City College picks interim chancellor
Mitchell Bailey, a former vice chancellor in San Mateo, has been tapped as interim chancellor for City College of San Francisco, trustees announced Tuesday.
Alan Wong, the board’s president, called Bailey a “highly qualified and capable higher education leader” in a letter sent to campus employees.
If approved by the trustees on May 30, Bailey would start working the next day, alongside outgoing Chancellor David Martin, whose contract ends on June 30. The campus is seeking a permanent chancellor.
Bailey, who currently works as an education consultant, served from 2016 to 2022 as a vice chancellor in the San Mateo County Community College District, which oversees three colleges. Bailey also served as chief of staff to Ron Galatolo, the San Mateo college district’s ex-chancellor, who is battling multiple felony counts for misusing public funds.
“Mr. Bailey brings more than 20 years of executive experience in the higher education, government and non-profit sectors, and comes to the role with a significant operations and governance background,” Wong wrote.
Bailey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The interim chancellor could remain in the role for a least a year because qualified applicants for the permanent job have been hard to find. If approved, Bailey will become the college’s 10th chancellor in 12 years, and its sixth interim boss.
It’s unclear whether Bailey will be able to shield the college from a range of crises aiming in its direction.
“The big elephant in the room is that beginning next summer, City College revenue will be frozen until we increase enrollment even more, freeze expenses, or do a mix of both,” Wong, the board president, wrote last week in the Sunset Beacon, a neighborhood newspaper. “This is due to a revised state funding formula enacted in 2017.”
Without a large influx of students — 8% a year, Wong said — state funding for City College and its $314 million budget will remain at the current level for seven years.
Once among the nation’s largest community colleges, with more than 95,000 students just 15 years ago, City College now enrolls less than 40,000 full- and parttime students, although classes have been free to San Francisco residents since 2017.
Yet Wong’s piece was optimistic, and he said that enrollment rose by the equivalent of 1,000 full-time students this academic year.
“(A)fter years of turmoil at City College, we’re turning the page to a better and more stable future,” he wrote.
What he didn’t mention was that accreditors are cracking down on the college and blaming actions by the trustees. In January, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges placed City College on “warning” status after finding that the board was neglecting the school’s longterm fiscal health, failing to follow its own policies and ignoring the chancellor’s authority. The commission gave the board until next March to demonstrate improvement.
Days later, Wong and other members of the board’s majority voted not to renew Martin’s contract this June. The move incensed his supporters, who have credited Martin with restoring financial stability.
“Under Chancellor Martin’s leadership, CCSF was finally getting back on track,” Jill Yee, a former dean, wrote in a rebuttal of Wong’s piece that also ran in the Sunset Beacon.
Before joining the San Mateo County Community College District in 2016, Bailey was chief of staff at Sinclair Community College in Ohio and served in state and local government, Wong said in his announcement.
Bailey holds an associate degree in communication from Sinclair, a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Capital University in Ohio and a master’s degree in public administration from Wright State University, also in Ohio.