Bellwater Community College's board of trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to launch a national search for a new president, beginning the transition process following Dr. Ramon Delgado's retirement announcement last month.
Bellwater Community College’s board of trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to launch a national search for a new president, formally beginning the transition process following Dr. Ramon Delgado’s announcement last month that he plans to retire within the year.
Board of Trustees Chair Herbert Lowe said the board hopes to name a successor before Delgado’s planned departure at the end of the academic year, allowing for what he called “a real handoff rather than a gap,” particularly given the timing relative to the college’s $28 million West Bellwater campus expansion, which broke ground shortly before Delgado’s announcement.
A search committee with a specific mandate
The board named a twelve-member search committee including faculty, students, two city officials and representatives from Bellwater Turbine Works and Kestrel Biologics, both of which rely on the college’s workforce-training programs. Lowe said including industry representatives on the search committee was a deliberate choice, given how central employer partnerships have become to the college’s mission under Delgado.
“We are not looking for a caretaker,” Lowe said. “We are looking for someone who understands that this college is now, whether by design or necessity, one of the most important pieces of workforce infrastructure in this city, and who is prepared to keep building on that rather than simply maintain it.”
Dr. Samuel Iyer, the Bellwater State labor economist who has closely tracked the college’s transfer partnership with Bellwater State University, said he hoped the search would prioritize candidates with direct experience in workforce-aligned community college leadership rather than general higher-education administration. “This is not an average community college presidency,” Iyer said. “Whoever takes this job is going to be managing relationships with manufacturers and biotech firms as much as managing an academic institution.”
An interim question, and a tight timeline
Lowe said the board has not yet decided whether to name an interim president if the search extends beyond Delgado’s planned departure, though he said the college’s current provost would be a likely candidate for that role if needed. He said the board’s stated goal is to avoid an interim period altogether by moving quickly, with finalist interviews expected within four months and a hire announced shortly after.
We would very much like to hand Ramon’s successor the keys directly from him rather than through an interim period. That’s our goal. I just don’t want to promise the community a timeline we can’t guarantee, because national searches like this don’t always move as fast as a board wants them to.
Herbert Lowe, Chair, Bellwater Community College Board of Trustees
Council Member Denise Okafor, whose West Bellwater district is home to the campus expansion at the center of much of the college’s recent growth, said she hoped the search committee would prioritize a candidate committed to seeing the West Bellwater project through as planned rather than revisiting its scope. “That project didn’t happen by accident, and it shouldn’t be treated as optional by whoever comes next,” Okafor said.
The committee plans to hold listening sessions at both the downtown and West Bellwater campuses in the coming weeks to gather input from students and staff before finalizing a candidate profile. Lowe said the board expects to post the position nationally within the month, with a search firm assisting in identifying candidates from other workforce-focused community college systems.
Delgado, who will remain in his role throughout the search, said he plans to stay uninvolved in the selection process beyond answering the committee’s questions about the college’s current initiatives. “This has to be their choice, not a continuation of my preferences,” Delgado said. “The person who comes after me is going to have to make this job their own, and the sooner the committee finds someone ready to do that, the better for the college.”
The search firm assisting the committee has worked with several other community colleges in the region on similar workforce-focused presidential transitions, according to Lowe, who said the board specifically sought a firm with experience recruiting candidates comfortable managing both academic and industry-facing responsibilities. He said the committee expects to narrow an initial pool of candidates to three or four finalists before bringing them to campus for public forums.
Students on the search committee said they planned to press finalists on their commitment to keeping tuition low, a priority Delgado maintained throughout his tenure even as the college expanded its facilities and programs. “We’ve been able to grow without becoming unaffordable,” said one student committee member. “That’s not guaranteed to continue just because the next president inherits a bigger campus and more buildings to pay for.”
Lowe said the board expects to hold its first round of finalist interviews on campus, allowing faculty, staff and students to submit feedback before a final vote, a process he said mirrored the search that led to Delgado’s own hiring twelve years ago.