Fresno City College students get their first look at finalists for the president’s job

The four candidates vying for the position of president of Fresno City College spoke to the public during a forum Tuesday, each addressing what they said are the biggest issues at the community college and how they would handle them.

The finalists are Lataria Hall, the vice president of Student Services at Fresno City College; Robert Pimentel, the vice president of Educational Services and Institutional Effectiveness at Fresno City College; Cory Clasemann, the vice president for Student Success at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana; and Madjid Niroumand, vice president of Student Services at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Hall describes herself as a first-generation scholar from the central San Joaquin Valley with over 16 years of experience in higher education. She currently oversees 18 departments, 15 managers, and a multi-million-dollar annual budget. She also serves as the president of the California Chief Student Services Officers Association.

She addressed the 15% decline in enrollment at the college due to the pandemic, citing the most significant loss as men of color. Hall said she is ready to step into the role to address equity gaps that students of color face to graduate.

“Our community is a community of minorities,” she said. “This role has been dominated heavily by males. It’s time for that narrative to change.”

Hall said one of her accomplishments was chairing a nursing task force at Fresno City to find ways to increase diversity.

“At the end of that, we were able to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of our nursing program for African- American students by 5%,” she said. “This year, we have an over-representation of the norm of our African-American students, and we also increased the Hispanic representation of our nursing students who are in this year’s cohort.”

Pimentel is another first-generation, native-to-the-Valley candidate, who started his college career at West Hills Coalinga and went through Fresno State and CSU Bakersfield.

Before coming to Fresno City College in 2018, he worked in leadership positions at West Hills for 11 years.

His focus is also on upping enrollment and focusing on Latino and Black men, especially entry-level freshmen.

“That’s the population that has been most impacted by the pandemic,” he said. “If you know me, you will understand that race equity is at the top of my priority list.”

Pimentel said he’s already focused on that and is holding the college’s first Men of Color Leadership Summit this weekend, hoping to encourage kids in the Valley to attend college.

Niroumand said, since taking classes at Clovis Adult School years ago, he’s wanted to come back to plant roots in the Fresno community. As an immigrant, he went through the California Community College system and has degrees in operations/management and business administration.

Niroumand has led efforts in “just-in-time” student support, he said, which includes having every student who drops from courses fill out a form about why they are dropping. If it was because of a textbook, transportation issue, or something else that college officials could immediately help with, they would get that student re-enrolled.

He said some of his focuses would be on fiscal management and “enrollment management through an equity lens” to increase retention and completion rates.

Clasemannn is responsible for overseeing student success initiatives, academic advising, student life, and holistic wraparound supports for the 19-campus statewide college district in Indiana.

“My passion is really about helping to reduce barriers, promote equity, and create economic upward mobility opportunities so that students can create a better life for themselves,” he said.

Clasemann said he has experience creating “stackable credentials” so students can earn a certificate on the way to an associate degree. He’s also led “the implementation of transformative initiatives such as 8-week courses, Guided Pathways, and required advising,” according to his biography.

Clasemann said he’d like to give some focus to recruiting older adults who may already have a degree, never went to college, or didn’t complete college.

“We need to continue to reach out to those who saw the value of the college and make sure that we have a college that is set up to help make them successful, helping them get through as quickly as possible,” he said. He wants to make sure “they’re not getting lost (after) multiple years of trying to navigate our system.”

The full forum can be viewed on YouTube at this link, and feedback is being accepted here until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

The position of president has been open since the former president, Carole Goldsmith, was tapped to become the chancellor of State Center Community College District, taking over for Paul Parnell, who retired in 2021.