Coastal Bend Trustees Fire College President

Coastal Bend College trustees voted 4 to 3 Thursday to place embattled president Beatriz Espinoza on administrative leave. The trustees also voted "to issue a letter of intent to discharge the college president," according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

The board is scheduled to meet today to discuss searching for an interim president. Espinoza has 30 days to respond to the board's actions.

An investigation by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year found that the community college improperly changed students' grades and did not have a policy for doing so. The college also failed to properly administer a state nursing grant program. THECB launched the investigation after Matilda Saenz, a former interim vice president of instruction and economic development at Coastal Bend, accused administrators of committing fraud by changing nursing students' grades without faculty consent. She also accused Espinoza of nepotism. Saenz was fired from the college in August days before her contract expired.