New BRCC head chosen
The Louisiana Community and Technical College System Board of Supervisors on Wednesday morning voted 13-0 to make Andrea Lewis Miller, chancellor of Sowela Technical Community College in Lake Charles, the new head of Baton Rouge Community College.
The board then voted 13-0 to name Natalie Harder is the new chancellor of South Louisiana Community College in Lafayette. Harder is the current vice president for institutional advancement at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Va.
Baton Rouge Community College has a new chancellor in Andrea Lewis Miller, who now heads SOWELA Technical Community College in Lake Charles.
Moments after appointing Miller, the Louisiana Community and Technical College System Board of Supervisors on Wednesday named Natalie Harder as the new chancellor of South Louisiana Community College in Lafayette.
Harder is the current vice president for institutional advancement at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Va.
The LCTCS Board made the decisions with identical 13-0 votes based on the recommendations of LCTCS President Joe May after meeting in closed executive session for 100 minutes.
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” Miller said after the selection.
She called BRCC a great young college that is ready for the next step.
“We can move to another level of excellence,” Miller said. “It’s going to take all of us ... working together to make sure we’re meeting the needs of this community.”
Miller, who could take over BRCC as soon as January, will receive a $198,500 pay package, which includes $27,500 in housing, vehicle and supplemental expense allowances.
Former BRCC Chancellor Myrtle Dorsey had a pay package of more than $208,000 annually. In July, interim BRCC Chancellor Jim Horton took over the job from Dorsey, who left BRCC to become chancellor of St. Louis Community College. Horton vowed not to seek the job beyond the interim.
At Lafayette’s SLCC, Harder gets a $173,500 pay package, which would grow to $183,500 upon the anticipated approval of the SLCC merger with Acadiana Technical College next year. The SLCC interim chancellor position is now held by Phyllis Dupuis, the retiring regional director of the Acadiana Technical College.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to serve both SLCC and ATC in these leadership roles,” Harder said. “I am honored to work with first class faculty and students at both institutions. SLCC and ATC have already established a great partnership and my goal is to continue that tradition.”
Miller was selected for the BRCC job over Luke Robins, chancellor of Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe, and Robert Paul Miller, vice president for the Golden Triangle Campus and district operations at East Mississippi Community College in Mayhew, Miss.
Paul Miller also was a finalist for the SLCC job. The other two finalists were Rodney Ellis, executive vice president at Atlanta Technical College, and Jerry Ryan, former president of Bergen Community College in Paramus, N.J.
May said it was a “tough decision” between Andrea Miller and Robins for the BRCC job.
May said Miller brings a strong “depth of understanding” of the community college mission and the focus on student success.
Miller took over at SOWELA in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita that damaged the campus. She led the school’s transition from a technical school to a full community college. SOWELA also has almost doubled its enrollment in recent years.
May said Miller excels in “community outreach.” She will be tasked with growing the college from about 8,500 students now to an enrollment of nearly 13,000 in the coming years.
As the interim chancellor Horton has worked to streamline BRCC’s financial aid and admissions operations. But Horton also has focused on the growth of land-locked BRCC through a planned transportation and automotive training satellite campus in the Smiley Heights area of Baton Rouge.
The 200 acres of Smiley Heights property is northeast of BRCC near Florida Boulevard, in a neighborhood by Greenwell Springs Road and roughly between North Ardenwood Drive and North Lobdell Boulevard.
Horton, who said he plans to stay at BRCC about another month, said Miller’s top early priority is selecting a new BRCC vice chancellor for academic affairs. Former Vice Chancellor Bradley Ebersole recently became the new president of Washington State Community College. BRCC also needs a new vice chancellor of student affairs.
Miller is a cellular biologist by academic training who taught for years at her alma mater, the small Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tenn.
She said she headed the college’s Faculty Senate and then ended up getting promoted into the college administration.
She first started working at community colleges in 1998 when she moved to Shelby State Community College in Memphis and then Southwest Tennessee Community College before taking over at SOWELA in 2007.
At BRCC, Miller said she will be a collaborative “servant leader” who will hold people accountable in their jobs.
“I intend to embrace the entire community,” she said.