A little over six months ago, David Andrus was thrust into the role of interim head of College of the Canyons, tasked with what he called overseeing a period of change.  “I was supposed to bring my institutional knowledge in here and make the changes that I think that people wanted, and what I’m being told they want,” Andrus recently said during an interview in his office in Canyons Hall at COC’s Valencia campus, and ahead of Wednesday’s regular meeting of the board of trustees, the first of 2025.  And while there have been some major changes, Andrus said the goal is to put COC in a position of strength for whomever is selected to be the permanent president and lead the college into the future.  “What I am trying to do is set in place — whether I apply and whether I am the permanent CEO or someone else is — I am trying to get the college where I think it needs to go in the next chapter of its history,” Andrus said. “And I guess, hypothetically, if someone came in that had no history with this college, at least they would benefit from my knowledge, that I instituted certain changes, that they would benefit. There’d be a plan in place to follow.”  That plan includes an on-campus Advanced Technology Center after it was originally scheduled to be built off-campus; an emphasis on grassroots governance at the college and continuing to give all employees a voice; selecting a new permanent president of the college; and continuing to go through with an independent audit of facilities projects going back more than 20 years.  ATC  The college initially approved spending $22 million on an off-campus ATC that would help students to pursue careers in career technical education, but scrapped those plans after finding out that it would actually cost $38 million and likely wouldn’t be large enough.  In November, the college’s governing board approved design services for an on-campus building that Andrus hopes would be closer to the 111,000 square feet that the National Coalition of Advanced Technology Centers recommended in its 2019 report. The original plans were for only 30,000 square feet.  The ATC is scheduled to be funded through Measure E bond funds, of which there is roughly $95 million left of the $230 million that was procured in 2016 for facilities upgrades.  “It’s a chunk of money, but also representative of the ongoing change of instruction,” Andrus said. “In fact, one of the things they told us was, the gentleman from the NCATC, is literally the curriculum could change annually, based on technology changing annually, which is so different from what we do — we change our curriculum like every few years.”  There has been no estimate provided for how much the ATC could cost now, but Andrus said there would likely be more information available in February.  Also of note is the land that the original ATC was meant to be built on, located at Valley Center Drive, just west of Golden Valley Road and north of Soledad Canyon Road.  In nixing the original deal, COC agreed to pay Intertex, the developer, $10 million for the land and plans for the ATC. The idea at the time of canceling the deal was to sell the land and at least break even on the roughly $5 million that it cost.  Andrus said there is a soft deadline of mid-March to get that done. If not, the college will look at ways to build a facility, likely educationally related so it can be paid for using Measure E funds, that would benefit students.  Work is also underway to find other revenue streams to lengthen how the bond money can be used, he said. Former Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, had pledged to earmark federal funding for the project prior to him leaving the House of Representatives, and Andrus said he is hopeful that Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, will continue that support.  “There’s more money related to the ATC project as it relates to industry in that way, because it serves an important federal purpose in terms of aerospace,” Andrus said. “There’s an interest in that money from the federal government.”  Andrus said he expects an update at the end of this month from the NCATC as to the most feasible path forward after NCATC officials met with college officials in December.  Grassroots governance  In discussing the college’s response to the results of an employee climate survey that was conducted last spring, Andrus said there has been both a formal approach and an informal approach.  The results of that survey showed that nearly half of the employees who submitted responses stated they have experienced psychological harm while working at the college. Another issue brought up in that survey was nearly 20% of respondents saying they didn’t feel welcome at the college.  Informally, an open-door policy has been instituted by Andrus, giving employees an inside look at how he is running things.  “I’ve met with just an enormous amount of people, either one-on-one or in groups,” Andrus said, “and I’ve kind of set up a relationship with some of our classified employees, our support staff, where sometimes we have actual offices of people, six four, eight people at a time.”  But Andrus did say that there have been “categories of problems that were identified,” some related to the previous administration of former Chancellor Dianne Van Hook, and some not.  As more of a direct response to those problems, the college recently conducted a new survey piggybacking on the previous one to get an idea of which issues are most important to look at.  The next step, Andrus said, is to have a consulting firm come in to lead focus groups.  However, there has been one major change that Andrus said he has instituted in his short time in charge: giving people a voice. It’s something Andrus said he’s always believed in, but became apparent how needed it is once he took charge last summer.  “All colleges have a decision-making tree, so to speak, of how things get done,” Andrus said. “The faculty have voice through the Academic Senate and classified (employees) through Classified Senate, but people here want to make sure that their voice is heard and respected, and so we’re creating this governance council, which doesn’t mean everyone gets their way, but what it does mean — we’ll have a board presentation on this — but what it does mean is, how do we make sure we percolate from grassroots up, through  representatives, a governance council, through councils, input from staff on decision-making. And then that way, ultimately, no one’s going to undermine or thwart the administration’s right to make the final recommendation to the board or things that are in the purview of administration and CEO.”  Independent audit  In November, the board of trustees authorized an independent auditing firm to look over more than 20 years of facilities projects, totaling at least $12 million and 700 projects based on preliminary findings.  The board authorized the college’s legal counsel to work with that auditing firm, and updates are expected to be brought forward to the board when needed, according to Andrus.  While he wouldn’t confirm an official timeline, Andrus said it will likely take less time than college officials initially thought it might.  “It was my request that we don’t wait for what I kind of call an omnibus report at the very end, like a total report, which there will be eventually,” Andrus said. “But I feel as though, given the fact that we made this presentation, that if we could get, at critical moments, updates from the accounting firm that we can give publicly, not just privately.”  Jessica Ehrlich, a partner at F3 Law and part of the college’s legal counsel, said during the November meeting when the audit was authorized that she had “never seen anything like this,” and that there was the appearance of personal gain from facilities projects.  Ehrlich said many of the projects being looked at were below the $25,000 threshold that would require public bidding, while it was also found that contracts were either irregular in nature and did not adhere to education and government codes, or contracts simply could not be found.  Some projects were also found to not have been completed, despite payments being made.  “We have barely scratched the surface,” Ehrlich said at that meeting. “We found that this conduct is so egregious it requires our request here tonight to ask the board to retain a forensic accounting firm. We believe that’s the only way to further establish credibility with this investigation and to create the necessary final findings that both the district and the public are entitled to.”  Other goals  One of the main tasks that newly sworn-in trustee Fred Arnold wants an update on is the timeline for selecting a permanent head of the college.  Andrus said there will likely be a meeting in February on that process, one that he said people have told him he should be a part of.  “Everything I’m doing is basically taking in all the information I hear and trying to make the best decision for the college, the students and the community,” Andrus said. “And if that makes me more attractive as a candidate, great. If it doesn’t, I’m OK with that too.”  The college has already wrapped up one of Andrus’ first tasks in returning the $61.8 million in state funding that COC received for a student housing project. The board ultimately decided in October, before there were four new board members, to not go through with the project as it would actually cost the college extra money to fulfill it, and there were other issues with putting up buildings as collateral for the lease revenue bonds that the state would have funded the project with.  The college officially returned the money in December, and an update on student housing is expected to be delivered at Wednesday’s meeting.  Andrus also said the following things will likely be things to look at in the near future:  How a new federal administration will affect students and community colleges.  Keeping an eye on more opportunities to add four-year bachelor’s degree programs after bringing in one for building performance last year.  Supporting new medical programs.  Finding ways to make sure COC can do the things the state wants from its community colleges.  The post Interim COC head discusses college’s goals  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.