Golden West College taps Meridith Randall as new president

Meridith Randall’s commute to work is not far.

She lives in Huntington Beach, a couple of blocks from the Golden West College campus, where she has served as interim president since last April.

The interim tag is now gone.

Randall has been selected as Golden West College president by the Coast Community College District Board of Trustees. Her move to the permanent position was approved on Jan. 17.

“I feel like it’s a great fit for me,” Randall, 62, said in a phone interview. “I really enjoy the people here, and I enjoy the community. We’re excited — there’s a very positive feeling on campus moving forward.”

Randall joined Golden West as a vice president of instruction in July 2020. She was promoted to interim president after Tim McGrath stepped down from the post last spring.

McGrath resigned after losing the support of faculty over his handling of some security incidents, according to Coast Report, the student newspaper at Orange Coast College. He had received a vote of no confidence by the Golden West College Academic Senate.

“My No. 1 job and goal was to bring stability, to essentially calm the campus down,” Randall said. “We did have some safety issues and other things that we were able to take care of immediately. The interim period, from my perspective, was taking care of some long-standing issues and getting things on track. Now, it’s a new era. It’s an opportunity for the college to really make connections with the community that we haven’t had, and move forward on several projects that we’ve been talking about.”

Randall said one major project is the expansion of both Golden West’s healthcare program and its facilities. She noted that hospitals in the area and other healthcare facilities are hurting for employees.

Meridith Randall, right, was given a certificate of recognition from state Assemblywoman Diane Dixon during the Language Arts Complex Grand Opening Ceremony at Golden West College last October.

(File Photo)

“There’s pretty high turnover,” she said. “It’s very hard for people to move into our area because of high rental costs. So, we currently have a nursing pathway from the high schools, and we’ll be expanding that to more high schools. We also have an agreement with Cal State San Bernardino for our students to get bachelor’s [degrees] in nursing. All of those are things that we can build on.”

Randall said the college has expanded its non-credit programs that are free to community members in areas like auto tech, security guard training and senior healthcare tech. This spring, Golden West will also provide about 50 students up to $2,000 a month to help with rent and/or childcare, through state funding.

She also trumpeted improvements on campus, including the recent completion of the Language Arts Complex and added student spaces for studying or socializing, though many students take classes online.

“As we came out of COVID, we realized that a lot of our faculty really flourished teaching online, and a lot of our students did well learning online,” she said. “We have kept the ratio at about 40% online and 60% on ground, and that seems to be working for a lot of our students. We’re really dedicated to flexibility.”

Randall has nearly 30 years of experience in higher education, including 17 years as a chief instruction officer in the California Community College system.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, a master’s degree from Cornell University and a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law.

“Golden West is fortunate to have someone with proven community college leadership experience and a record of advancing student success,” said Coast Community College District Chancellor Whitney Yamamura in a statement. “As former vice presidents of instruction, spending years working together for the betterment of the system, I grew to know, respect and appreciate Meridith’s skills and abilities.”