Dateline Pasadena — A fresh start.
That is what Pasadena City College was seeking when it named Dr. Rajen Vurdien as superintendent-president following the stormy tenure of Mark Rocha, ousted eight months ago.
Dr. Vurdien has been president of Fullerton College for the past five years.
While the PCC Board of Trustees typically was regarded as a stubbornly loyal ally of Dr. Rocha when he was leaping from one student or faculty controversy to another, by now the Board was determined to cut all ties to the Rocha era.
One of the other two finalists whom Dr. Vurdien beat out was Robert Walker, who was seen as aligned with Dr. Rocha and had been leading PCC since the start of the present term.
A native of the island nation of Mauritius, Dr. Vurdien came to the United States in 1985 from China where, as a United Nations volunteer working for the United Nations Development Program, he taught English and ran the UN language programs.
After concluding his work with the United Nations, Dr. Vurdien spent six years as the Director of Graduate Programs in Education at Gwynedd Mercy College, near Philadelphia before accepting the position of Director of the Reading Program at Long Island University. He came to California in 1998 as a Reading Instructor at Long Beach City College and was later appointed Dean of the School of Language Arts and Physical Education. In 2004, Dr. Vurdien was appointed Vice President for Instruction at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.
Dr. Vurdien has extensive knowledge of the community college system with strengths in the areas of strategic planning, budget, accreditation, curriculum, student services and distance education among others. He is fluent in several languages, including English, French and Creole. He has a working knowledge of Spanish and Chinese.
Dr. Vurdien has a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Upper Brittany, Rennes, France, and a post-graduate certificate in Education from the Mauritius Institute of Education. He completed an M.Ed. and a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education with a focus on the Psychology of Reading at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1989 and an MBA from Long Island University in 1997.
PCC’s nationwide presidential search officially began last November.
Fifty-one persons applied, according to Ralph Andersen & Associates, the firm hired to coordinate the search. All candidates were screened through a committee consisting of campus shared governance groups.
