With the resignation of Darren Pitcher, who was the Acting President here at SFCC, a new Acting President has been chosen, Nancy Fair-Szofran.
Fair-Szofran was appointed into the Acting President position by Chancellor Christine Johnson after the resignation of Darren Pitcher. With this new position comes the stress of learning a new position and also trying keep the school moving forward.
“Right now, I feel like I am kind of drinking from a fire hose because, the devil’s in the details,” said Fair-Szofran. “All the wonderful things that are happening we need to make sure that they are in support and keep happening. That’s what I am trying to do, is bring a steady hand, and keep making progress, and not make any drastic changes.”
Fair-Szofran has held positions in many states, even serving as Chief Technology Officer for the State Board of Education in Idaho under Governor Dirk Kempthorne.
“I have been in higher education a long time,” said Fair-Szofran. “I have had jobs in Missouri, Montana and Michigan, and my masters is in library and information science. I got my doctorate in education, while I was in Idaho, and realized that I really missed being on a college campus. I went to Mount Hood Community College as the Vice President of research and planning from there I came to Spokane when Chancellor Johnson came and asked me to be her Provost.”
Her position as Provost is an expanded position, similar to a Chief Administrative Officer, but she also deals with student services.
“As the Provost I worked closely with both of the presidents and both of the vice presidents at the college on issues related to academics and student services,” said Fair-Szofran. “So from the district perspective, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on.”
Fair-Szofran has taken up the position of chairing the screening committee which will help choose the new president of SFCC.
“The screening committee has met, our next meeting is on March 13. We have 21 applications to review, and from that we will determine a number to invite to the falls for face to face interviews with faculty, staff and students, and district people,” said Fair-Szofran. “From that pool we will have 3 finalist, and they will come back one day and they will have time with each group, with faculty, students, and ASG. We will be interviewing them, but they will also be interviewing us. We have to realize it is a two way communication.”
Fair-Szofran is not in the hiring pool for the presidential position herself. When the new president is chosen, she will return to the position of Provost.
Magdalena Clough | Chandler Pedersen