Pasadena City College Trustees Name José A. Gómez as Superintendent and President

The Pasadena Area Community College District Board of Trustees announced at a special meeting on Friday that it had selected José A. Gómez to serve as the next permanent Superintendent/President of Pasadena City College. Gómez, who has been serving as the college’s interim leader since last June, accepted the position pending the finalization of contract terms in the coming months.

“We are thrilled to have José Gómez serve Pasadena City College in this permanent role at an incredible time in our history,” said Board President Alton Wang. “He will serve with a community that is charting the future of what California’s community colleges can provide for students, job seekers, and their families.”

“I am grateful for the opportunity to continue leading Pasadena City College as its superintendent/president,” Gómez said. “PCC is the premier community college in the nation, and I am looking forward to working alongside our Board of Trustees and our incredibly dedicated faculty, staff, and administrators to help our students achieve their dreams and to fulfill our public responsibility to serve our community and our region.”

Prior to his interim role at the college, Gómez held senior positions at California State University, Los Angeles, including as executive vice president and provost. There, he led initiatives to expand opportunities for students, such as the Prison Graduation Initiative, the state’s first bachelor’s degree program taught in prison. He has also advised the president pro tem of the California Senate on higher education issues and held roles in the California Department of Justice and the State Treasurer’s Office.

As a faculty member, Gómez has taught at several colleges in the region. A Pasadena resident, Gómez’s experience as a first-generation college student raised in the San Gabriel Valley has inspired his three-decade career in education and government. He is an alumnus of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and received the university’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2019.

Wang said the selection process benefited from “the deep involvement of students, faculty, staff, and community members,” adding, “My colleagues on the Board and I greatly respect the importance of this work, and we carefully considered the input we received from people throughout the college.” He also recognized the work of Trustee Kristine Kwong, the immediate past president, who “shepherded this process from the beginning.”

A final agreement with Gómez is expected by mid-June.

Pasadena City College, founded in 1924, has provided the San Gabriel Valley with a high-quality, innovative learning environment that inspires student success. The college offers a variety of degrees, transfer programs, certificates of achievement, and occupational skills certificates, and is consistently one of the top colleges in the state for transfers to the CSU and UC systems.