Construction crews were standing by at Orange Coast College as the Costa Mesa-based institution held a groundbreaking ceremony for a 323-unit student housing project.
The building will make it the first Southern California community college to offer on-campus housing, but last week’s milestone was bittersweet for President Dennis Harkins.
He announced his retirement early last month after serving nine years as the school’s 10th and third-longest-serving president in its 70-year history. OCC is the top transfer school in Orange County and third in California.
Coast Community College District said it will start a nationwide search for Harkins’ successor this month and an internal search for an interim president. It expects a permanent president to take the post in July.
Harkins said he’s proud of how far the college has come since he took the reins in 2009.
“I’ve had the ability to work with people to implement a strategic vision with Orange Coast College being a place for learning and learners, and see a substantial growth in the number of full-time faculty,” he said. “We’ve built probably about a half-dozen buildings, and we have three more that are shovel-ready. Orange Coast has just been a very dynamic place.”
That’s because it’s nearing completion of a Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan, an estimated $450 million campus overhaul approved by Coast Community College District trustees in 2015. It also welcomed more than 23,000 students to its 164-acre campus last month for the academic year.
Funding for the massive project is largely from the 2012 voter-approved Measure M, which allocated $698 million to improvements in the district, which includes Coastline College in Fountain Valley and Golden West Community College in Huntington Beach.
Harkins pointed out that the student housing facility will be funded by a private-public partnership. It will accommodate 800 students, including military veterans, single parents, international students, and athletes. Amenities include study rooms, kitchens, and laundry and community rooms. There will be on-site parking for 600 cars and 200 bicycles.
OCC has indicated enrollment trends have shown an increasing number of its students live outside the district and that campus housing would help meet that demand.
It also plans to unveil a 12,000-square-foot planetarium early next year. The roughly $20 million project was built with the help of $2.6 million in donations, $1 million of that from retired Orange Coast professor Mary McChesney.
And fencing went up in August around the future site of Student Life and College Center buildings to house a cafeteria, space for culinary classes, and administrative and student services offices.
A Language Arts and Social Sciences building and a combined adaptive physical education and aquatics center are also in the works.
“When I came, the college was struggling,” Harkins said. “The college worked together more than I’d ever seen at [any other] college to come up with a balanced budget and follow their strategic plan.”
Juggling Act
Orange Coast was established in 1947 on the site of the former Santa Ana Army Base, and classes started the following year for an estimated 500 students.
Since then, nearly 1.5 million students have attended the college, classes now costing about $46 per unit. It employs 1,064 full-time and part-time faculty.
Orange Coast has become the top transfer college for transfers to OC-based California State universities and the University of California combined. Last year, 2,135 of its students transferred to universities, more than half into the Cal State system.
When Harkins took over, ending a seven-month nationwide search, the college faced financial hardships and a warning by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges related to programming and finances.
He said he worked with officials to better measure and monitor student learning. He said the college also tracks workforce trends to ensure students learn the latest technology, and that he separated its planning and budget processes.
“If you’re really going to be a great organization, you’ve got to have a strategic vision, and you need to stretch yourself,” he said. “Budgets have a tendency to stretch less than the vision, so I think by separating those things, you really have an ability to stretch yourself and use the dollars in [a way] that benefits students and the community.”
Orange Coast’s operating budget is $100 million, and the school has received more than $10.5 million in gifts since June 2017.
And, thanks to its ongoing expansion, the school has completed a Math, Business and Computing Center, a $7.5 million recycling center—the only one in Costa Mesa—and the Whole Foods-sponsored Pirates’ Cove food pantry for students in need.
Free Time
Harkins said it’s now in a good financial situation, which is why it’s a good time to retire, adding that the president’s role is like “being the designated driver of an institution,” because it demands being on-call every day.
The longtime educator also wanted to get back to his first love—photography. His wife, Kim, is a photographer.
“When I came to OCC, I saw it as an opportunity and a challenge,” he said, “and I think retirement, I’ll face it with the same kind of vigor. I really want to get back to my life as an artist.”
Harkins has lectured in China on photography and art more than five times and displayed his work as part of a Beijing Film Academy symposium. He has also shot work for the American Society of Interior Designers.
The Ohio native earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in photography from Ohio University, followed by a master’s degree in international affairs. He picked up a Ph.D. in education at Georgia State University.
His teaching career started as a photography instructor at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, where he later served as photography director. He was also an administrator at Georgia Perimeter College and the Art Institute of Atlanta, where he helped it gain regional accreditation at the associate and baccalaureate levels.
But with nearly 45 years in academia under his belt, it might be hard to believe Harkins will stay in retirement to focus on his art—just look at other former OC retirees, including California State University-Fullerton President Framroze Virjee and Orange County Music and Dance Chief Executive Douglas Freeman, both of whom came out of retirement for the posts.
“One of the lies you tell yourself as an artist is, hey, I’ll teach, and I’ll have more time for my art, and you really don’t,” he said. “And it takes so much time, [you say] I’ll become an administrator, and I’ll have time, and you really don’t. I’m hoping I don’t have that same experience.”
