Laney pins high hopes, demands on new president
Faculty, students want Frank Chong to be an advocate for Oakland college
By Grace Rauh, STAFF WRITER, OAKLAND TRIBUNE
OAKLAND — Frank Chong does not take over as Laney College's new president until July 1, but already it is hard for him to cross the quad or ride a campus elevator unnoticed.
On a recent visit from Mission College in Santa Clara, where Chong has been president for three years, giddy faculty members flocked to congratulate him, many acknowledging they rooted for him early this month, when Chong competed against three others for the post.
But it was Athletic Director Stan Peters who may have been speaking for the entire college when he ducked into a conference room in Laney's towering administration building last week to tell the new chief he is sure he will do a great job.
When Chong answered he would do his best, Peters snapped back: "Don't try. Just get it done."
Students and faculty on the campus near Lake Merritt have high hopes for Chong and equally high demands, according to interviews with faculty and students. They say they want a leader who will champion Laney's needs to the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, which oversees Laney and three other community colleges.
It is a difficult role to navigate, they admit, namely because the board is in charge of hiring and firing college presidents.
"We're certainly looking for an advocate for the college," said Evelyn Lord, president of the Laney Faculty Senate. "We need someone who can really speak out on behalf of Laney."
Even outgoing President Odell Johnson agrees. He ran the college from 1981 to 1995,then returned from retirement in 2004 to serve as Laney's interim president after three replacements circulated through the post. At 70, he is stepping down for the second time.
"I'm just hoping that Frank Chong will keep pushing," Johnson said. "We need better facilities than we've had."
Chong insists he is up to the challenge, citing his work in community college districts with more than one college as a sign that he can strike the balance between serving an individual college and answering to a board that governs several.
His personal philosophy is that it is beneficial for a district to improve all the colleges in its jurisdiction rather than make individual campuses fight over scant resources.
As Laney's new president, Chong's top priorities include improving school facilities and strengthening ties among faculty, staff and the administration to keep more students in college classes.
He was reluctant, however, to provide a long list of goals for the campus, saying he would prefer to arrive and spend time listening to students, staff and faculty about their concerns.
"I'm a walking president," he said in an interview in the tree-dappled quad last week. "I really like to get out and observe."
Chong, 49, is the youngest of five children raised in New York City's Chinatown by immigrant parents from China. His mother worked in her brother's Chinatown bakery, and his father owned a sewing factory and cleaners until he died when Chong was 5. His mother later remarried.
"They always impressed upon us the need to get an education," he said. "That was our ticket."
Educated in New York public schools, Chong moved to California in 1975 to attend the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in social welfare and Asian American studies.
He has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a degree in educational administration, leadership and technology from Dowling College in New York.
Asian Manpower Services, an Oakland job-training center near City Hall, gave Chong his first job out of college. Laney hired many individuals trained by the center.
Chong's ties to Oakland and to its Asian residents are considered by some a boon for the 13,000-student college, which is one-third Asian. That the new president also has lived in Oakland for a total of 19 years, logging a few in San Francisco in the 1990s, when he was a member of the San Francisco school board, is viewed on campus as an additional bonus.
"His connections to the Chinese-American community here will be very valuable," Lord said. "I think it's significant that we have a Chinese-American president."
Chong appears comfortable thinking of himself in those terms and said if he can help create a multicultural environment where people of different backgrounds work well together, he will be pleased.
Approximately 12 percent of community college students are Asian American, and only six of California's 109 community college presidents identify as Asian.
But those who watched Chong answer questions in the public audition for president earlier this month said they were most impressed by his charisma and the time he took to listen to students, staff and faculty.
He even passed muster with the editor in chief of the Laney Tower, the college's student newspaper, which scrambled to slip the announcement about his appointment into the paper's latest edition.
"Not that the others were bad, but he stood out the most. He definitely knew his stuff," said editor Angelica Carapia, who was impressed that Chong prepared for the interview by reading back issues of the paper.
"It seems like he's caught up with everything that is going on at Laney."
E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@angnewspapers.com.
