‘Bait and switch:’ Former Modesto Junior College president, boss at odds throughout tenure
The Yosemite Community College District’s decision Wednesday to abruptly terminate Modesto Junior College President Santanu Bandyopadhyay ended a tenure marked by major tensions between him and district leadership that began shortly after he joined the school 18 months ago.
Those tensions started with his initial contract negotiations. They continued with his complaints about the school’s human resources department, including its investigation of his wife, an MJC employee, and its decision to put her on leave, the Bee learned Friday.
YCCD Chancellor Henry C.V. Yong said Friday the decision to terminate Bandyopadhyay was a “personnel matter” and declined to comment further about the decision. Yong will serve as acting president until a replacement is hired.
MJC continues to reckon with the highest CEO turnover rate out of any community college in California, and Bandyopadhyay’s termination followed two reports by the Bee’s Editorial Board that revealed that he had sought other jobs since the early days of his presidency.
Bandyopadhyay acknowledged Friday that he looked for jobs with other community colleges, but said he did so because the YCCD board was unwilling to invest in him.
“If we are the highest turnover of Presidents at MJC, I implore you to investigate what goes on at YCCD, rather than questioning the commitment of President(s),” he said in an email to the Bee.
Bandyopadhyay accused Yong on Friday of “bait and switch” during his initial contract negotiations in 2021, a charge that Yong denied.
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Bandyopadhyay previously served as the president of Columbia College, which is also governed by YCCD. He became MJC’s interim president in January 2021. Jim Houpis, the previous president, resigned after 22 months, citing medical issues.
In May 2021, the YCCD Board voted 4-2 to approve a one-year contract for Bandyopadhyay, offering him an annual salary of $240,548. Bandyopadhyay wasn’t satisfied with the offer.
“Typically, a presidential appointment gets a tenure of three years, a three-year contract,” he said Friday. “That’s not a vote of confidence in me.”
Despite his misgivings, he accepted the offer. But days later, Bandyopadhyay interviewed at Citrus College in Southern California.
The board changed course the next month and voted 7-0 to extend his contract for another two years, along with a $5,000 bonus. Former YCCD board chair Margie Bulkin announced that his new contract would expire June 30, 2024.
Months later, Bandyopadhyay received the final contract, which he said was set to expire June 30, 2023, a year before the agreed-upon date.
“It’s outrageous,” he said Friday, calling the maneuver a “bait and switch.”
Yong said Friday the date change was a “clerical error,” adding, “The contract executed by Dr. Bandyopadhyay and the District lists an ending date of 2023, similar to other cabinet members’.’’
In March 2022, the school’s human resources department placed Komal Bandyopadhyay — the president’s wife and MJC dean of planning, research and institutional effectiveness — on paid administrative leave and launched an investigation of her. The circumstances surrounding the investigation and her leave remain undisclosed.
The matter widened a rift between the president and the human resources department, which is overseen by the chancellor’s office.
The tensions only grew. In June 2022, Bandyopadhyay received a performance review from Yong that praised his leadership, highlighting his performance in union negotiations, enrollment and diversity, equity and inclusion. Yong awarded Bandyopadhyay an additional $5,000 bonus for his performance. But in the same evaluation, Yong wrote about “instances of disagreement between Dr. Bandyopadhyay and Human Resources in the year” and noted that Yong had hired a mediator to resolve the issue.
Bandyopadhyay said that he notified Yong during the evaluation that he had lodged a formal complaint against the human resources department. The complaint, obtained by the Bee, alleges that department officials “undermined the authority of the President’s Office, violated Board policies, engaged in discriminatory practices, and gifted away public funds.”
Bandyopadhyay told the Bee that he started looking for a new job and applied for the position of San Mateo County Community College chancellor.
“I sensed that something was wrong,” he said.
On Nov. 15, Yong told Bandyopadhyay he would not renew the president’s contract.
The next week, Bandyopadhyay was named a finalist for the San Mateo job, the Bee reported.
During Wednesday’s YCCD board meeting, Bandyopadhyay learned he was terminated and placed on paid leave. He will continue to be paid by the community college district until his contract ends next summer.
Marian Kaanan served on a previous MJC presidential search committee and has been outspoken about MJC’s retention challenges. “It’s time for our community to hold the Yosemite Community College District accountable,” she said, calling for “the chancellor to publicly outline his plans to recruit and support MJC’s next president.”
If appointed to another search committee, she wants to see “a fair and transparent process, but also a commitment to letting the MJC president do their job.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
