Oakton Community College’s search for a new president ended just a few feet from where it began: the front office.
Joianne Smith, current vice president of student affairs, was chosen on March 6 to succeed Margaret Burke Lee, who is retiring in June. Oakton’s Board of Trustees is scheduled to officially confirm Smith on March 17.
Assuming that affirmation, Smith said her first jobs on the Des Plaines campus will be to ensure students’ success from their current classes to future studies or work, and maintain Oakton’s fiscal health.
Those goals were among the reasons Smith was a strong candidate from the beginning, and an easy consensus pick to succeed Lee, said Ann Tennes, a member of Oakton’s Board of Trustees, and one if its representatives on the presidential search committee.
“She has shown tremendous innovation,” Tennes said. “She has consistently shown dedication to the college and focus on innovations in student success.”
“We had two very strong candidates … [Smith] has positive relationships across the board,” Tennes added.
Smith was chosen over Kristine M. Young, vice president for academic services and chief academic officer at Parkland College in Champaign, following a search process that attracted applicants from across the country.
That search began last fall, after Lee announced she will step down after 20 years as Oakton’s president.
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A 15-member search committee representing faculty, staff, students and administration – along with Tennes and Joan DiLeonardi, representing the Board of Trustees – sifted through 40 resumes to find nine candidates who were interviewed in January. Finalists met last month with faculty, students, administrators and members of the public during visits to the college’s Des Plaines and Skokie campuses.
Tennes said Smith’s familiarity with the campuses, and her work to ensure students’ success, were major factors in her selection.
For example, she added, Oakton’s one-stop student enrollment centers at both campuses – combining admissions, registration academic advising and financial assistance all in one place – resulted from Smith’s work.
“She saw the need for it, she made the case … and she did the work in terms of helping to plan the space, working with the facilities staff and architects,” Tennes said.
Smith said Oakton will continue working to narrow the achievement gap between students of color or lower incomes and white students by working with the nine public high schools in Community College District 535 and organizations like Achieving the Dream.
That means using “high impact practices” like new focused new student orientation and support in the first year to get students information and give them skills to succeed; partnering with high schools on college preparation curriculums so students more easily fit into college-level coursework, she added.
Smith joined Oakton in July 2002, after serving as assistant director of university residential life at Northwestern University. Previously, she was dean of Brainerd Commons, a living-learning residential community at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.
Oakton Community College District 535 encompasses parts or all of Des Plaines, Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Golf, Kenilworth, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Northbrook, Northfield, Park Ridge, Rosemont, Skokie, Wilmette and Winnetka.