A President on Leave, a Foundation Facing Backlash

When Luis Sanchez, president of Oxnard College, was put on paid administrative leave earlier this month, the move elicited surprise and outrage from some employees and alumni. Ventura County Community College District officials, who launched an independent investigation into complaints of harassment and misconduct against Sanchez, are not discussing the case. But his supporters, who see him as a defender of students, had plenty to say about it—and they point to tensions between Sanchez and the Oxnard College Foundation, the institution’s independent fundraising arm, as the reason for his being placed on leave.

District leaders said in a statement that independent attorneys are investigating two complaints of “unlawful harassment, including on the basis of sex and gender” and allegations that Sanchez “engaged in misconduct pertaining to the Oxnard College Foundation.”

“The District will not make any determinations pertaining to the allegations until it receives the investigation report,” the statement said. “The District will conduct a fair, thorough, and impartial investigation. The District is unable to provide further information at this time due to the confidential nature of the investigation.”

Supporters of Sanchez say his criticisms of the foundation’s bureaucratic process for awarding scholarships and its funding priorities ruffled the feathers of some foundation leaders and prompted the Board of Trustees to take action against him.

Sanchez said he was stripped of his work email and hasn’t been told the specific charges against him. However, he said in an email to former colleagues at Moorpark College, where he previously served as president, that he believes the complaints were filed by people affiliated with the foundation after he repeatedly told foundation leaders that the foundation was “not fulfilling its purpose acceptably” because of its reticence to spend money and that the college would need a new fundraising arm if the foundation “does not change course.”

“To that allegation, I plead guilty as charged,” he said in the email.

A ‘Cumbersome’ Scholarship Process

The foundation, which has more than $10 million in assets, raised approximately $750,000 in unrestricted funds in 2019 alone through weekend on-campus swap meets, where fresh produce, furniture and other wares are sold, but it spent only about a third of that amount on student scholarships that year.

Sanchez points to this as one example of how the foundation “board’s approach has not been closely tied to the college’s needs or priorities, and therefore not to our students’ needs and priorities.”

He also said the scholarship application and award process is “very cumbersome” and, as a result, much of the funding also goes unclaimed. The foundation offers scholarships intended to help cover costs such as tuition and fees, or to help students buy laptops and other school supplies. Students are required to fill out an application, provide the names of two references and answer multiple essay questions. Once approved to receive the funds, students must purchase the items and then request reimbursement and provide receipts.

“For our students, that’s a hardship,” Sanchez said. “They just don’t have $1,000 to plunk down for books.”

Oxnard College is a Hispanic-serving institution where Latino students make up about 70 percent of the student body. The institution, located in a rural agricultural area, is known for serving low-income and first-generation students whose families are immigrant farmworkers.

“Students don’t have the ability to access those funds because of the restrictions put in place,” said an employee who chose not to be identified because of concerns about job security.

Daizy Contreras, who was a student at Oxnard College from 2019 to 2021, applied for two $500 scholarships during her time at the college. She thought the money would be a “blessing,” as she was a first-generation student and a single mother of two children. But “that money technically wasn’t available to me when I needed it the most,” she said.

Contreras had to borrow money from multiple people to pay for her school supplies before she could be reimbursed, which was “embarrassing” and made her feel like the foundation didn’t trust her to spend the money on what she needed. She told campus leaders about the overcomplicated scholarship process when she served on student government.

“We’ve been trying to put a stop to this,” she said. “This has been happening for many, many years.”

Geoff Green, president of the Board of Directors for the Network of California Community College Foundations and CEO of the Santa Barbara City College Foundation, described the reimbursement model as an “antiquated” practice he wouldn’t recommend to other foundations.

“It’s not a best practice,” he said. “I don’t think anyone would defend it as such. I’m not blaming anyone there. It’s just an old model that needs to be upgraded. That’s not a secret.”

Pete Parker, who became executive director of the foundation in December, wrote in an email that the foundation gave $536,851 in total support to Oxnard College, including $358,694 in student scholarships and grants, in the 2020–21 fiscal year, according to a routine audit of the foundation’s financial statements. The foundation provided $1,013,867 in support to the college in 2019–20.

He declined to discuss Sanchez but said faculty members and students shared their concerns and frustrations about the scholarship application process early on in his time at the college. As a new executive director, he said he's “still learning” and wanted to take the time to get a “full picture” of the issue.

