradford returns to her alma mater as the eight president of Shawnee Community College in Illinois. She will be the college’s first woman president and its first African-American leader. Bradford plans to advance the college by encompassing a student-centered approach to enrollment, retention and culture. Previously, Bradford was provost and vice president of academic affairs at New York’s Westchester Community College.
Tyjaun A. Lee will serve as president of the Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley campus in midtown Kansas City, effective early August. Lee comes from Maryland, where since 2009 she has served as vice president for student affairs at Prince George’s Community College. Previously, she was associate vice president for enrollment management and student services at Tidewater Community College in Virginia and director of counseling at Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, where earlier she was national director of the Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy.
Robin Steinback will serve as the fourth president of Moreno Valley College (MVC) in California, effective July 1. She arrived at MVS in 2013 as its vice president of academic affairs and also served a year in the Riverside Community College District office as interim vice chancellor of educational services. Steinback is a product of the community college system, having graduated from Mt. San Jacinto College in 1979 before earning her bachelor’s, and a master’s and doctorate degrees. She began her teaching career as an adjunct instructor at Mt. San Jacinto College, and later served at the college as dean of instruction. In 2008, she became vice president of academic affairs at Solano College and in 2010 returned to Southern California as vice president of instruction at Cuyamaca College.
Obituary
Bob Barringer, a longtime leader in community college education who was just 29 when he was tapped to serve as president of the College of the Albemarle (COA) in North Carolina, passed away on June 13 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 84.
In the early 1960s, Barringer served as a high school teacher and coach in Orlando, Florida, before joining the first class of a doctoral program in community college leadership established by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Upon earning his doctorate, he became vice president at COA and within a year was named president, a position he held from 1966 to 1968. Barringer would go on to serve as president of Brookdale Community College in New Jersey and Catonsville Community College in Maryland. In the 1980s, the Exxon Foundation named him one of the most effective college presidents in the country, a distinction held by few community college presidents at that time.
With a reputation for leading colleges through difficult times, Barringer — who took time off at the height of his career to care for his ailing father — served nearly a dozen times as interim president at community colleges across the country, from large, urban colleges in Seattle, San Antonio and Philadelphia, to smaller institutions in Wyoming and North Carolina. In the early 1990s, Barringer and his wife established Gold Hill Associates, a community college presidential search firm, which has helped 150 community colleges in selecting new presidents.
In 2015, Barringer received the American Association of Community Colleges Leadership Award.
Appointments
Christian Blome has been named assistant vice president and dean of Vincennes University’s Jasper Campus in Indiana, effective July 5. He is currently executive director of Kentucky campuses at McKendree University, where he has focused on recruitment, curriculum development and community engagement.
