Luke Robins

Luke Robins

Peninsula College selects choice for next president

PORT ANGELES — Luke P. Robins was selected today as the sixth Peninsula College president in the 50-year-old institution’s history.

The Peninsula College trustees voted at about 3 p.m. today to offer the job to Robins.

Robins will replace Tom Keegan, who left in February to be Skagit Valley College’s new president after 10 years of leading Peninsula College.

Brinton Sprague, a retired community college leader now living in Port Ludlow, is serving as interim president.

Robins, who is currently chancellor of Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe, La., said he is in his 50s.

He visited Port Angeles, Forks and Port Townsend on Feb. 5-6, and took part in several community and college staff and faculty forums.

During the Port Angeles forum, Robins emphasized using an entrepreneurial approach in response to ongoing state and federal cuts to higher education.

He has been chancellor of Louisiana Delta, a two-year college with 2,700 enrolled students, since 2006.

Robins is expected to begin work at Peninsula College in June.

The other finalists were:

■ Cheri A. Jimeno, president of New Mexico State University at Alamogordo.

■ John R. (Ron) Langrell III, executive vice president of Riverland Community College in Austin, Minn.

■ Dorothy J. Duran, vice president for academic affairs at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Robins has served as executive vice president and chief academic officer at National Park Community College in Hot Springs, Ark., and dean of instruction at Eastern Idaho Technical College in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

He received his doctorate in educational administration with a specialty in community college leadership from the University of Texas at Austin; his master’s in English, community college teaching track, from Illinois State University in Normal, Ill.; and his bachelor’s in Christian education from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.

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