By Kathryn Reed

If Susan Middleton weren’t retiring, her next title would be great in the resume building department – acting president of Lake Tahoe Community College.

She will assume the top spot of South Tahoe’s two-year college when President Paul Killpatrick heads to Seattle on July 16. She will be at the post a limited time – until Aug. 31, her retirement date.

Middleton is vice president of Academic Affairs and Student Services. She has been at the college for 24 years.

The decision came Tuesday at a special board meeting. Not many people attend LTCC board meetings, so to have about a half dozen people there at 8am was extremely unusual. Not all of them were happy to learn the board is going to hire an interim president. Faculty wanted the two VPs to share the job.

To have Middleton as acting president follows the bylaws in terms of hierarchy. Her position is No. 2 at the college, with VP of Business Services third in line.

At the board’s regular meeting on June 22 it’s possible a decision will be made as to whether to post the interim job for a short spell or to narrow the list of candidates being supplied from the chancellor’s office and elsewhere.

About a dozen names have been presented to the board as possible interim presidents. Board President Kerry David said he did not know if former college President Guy Lease was in the mix. Lease returned to the college as an interim VP of Business Services, a job he had fulltime before becoming the institution’s second president.

David said a search for the college’s fourth full-time president would begin in the fall. He would like to be interviewing candidates by January.