Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON chrisj@leader.net
Friday, February 04, 2000 Page: 3A
NANTICOKE – Luzerne County Community College President Jon Larson today
will visit the Long Island community college where he is among three finalists
for the presidency.
Meanwhile, some LCCC workers are apparently working to keep Larson there.
“I understand that there is a petition being distributed by faculty, staff
and administration to get him to stay,” said college spokesman Tom McHugh.
McHugh said he has not seen the petition nor does he know who created it.
Larson is a finalist for the top spot at Suffolk County Community College,
a junior college based in Selden, N.Y. Michael Sacca, president of the
college’s search committee, said the board of trustees is meeting with each
candidate this week.
Other finalists are Salvatore LaLima, Suffolk’s interim president, and
Leila Gonzalez Sullivan, a former president of the Community College of
Baltimore County in Maryland, Sacca said. Suffolk has not had a full-time
president since September 1997 and LaLima, a former provost, has held the
interim title for about a year.
“It’s an open race,” Sacca said Thursday. “All three of them are
extremely qualified.”
Larson will tour the campus and meet with trustees, staff and students. He
could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Sacca said his board plans to meet Feb. 10, but it won’t likely be ready to
pick a president.
“There is no specific time frame when a decision is going to be made,”
Sacca said. “If they like all three, I don’t know what the pleasure of the
board will be.”
Larson’s three-year deal at LCCC expires in November 2000, but in December
trustees offered him a one-year contract extension. College Solicitor Joseph
Kluger said Larson has not accepted the extension.
With 20,000 students and a $100 million budget, Suffolk is the
second-largest multi-campus school in the State University of New York system.
LCCC has 5,800 students and a $27.3 million budget.
Larson is paid $103,000 at LCCC. The Suffolk job would pay at least
$125,000 a year, officials there have said.
Call Johnson at 829-7226.