The president of Cabrillo College, Brian King, isn’t going anywhere—for now. After a distracting month of rumors that King was leaving for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, King announced Nov. 25 that he will be staying at Cabrillo. 

King met with staff and apologized, assuring everyone he’s happy to be in Santa Cruz. He acknowledged that “wondering what’s going to happen in these tough budget times is distracting.”

A recruiter persuaded King to apply at De Anza after the college’s former chancellor, Martha Kanter, left her post to become undersecretary to the U.S. Department of Education.

De Anza is larger and has a “good reputation, like Cabrillo,” King said.

King began preparing to leave Cabrillo after being chosen as a finalist for the De Anza position, which he interviewed for Oct. 30. He told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that he’d put off the application process and initially turned down the position because he was “content with Cabrillo.”

In the three weeks that followed, King saw enough in Santa Cruz to change his mind. De Anza’s location over the hill made the switch unappealing, and King decided to withdraw before Thanksgiving.

“Think about where we get to live,” King said. “We’re half a mile to a sandy beach and half a mile to a redwood forest. There’s just no better place to live than here.”

But some felt abandoned, especially considering King has contemplated leaving in the past. Two years ago King considered returning to his home state, Missouri, as the president of Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) in Springfield.

Internet trolls grumble impotently on the Sentinel forum. “Hillbilly Crash Helmet” called King a “flip-flopper,” urging him to “go away[,] sonny boy. Santa Cruz doesn’t love you.”

Family concerns prompted the King family to consider returning to their elderly parents and various connections in Missouri, according to the Valley Post. Then, as now, King chose to stay in Santa Cruz with his wife and two daughters, 8 and 10.

This was good news for the Board of Trustees, who won’t have to spend the holidays looking for King’s replacement.

Through the President’s eyes

On the protests at UCSC: “I think it’s unfortunate that the protests were destructive. The point could’ve been made without doing, probably, 100K dollars in damage. That doesn’t seem very productive when there’s already too little money to clean up and replace the damaged equipment I don’t think was the most effective protest. But I understand the passion.”

On the fee hikes at Cabrillo: “I think it’s tragic that fees have gone up so much. I understand the frustration of students.”

About longer time required to attain AA degree: “We talk everyday about what we can do to shorten that time for students who want to come and achieve their goal.”

The silver lining: “At Cabrillo, we are really excited about some innovative grants that we’ve received: HSI grant, Digital Bridge Academy, basic skills program.”

On management at Cabrillo: “In education, there’s so many different groups involved, that in order to be effective, you have to do a lot of listening, more than just giving orders.   At Cabrillo, we do an outstanding job of involving people at all levels of the college in decision-making.   As a result, we are able to avoid some of the headaches.”

Why King loves Santa Cruz: “Focusing on students has always been the number one goal. And that’s very powerful, being able to serve as president of a college where the faculty and staff is so focused on students. We have the support the community here, the community loves Cabrillo and gives very generously to Cabrillo.”

Advise for students: “ We need to help students understand that attending full-time is really important.  That with all the economic stress, students feel like they need to work more and its harder to attend full-time, but anything we can do to encourage students to take a full-time load and go through the whole financial aid process…

The closer you can be to a full-time student, the relationship between successfully completing goes way up. I don’t blame students, there’s a lot of economic pressure, but we need to reinforce and give students incentives to attend full-time.”

On mandating that students apply to federal financial aid: “More than ½ students qualify for a BOG waiver, but way fewer than ½ of all students are applying for financial aid and receiving it.  California actually has a fairly low percentage of CC students who receive federal financial aid, cause they qualify for the BOG waiver and stop. They don’t apply for federal aid, and in many instances, they would qualify for that aid. I don’t know if mandating is the answer, but giving strong incentives to complete the federal financial aid process makes a lot of sense.”