Union leaders expressed optimism that Robertson’s resignation would affect change.
“My husband can travel,” she said. He won’t be alone. Meeting with policy makers and philanthropists is a big part of running ECS, an organization with some 50 staffers that commands a $13 million annual budget, according to retiring ECS president Ted Sanders, who also served as an acting U.S. Secretary of Education.
Asked what he planned to do next, Sanders said, “I don’t know. One thing I’m not going to do is get up every week and get on an airplane and live out of a suitcase. I want to spend more time with my wife and my kids, and my grandkids.
“This is a very, very demanding position,” added Sanders, who earned $250,000 at ECS, and was eligible for a 10-percent bonus. Robertson declined to say how much she would earn in her new post, but said it would-n’t constitute a pay cut. She was selected by ECS from some two dozen applicants, said Sherry Freeland Walker, director of communication for ECS, who said Los Angeles headhunters K.E. McCarthy and Associates helped with the selection process.
News of Robertson’s departure spread quickly through the halls of SMC Wednesday. In order for Donner to take over from Robertson, the college board must vote on the matter. Donner assumed the president’s duties once before, from October of 1994 until Robertson was hired in July of 1995. He was returning from a business conference in South Carolina Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.
“We’re very surprised,” said Phil Hendricks, who heads the union for SMC’s classified employees. “We believe that people want to work to get a president that has the genuine needs of the students and community in view... The mood has-n’t changed... It’s still the feeling that it’s time for change.”
Susan Aminoff, who was elected on Nov. 2 to one of three open seats on the SMC Board of Trustees, said she would miss Robertson’s expertise, but viewed the change in leadership as an opportunity for the college to mend internal relations.
“I’m saddened to hear that Piedad is leaving because, of course, she has been the architect in creating the powerhouse institution that Santa Monica College is today,” Aminoff said. “The input that I got during the campaign was that faculty and classified, that their voices were not being heard by the current administration, so this, of course, will be an opportunity to see if we can mend that relationship with a new CEO.”
It’s not just internal relations the next college president will have to consider. Mayor Richard Bloom reiterated his long-standing call for SMC to improve communication with its neighbors and with City Hall.
The local college, Bloom said, reminded him of “that caricature of a person who is torn between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. That’s really the reality we face with Santa Monica College, is that it does some angelic things in our community. At the same time we are bedeviled with problems.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 18, 2004. Read the original PDF.