The Santa Barbara Community College District Board of Trustees has selected Erika Endrijonas as the next Superintendent/President of the college, hiring her away from Pasadena City College, where she has been president since 2019.
Endrijonas is expected to officially begin her role on Aug. 1, though officials noted that her employment remained “subject to contract negotiations,” and that her contract is expected to go before the college’s board in June.
“Dr. Endrijonas brings a strong commitment to the work we do for student access and success,” said Santa Barbara City College Board President Jonathan Abboud in a statement. “She has a wealth of experience as a community college president overseeing a budget of over $300 million at Pasadena City College, and she served as a dean at SBCC for nine years. She has demonstrated that she is equity and antiracism focused, transparent and collaborative.”
Endrijonas said she was ready for the new role.
“It has been my goal since I left SBCC to return,” said Dr. Endrijonas. “It is where I started my community college career. I am thrilled to render service in a place I love.”
Monica Rodriguez, LA Valley College President Erika Endrijonas and Paul Krekorian laugh after Edrijonas disclosed that she went to summer camp, years ago, with Mayor Eric Garcetti. The Mayor attended the ribbon-cutting of the first Workforce Strategy Center in the City at L.A. Valley College. Los Angeles, CA 9/8/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
The pick was the culmination of a nationwide search, and the three finalists were chosen by a 19-member screening committee comprised of credit and non-credit students, faculty, classified professionals and administrators; SBCC Foundation, community members and two members of the SBCC Board of Trustees.
Finalists participated in public forums, and then were interviewed by the Board of Trustees. The Board then conducted extensive reference checks before making a decision.
Endrijonas has extensive professional roots in Southern California.
She has served as the superintendent/ and president of Pasadena City College since January 2019, after previously having served as president of Los Angeles Valley College in the Los Angeles Community College District for more than five years.
Going back further, she was executive Vice President of Oxnard College in the Ventura County Community College District for five years, where she was the chief instructional officer, the chief student services officer, and the accreditation laison officer.
Her community college experience also includes nine years as the career and technical dean at Santa Barbara City College, where she oversaw 28 departments spread across the Business, Technology, and Health and Human Services Divisions, in addition to the School of Culinary Arts and the Kinko’s Early Learning Center.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Cal State Northridge, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in American and Women’s History from USC.
Her dissertation was a cultural history of American cookbooks published between 1945 -1960 and was focused on the ways that cookbooks communicated gender roles and middle-class values in the postwar years. She has taught a wide variety of undergraduate history, humanities, and gender studies courses, and she has served on several master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation committees.
Endrijonas teaches in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies doctoral program at CSUN.
Dr. Endrijonas values being involved in statewide and national organizations. She is the Region 8 CEO representative to the CCCCEO Board, past chair and current at-large member of the CCC Athletic Association Board, past co-chair of the CCC Women’s Caucus, the co-founder/past co-chair/current treasurer of the CCC LGBTQ+ Caucus and is the co-chair of the national LGBTQ Leaders in Higher Education organization. Dr. Endrijonas is also a member of the statewide Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Advisory Committee, and she served for two years on the CEO Racial Equity and Inclusion Excellence Taskforce.