Over the last few months, President Vernon Harper has been leading Cal State Bakersfield, a task immediately met with challenges that required strong leadership from someone determined to make the university thrive.
Harper started the year with a vision that tackled many areas across campus to ensure that not only the CSUB community knew this was the place to be, but the Kern County community as well.
“You want to launch a role like this with a very, very clear sense of how your role—or in this case, your presidency—is going to alter the trajectory of the university,” Harper said. “Alter it with help; otherwise, there is no reason to take the role.”
While serving as interim president, Harper took the time to not only sit with students, faculty and staff on campus but also engage with the local community to hear their insights, ideas and overall vision for the future. As a result, Harper ambitiously started his term by announcing a 100-day plan of commitments he wanted to accomplish.
At the start of his presidency, Harper announced that the five key areas would be:
- Evaluating diversity and campus climate activities and units.
- Initiating executive and administrative searches to fill interim roles.
- Launching the Kern County University community engagement campaign.
- Reorganizing executive units and activities around student success, revenue generation and community engagement.
- Evaluating the current strategic plan and setting the stage for a new strategic plan.
“I feel like we have been successful,” Harper said, as they launched the Kern County University initiative and continued the ongoing search for the provost and vice president of advancement.
In October 2024, Harper visited St. John Missionary Baptist, where 30 students in attendance were given pre-admission certificates to CSUB—a program in which children as young as 12 are offered admission.
“We are planning a religious institutions tour… church tour, church synagogue and church temple… to make sure that we are getting in front of our faith-based individuals and communities to know that we want every person, young and not so young, to be a student here at CSUB,” Harper said.
They are in the process of creating a list of organizations to visit and over the next 24 months, they will be working on visiting local religious organizations, Harper said.
Despite CSUB’s $12 million deficit, Harper is not placing any of the previously determined initiatives on the back burner. However, he explained that they might allocate fewer resources, adjust budgets, or restructure administrative units.
Harper takes a collaborative approach to leadership to achieve his overall vision for CSUB. As a leader, he ensures that the right people have a seat at the table—the president’s cabinet—to generate meaningful conversations.
“Our cabinet team is diverse, with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. I am grateful I will get to join that team and bring my background and knowledge to the important work ahead of us,” wrote Lori A. Blodorn, the newly appointed vice president of people and culture.
Recently, Dr. Dwayne Cantrell and Ms. Lori Blodorn were promoted to vice presidents to contribute to CSUB’s overall success within their campus divisions. Furthermore, Kyle Conder, athletics director, has been invited to join the president’s cabinet, and Dr. Kristen Watson will oversee the marketing, communications and events team.
Harper has also added additional advisors to the president’s cabinet from the academic senate, the chief of police, institutional research and diversity initiatives.
“They’re amazing women to start off with that,” Harper said. “To have access to their expertise is important… they have the opportunity to attend cabinet meetings to bring relevant issues to the cabinet… In creating cabinet advisors, it reduces barriers for those conversations to happen in the cabinet.”
President Harper has been a member of the CSUB community for the last nine years. For him and his wife, Dr. Ericka Harper, this isn’t just a job—it’s their life. Harper doesn’t see a future away from the campus and ensures that he is “in this together” with the community.
