Former California Democratic State Senator Jack Alan Scott, who began his tenure in 2009 after being unanimously selected as the 14th Chancellor of California Community Colleges by the Board of Governors, announced that he is retiring in September 2012.
The Sweetwater, Texas, native received his bachelor’s degree at Abilene Christian University, a Master of Divinity degree from Yale and a Ph. D. in American history from Claremont Graduate University. He was a teacher and administrator at Pepperdine University in California for 10 years before becoming dean of instruction at Orange Coast College in 1973. Five years later he was named president of Cypress College.
Scott became President of Pasadena City College in 1987 and retired in 1995. The next year he was elected to the state Assembly and served two terms before being elected to the state Senate in 2000. During his time in the Senate he served as chairman of the Education Committee and the Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee on Education. He was chairman of the State Allocation Board for Education.
Scott authored 146 bills in both the Assembly and Senate that were signed into law including Senate Bill 361, a landmark community college financing measure, and Senate Bill 70, a measure that strengthens career technical education programs between K-12, community colleges and the business sector. He is a past president of the Association of California Community Colleges Administrators and the former chairman of the Accrediting Commission of Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Scott assumed the chancellorship after term limits forced him out of the Senate.
Scott and his wife, Lacreta, have four children. A fifth, Adam, died in an accidental shooting shortly after graduating from law school in 1993, prompting Scott’s involvement in gun control efforts. He was chairman of the Assembly’s Select Committee on Gun Violence and authored a number of gun control bills.
2-Year College System Chief Is Named (by Larry Gordon and Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times)
Senator Set to Go Back to Schools (by Jeremy Oberstein, Glendale News-Press)
