Lloyd A. Holmes, a veteran educator with a track record of removing barriers to student success, was named as the fourth president of De Anza College. He starts his new job July 1.
The Foothill-De Anza Community College District board of trustees voted unanimously June 2 to endorse district Chancellor Judy Miner’s recommendation to hire Holmes.
Holmes, 49, is currently vice president of student services at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY, a position he has held for the past six years. Part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, Monroe serves about 40,000 students a year at two campuses.
In addition to his work at Monroe, Holmes served on the SUNY Food Insecurity Task Force, formed to address student hunger.
Miner said in a statement that Holmes has the capacity to provide transformational leadership at De Anza. “He will cultivate the enormous talent that exists within our campus community, suggest new ways to collaborate and welcome those with expertise to share,” she added.
Holmes, for his part, said he has “come to know De Anza as one of the leading community colleges in the nation. Together, we will do even greater things to positively impact our students, faculty, staff and community.”
Holmes takes over the reins from Christina G. Espinosa-Pieb, De Anza’s vice president of instruction, who served as interim president for the past two years following the retirement of Brian Murphy. Like all three of his predecessors, Holmes steps into his new role without any prior experience as a college president.
“De Anza has always been bold in its vision of who can provide exceptional leadership,” Miner wrote in a May 27 email to De Anza College faculty, classified professional staff and administrators recommending Holmes’ appointment. “Founding president A. Robert DeHart was dean of students at Foothill College and directed the planning of De Anza before being named president. Martha J. Kanter was vice president of instruction at a much smaller community college. And Brian Murphy was an executive director at an institute at San Francisco State University.”
For more information about Holmes, including his rise from poverty to a doctoral degree at the University of Mississippi, visit deanza.edu/president-search.
