The president of Front Range Community College resigned Thursday amid speculation she was forced out because of a conflict with the director of the state community-college system.
Janet Gullickson, who has developed a strong rapport among the faculty since she took the top job at the four-campus system in northeastern Colorado a little more than a year ago, will stay on as a consultant until her contract runs out in December.
Her salary was slashed nearly in half, from $12,500 a month as president to $6,800 as a consultant. Her resignation is effective Aug. 1.
Faculty members learned of Gullickson’s resignation in an e-mail Thursday from Nancy McCallin, president of the Colorado Community College System.
“I want to thank Janet for her service to Front Range and wish her well in her future endeavors,” McCallin wrote.
Gullickson would not say why she resigned. Her office referred calls to McCallin’s office.
McCallin, Gov. Bill Owens’ former chief budget officer who took charge of the state’s 13 community colleges last fall, also was unavailable for comment. Her spokesman said he didn’t know the reason for Gullickson’s sudden resignation.
“It was her (Gullickson’s) decision. That’s all I know,” said Doug Hawk, communications manager for the community-college system.
But John Sullivan, president of the faculty senate at Front Range, said he didn’t believe Gullickson was “walking away happily.”
“This resignation was not her idea,” he said.
Sullivan said Gullickson was “continually challenging” proposals to consolidate administrative functions at the community colleges, including the possibility of eliminating the presidents’ jobs.
“There’s a tremendous sea change being proposed at the state level about how the community colleges should be organized,” he said.
Gullickson, who was the instructional consultant for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities before coming to Colorado, is highly regarded by faculty, Sullivan said.
“She’s the president we’ve been waiting for since the college was founded,” he said.
David Strungis, a student representative on the committee that selected Gullickson, said he could think of no other reason for her resignation except for “internal politics.”
“You couldn’t ask for a president better than Dr. Gullickson,” he said. “This is really like a tragic loss for Front Range.”
Strungis, also a representative on the board that governs the community colleges, questioned whether Gullickson resigned because she fought against proposals to consolidate the “back-office operations” of colleges.
Some on the state board “viewed the role of the president as a back-office operation that could be centralized,” he said.
Of the 13 community colleges in the system, nine have presidents and four have chief administrative officers, Hawk said. Some operations will be centralized, but “as it stands right now, every college is going to have a president,” he said.
Members of the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education referred questions about Gullickson’s resignation to McCallin’s office.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at jenbrown@denverpost.com or 303-820-1593.