“I’m working with the board to take a good, hard look at what’s going on,” he said. “It was brought to my attention by many, and I asked for patience that it wouldn’t be able to change for this scholarship round, because it’s too quick and they’re already in place. But I’m working with the board to identify all of the issues and see what kind of change we need to address. I fully understand both sides. Now I’m working with the board to see what changes need to be made.”

A Tight Hold on Funds

Sanchez noted that the foundation has made some significant investments in the college, including funding a new science lab, and has made some changes to improve its support for students by offering more up-front grants that don’t require students to first pay out of pocket like the process for scholarships.

“They are changing,” he said.

Sanchez’s problems with the foundation extend beyond scholarships, however. He said foundation board members hired a consultant to help devise a strategic plan after he pushed them to develop one in 2020, but no plan materialized.

Parker said the foundation was holding off on the plan until it found a new executive director.

“I’m in touch with the consultant, discussing the necessary steps to move the plan forward,” he said.

Sanchez also proposed the foundation fund a position for director of advancement, but the request was ultimately denied. Foundation board members approved the request, then told him two hours later that there had been a “miscount” of the votes approving it. He wanted to use donated funds that were restricted for a 20-year period, which the college entrusted to the foundation until the money could be used. Sanchez said the foundation would not allow the college to access the funds even when the restriction period had passed. These interactions led him to question whether the foundation should continue to control the swap meet and its revenues.

“I determined that if we can’t trust the foundation to return funds that we placed in their care to us, then we have a fundamental problem in the alignment of our relationship,” he said. “I was very clear about what the stakes were.”

Green said it’s appropriate for community college foundations to have millions of dollars saved. While $10 million in savings may be a “significant sum” for a community college, it’s a small amount compared to the philanthropic dollars pouring into many four-year universities—and often a majority of foundation funds are restricted by donors for specific uses. (According to Parker, 61.3 percent of the foundation’s assets had donor restrictions in 2020–21, and the majority of funds were donated with the restriction that they would not be used for a 20-year period.)

“Community colleges are fairly new to philanthropy compared to their four-year counterparts,” he said. And that comes with “growing pains” or “evolutionary challenges.”

He said disputes between college administrators and foundation boards—and internal divides within foundations themselves—are all too common, especially at community colleges that are unused to working with strong foundations. Campus and foundation leaders often butt heads over funding priorities and might have different ideas about the purpose of the foundation.

“That communication and political connection has to be maintained consciously and consistently, and if it’s not, then one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, and that can be problematic,” he said. “The foundation board might say, ‘This is where we’re going,’ and the college president and elected trustees might say, ‘Well, this is where we’re going,’ and unless they’re talking through that, it can be really challenging. And probably almost every college foundation in the community college world has gone through some version of that.”

Parker said there’s a diversity of opinions on Oxnard’s foundation board, and he thinks that’s a positive thing.

“What’s beautiful about this board is it’s diverse in thought, background, passions, skill sets, industries,” he said. “That’s what I love about this board. But with those passions, we need thoughtful, open discussions.”

Alumni, employees and two foundation board members came to Sanchez’s defense at a district Board of Trustees meeting last Wednesday and called for changes to foundation policies and procedures. Some students stood with handwritten signs that read “OC Foundation is disconnected from students” and “We need our foundation to invest in students.”

Gabriela Rodriguez, who administers a federal grant program at Oxnard, told district board members that the last three presidents of Oxnard College ignored students’ complaints about struggles with foundation scholarships, but Sanchez finally listened.

“President Sanchez has been a student-centered, very cool, calm and collected, inviting, engaging person,” she said. “He’s had an open door. I have seen, I have witnessed, him speak up on behalf of students and their concerns.”

Yolanda Benitez, a member of the foundation board, confirmed during the meeting that a “very limited amount of money” from the foundation goes to student scholarships, which is supposed to be the “main purpose” of foundation funds. She described the foundation as “dysfunctional” and called for an audit of the foundation before it can continue its control of the community market.

Sanchez said being put on leave is humiliating after 31 years working in the California Community Colleges system. He came to Oxnard College to temporarily fill a leadership vacuum toward the “tail end” of his career when his predecessor at Oxnard abruptly left before her planned retirement. Sanchez ended up staying because he “fell in love” with the students, faculty and staff members and felt like he’d found his calling working with a community of farmworker families.

“To have this complaint, and the way it’s being handled, mar my reputation,” he said, “it hurts me profoundly. It’s mortifying to run into neighbors or people at the store, and they’ve read the paper, but they don’t know me well enough to ask about it. It’s just excruciating and, I think, belies my record and what people know about me.”