Consulting firm dropped after unsuccessful president search

Share: After choosing an expensive search firm, with less experience and fewer guarantees than others, PCC had to declare a failed, or unsuccessful, search after it witnessed its three finalists for president drop out of consideration. As a result, the college terminated its partnership with the search firm prematurely, bringing PCC back to square one in the process of finding a new superintendent-president. Collaborative Brain Trust (CBT), the consulting firm chosen by the PCC Board of Trustees (BOT) to conduct this past year’s unsuccessful presidential …

Editorial: Board’s failed presidential search fails campus again

Share: Pasadena City College’s (PCC) mission statement claims they strive “to provide a high quality, academically robust learning environment that encourages, supports and facilitates student learning and success.” Yet, as the search for the college’s new superintendent-president comes to a halt, the Board of Trustees (BOT) have yet again illustrated how out of touch they are with the campus community. Follow:

State of California will no longer fully fund U-Building project

Share: The progress to get work done on the Armen Sarafian Hall (also known as the U building) has been dealt a number of blows in recent weeks. The full support of the project from the government has been derailed, and the school is hoping that the state will change its mind before the May Revise when the governor’s proposed budget from January gets an update before it is signed into law by the end of June. Follow:

New bookstore management guarantees nearly $1M in first year

Share: In exchange for a $750,000 annual fee, the Pasadena City College Bookstore will now be run by a private company for the next five years. “The purpose of a bookstore is to provide services where students can pay significantly lower rates, can lease textbooks, can purchase cheaper textbooks, or may not even have to purchase textbooks due to open educational resources that exist today,” said Rajen Vurdien, Superintendent-President of PCC. During their session on Feb. 22, the Board of Trustees approved outsourcing the management …

Students fight proposed budget cuts for TRIO programs

Share: PCC staff and students gathered into a conference room in the Shatford library on Tuesday to discuss the recent proposal by the Trump administration that would reduce funding for the TRIO programs on campus. Funded by the US Department of Education, TRIO is a set of programs that help graduating high school students with low income or disadvantaged backgrounds in pursuit of their college career. Serving over 790,000 students nationwide and over 1400 here at PCC, the TRIO programs have helped many achieve their …