Graduation time

Butte College President Kimberly Perry is proud of the current state of Butte College as she prepares to leave next month for the top job at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, Wash.

That pride, she said during a recent interview, stems from the school’s health and public safety programs and the environmentally friendly state of the campus itself.

“I think people most notably think of Butte for solar panels, but there is so much more this campus does to be sustainable,” she said. “It’s like running a little city out here.”

She mentioned the school’s bus system that transports students from all across Butte County and also works with the Glenn County bus system to help transport students from west of the Sacramento River.

Perry said her decision to leave Butte was not motivated by a notion that it was time to move on.

“I had someone recently ask me, ‘What could we have done to keep you here at Butte College?’” she said. “I still am incredibly happy here at Butte and if this opportunity hadn’t worked out, that would have been fine, too. I think the best time to look for a job is when you are happy with the one you have because you’re not so vested in leaving.”

Perry came to Butte College in July 2011, taking over for Diana Van Der Ploeg, who had held the post since 2003. Perry had previously served as the vice president of academic affairs at Los Angeles City College.

Her time here was not without controversy. Two incidents occurred last year that caught media attention, with one going national.

The first was a part-time instructor’s Facebook post that said military veterans made for poor students. The story was picked up by a local TV news station and caught a lot of criticism.

“It was a freedom of speech issue,” Perry said, “And that is a tough one in any sense because I might not like what you say, but I respect that you have the right to say it.”

The other case was that of football player Brandon Banks, who came to Butte last fall from Vanderbilt University. News soon broke that he’d been charged while at Vanderbilt in a gang rape with three other students. He was awaiting trial when he joined Butte’s team. (Banks’ case is still pending, though two of the others accused have been found guilty.)

The matter got nationwide attention and Perry, once she learned of the situation, ruled that Banks could not be on the football roster.

“The athletic code of ethics changed and the decision-making process changed and who is allowed to play on the team to begin with has changed,” she said. “If you actually come here with a pending felony or misdemeanor you can’t play at all, and if you get one while you are here you are off the team.”

She said making such decisions comes with the job.

“There’s been something every year where the right thing to do was the tough thing to do,” she said. “You have to act immediately and decisively. Those are decisions that I don’t lose sleep over because it was the right decision to make, but still it was a difficult decision because you know you’re affecting people’s lives.”

She has the following words of advice for her successor:

“I would tell anyone this: ‘Be yourself.’ I think one of the reasons that I got the job here at Butte College was because, during the interview process, I was just who I am. I didn’t try to be someone that they thought a president should be. I just was who I was. That way I didn’t have to do anything differently when I got here. And you have to have a sense of humor—definitely have to have a sense of humor.”

The move to Washington, she said, is made easier in part because she and her husband, Ellis Evans, a physician assistant who works at a clinic affiliated with Oroville Hospital, have no children.

“When you don’t have relatives, it does make it easier to move,” she said.

The school will conduct a nationwide search for Perry’s replacement.