Peralta Community College District (PCCD) Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson announced via a July 8 email her decision to turn down both candidates in the search for a permanent Vice Chancellor of Human Resources (VCHR).

“I extend my gratitude to everyone involved in the process, including the screening committee and everyone who gave me your valuable feedback,” Gilkerson wrote. “Despite interviewing strong candidates, the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources role is so crucial that I have decided to continue the search to fill it permanently.”

What’s the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources?

The Vice Chancellor of Human Resources administers hiring for the district.

This entails the “recruitment, selection, orientation and retention” of PCCD employees, as well as interpreting and implementing HR policies, overseeing the district’s annual employee evaluations, and developing Peralta’s employee classification and compensation systems, according to the position’s job description.

They serve as chief negotiator between the district and its employee unions, such as the Peralta Federation of Teachers.

Who will fill the position in the meantime?

Andrea Epps, the current Director of Employee Relations & Diversity Programs, will be appointed as Interim Vice Chancellor beginning in August, the chancellor wrote.

Current Interim VCHR Ron McKinley will continue to serve in the role until her term begins, according to Gilkerson.

Who was considered in the search?

Three candidates were initially up for consideration for the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources position: Jake Hurley, Raymond Quan, and Veronica Hodge Thomas.

Public forums for the candidates were held on June 26 at the District Service Center Boardroom in Oakland.

Thomas withdrew from consideration before the forums were held.

Jake Hurley is the current Associate Vice Chancellor at the Yuba Community College District in Northern California. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.

During his forum, Hurley said he has plenty of experience negotiating on both sides of the table. He is a former member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) a labor union representing roughly 2 million workers across multiple sectors, including healthcare, government, and property services (e.g. cleaning and building maintenance work.)

Hurley also voiced his belief that management broadly has its roots in the institution of slavery, and decried the practice of “commodifying human beings” to serve students.

He added that the workforce is often an afterthought in a school district’s strategic plan. By contrast, he said he believes that “taking care of the right workforce” by making the district an attractive place to work will drive student success.

Hurley cautioned that HR has the most potential to perpetuate discrimination of any administrative role. He proposed that Equal Employment Opportunity strategies could be integrated into how district employees are reviewed on a regular basis, ensuring individuals from various gender and racial demographics are being evaluated fairly compared to other demographic groups.

Hurley expressed support for the idea of hiring previously incarcerated individuals seeking employment with the district.

“This is our purpose. We’re here to give people second chances,” Hurley said.

Hurley pointed out that finding HR software systems that work well for education can be a challenge. He said it was important to consider who would be using the systems, and whether they were accessible to busy employees. Training and staff development, he said, were as necessary as finding a good software system.

Hurley noted that professional development and student outcomes are also linked. For example, he claimed that janitorial staff are most likely to be the first ones to make contact with someone after a sexual assault, and suggested that training janitors in crisis intervention and support would be valuable to Peralta.

Raymond Quan is the former Vice Chancellor of Human Resources at Foothill DeAnza College. He holds Master’s degrees in English and Business Administration from California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Quan said during his forum that he retired from his role at Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, but grew frustrated without work and began to seek employment again. However, in a posting about Quan’s departure on the Foothill-DeAnza website, FDCCD Chancellor Lee Lambert stated that finding “new leadership” was in “the best interests of the district” less than a year after Quan’s hire.

He said he seeks to serve as a positive role model, work closely with other administrative roles within the district, and provide quality service to the district’s stakeholders and customers.

Quan told attendees that hiring good faculty requires creativity. He recounted an instance where he had successfully hired 35 faculty members in a short span of time.

Quan is “not an IT guy” himself, and said he depends on having capable IT experts on staff to advise his team on best practices.

He also conceded to not having much experience handling correspondence with state institutions that oversee equity in public institutions, such as the Office of Civil Rights. However, he has experience on union negotiating teams going back to 1999.

On hiring employees with previous criminal backgrounds, Quan said his decision would depend on the nature of the crime the candidate was previously convicted of.

In his example, someone who was caught shoplifting may not be the best fit for a role dealing with money, but might be fine to hire in a different role.

Quan put it another way: he believes in “second chances, not blank checks.”

Veronica Hodge Thomas, who withdrew before the forums, is the Director of Human Resources for the City of Pleasanton. According to her LinkedIn, she graduated from the University of San Francisco with a Master of Public Administration. She has previously served as the Deputy Chief of Human Resources at University of Nevada-Las Vegas and as the Associate Vice President of Human Resources at California State University, Sacramento.

In her email, Gilkerson praised the “significant progress” being made towards appointing permanent hires to other “critical leadership roles” in her announcement.

“Peralta’s future is bright!” she wrote. “Thank goodness we got some new shades.”

Let it be known that the VCHR forums were moderated by Journalism Department Chair Eleni Gastis, who is the faculty advisor to The Citizen.