Prune to Grow: Chancellor Gilkerson Recommends Bold Path Forward for Peralta

At the August 14th District-wide Flex Day at Merritt College, Peralta Community College District Chancellor Dr. Tammeil Gilkerson delivered a powerful and forward-looking address to faculty, classified professionals, and administrators. Her message was clear: it’s time to stop competing and start collaborating to better serve students across Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College, and Merritt College.  

Focusing on Peralta’s Financial Stability 

A significant portion of the address was dedicated to the district's financial health and the progress made over the past year. Dr. Gilkerson presented a historical overview of multi-million-dollar budget cuts the district has faced over the past decade. Despite these challenges, she highlighted several key achievements from the past year that have stabilized the district's financial position: 

• Policy and Financial Adjustments: The district revised its policies on financial reserves, creating new reserves for scheduled maintenance and equipment.
• Addressing Liabilities: The district has begun to address its significant liabilities, including a pension stabilization plan and a special reserve to pay down its post-employment benefits liability. This liability is one of the largest in the state and has been a concern for accreditation and credit rating agencies.
•  Staffing Reductions and Efficiencies: Dr. Gilkerson acknowledged the difficult but necessary process of a reduction in force, stating it was "one of the most painful things I've done in my career." She noted that the district successfully placed every impacted classified employee who wished to stay into a vacant position they were qualified for, and that administrators have taken on more work to right-size the administration. 
• Improved Business Practices: The district has found efficiencies in its processes, including moving away from spreadsheet-based budgeting and improving its procurement and contracts process. This has led to more vendors bidding on projects and in turn better value for the district.
• Credit Rating Improvement: As a result of these efforts, Dr. Gilkerson was proud to announce that Standard & Poor's and Fitch credit ratings had improved the district's rating by two steps. She explained that this improvement demonstrates to taxpayers and the community that the district is a good steward of its funds. 

Looking at a year-over-year comparison, Dr. Gilkerson showed that through these actions, the district has a much more stable financial outlook. While the district is "flat-funded" until enrollment increases, she pointed out that the recent change to a new standardized accounting method for calculating full-time equivalent students showed a significant increase in calculated enrollment, bringing the district close to its funding benchmark.  

A Unified, Equity-Centered District 

In the last 30 minutes of her talk, Dr. Gilkerson laid out a strategic framework for the next two years, focused on building “a unified, equity-centered district, streamlining programs, aligning resources, and forging clear student-first pathways that remove barriers, accelerate success, and set a new standard for community college excellence.” 

She emphasized that excellence must be intentional: 

“We’re about to be excellent in everything we do.” 

Key Recommendations for Transformation 

Among her most urgent recommendations were: 

• Ending Internal Competition: 
  The district’s former Budget Allocation Model or BAM forced competition between the colleges. “We cannot compete with each other anymore. We have to address the duplication in our district,” she said, calling for a district-wide assessment of courses and programs to eliminate redundancy and better align offerings. 

• Creating a Weekend and Evening College Option: 
  Many of our adult students have day jobs and therefore need options outside the 9am to 5pm working week. “The data shows it. It says it. We are not intentionally set up to serve [working learners] in services or in our coursework,” Dr. Gilkerson explained, advocating for a dedicated structure to meet the needs of adult learners. 

• Consolidating Distance Education: 
  After pointing out Peralta’s substantial thought leadership in online instruction, from the Peralta Online Equity Rubric to our ongoing annual Online Equity Conference, she sadly noted that “Students can't even get a complete degree (online)! We need at least coordination… let’s get one schedule together… and actually help support online learners in a new way with actual dedicated student services.” 

• Centralizing Dual Enrollment and Expanding Reverse Transfer Pathways: 
  Chancellor Gilkerson pointed to inefficiencies in how colleges handle partnerships with high schools for dual enrollment, with different agreements from each college with local high school districts. She also highlighted the untapped potential of reverse transfer students – attracting students from CSUs and UCs  for summer session enrollment at the Peralta Colleges: 
  “Let’s market to them! Let’s say we’re the place to come back to when your CSU doesn’t have [what you need].” 

Reclaiming Our History: The Oakland City College Proposal 

In a bold and historic move, Dr. Gilkerson indicated that after receiving a wide range of suggestions on ways to improve the district, she will be proposing the reunification of Laney and Merritt Colleges under the name Oakland City College—a nod to the district’s roots and a vision for its future. Laney and Merritt were part of Oakland City College in the 1950s and 1960s, before the Peralta district was created.  

Since its establishment in 1964, the district has gone through extraordinary changes including adding colleges in Berkeley and Alameda, and even for a time including Feather River College in Quincy, CA, over 200 miles northeast of Oakland! 

“We have this really tremendous history of innovation, focus, moving, shaking, right? Doing what's right,” said Dr. Gilkerson. She was quick to clarify that this is not a campus closure, but rather a strategic reconfiguration. "This is not a closure of anything. We are investing dollars in this campus (Merritt) and we are investing dollars in Laney College." 

“Let me be clear,” she continued. “What I'm saying is, there's history in the Oakland City College name. It's an opportunity to prune to grow three tremendous colleges that really could flourish in new ways.” 

A Call to Dream and Build 

Dr. Gilkerson closed with a message of hope and possibility, that outlined a process over the next 24 months that will include phases for learning and alignment, design and testing, and putting things into action.  Her address provided a transformational roadmap with a focus on equity, and excellence. As the Fall 2025 semester begins, the district stands poised to embrace this bold vision and move forward together. Finally, she referenced author Alice Walker, who wrote, “The gardener knows that pruning is an act of love, not destruction" and ended with the call to “Prune with purpose, grow with intention.”