Interim CEOs
Christal Albrecht will serve as interim president of Coconino Community College in Arizona. She retired in 2021 after seven years as president of Alvin Community College in Texas. Prior to that, Albrecht was president of Florida State College at Jacksonville’s Kent and Downtown campuses, president at Pima Community College’s Desert Vista Campus in Arizona, and founding vice president of student learning at Lone Star College Cy Fair (Texas). Albrecht is a former board member of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and is a board member and past president of the National Council for Workforce Education, an AACC affiliate council.
Rajen Vurdien is now interim president at Riverside City College in California. He has more than 20 years of higher education experience in the California Community College system, retiring in 2021 from City College of San Francisco, where he was interim chancellor for a year. Prior to that, Vurdien was superintendent-president and CEO of Pasadena City College for four years before retiring. He has also held positions as president of Fullerton College, vice president for instruction at Saddleback College, and dean of instruction overseeing language arts and physical education at Long Beach City College.
Daisy Gonzales, deputy chancellor of the California Community Colleges (CCC), has been named interim chancellor of the 116-college system. She previously was acting chancellor for five months in 2021 while then-Chancellor Eloy Oakley served as a senior advisor at the U.S. Education Department. Since 2018, Gonzales has overseen operational and strategic policy planning for CCC and chairs the system’s statewide participatory governance body, Consultation Council. She also serves on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges and was recognized as a 2021 woman of the year by the California Legislative Women’s Caucus and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.
Appointments
Janekia Mitchell has returned to Alabama’s Gadsden State Community College as the new dean of student services. Since 2018, she has served as a student counselor at a local middle school. Mitchell previously worked at the college for 16 years, serving in roles that ranged from outreach advisor for the federal Upward Bound program to director of residence life.
St. Louis Community College has named new leaders for diversity, equity and inclusion and information technology – D’Andre Braddix and Feng Hou, respectively. Braddix previously was dean of students and senior equity officer at University of Missouri-St. Louis. Hou most recently was chief digital transformation evangelist at Maryville University in Missouri.
