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Today’s community college president is a strategic thinker, fundraiser, academician, financial analyst, entrepreneur, marketer, public relations expert, and student recruiter. Community colleges face a challenge in recruiting leaders to fill the presidency and retaining them to ensure stability during seasons of change. Stable leadership in the president’s office impacts student success and, potentially, the college’s success for years to come. A new president’s ability to navigate change, especially in the first 5 years at an institution, will likely determine their tenure at the college. This study examined the issues and challenges of leading and navigating change during a California community college president’s first 5 years. Three research questions guided this qualitative study: How do community college presidents explain balancing the many demands placed on them, and how have these demands impacted them as individuals and professionals? How do community college presidents describe the process of introducing and navigating change at their campus? How do community college presidents explain the personal and professional costs of leading effective and sustainable institutional change at community colleges? Thirteen first-time college presidents were selected for this study.The study found new college presidents were unafraid to lead and navigate change on their campuses. Participants incorporated purpose-driven leadership as necessary in becoming change agents. Although change was difficult, often bringing disruptions, disagreements, and dissent, the study found ethical leaders who put students' needs first overcame challenges to establish sustainable changes.

The PALM-3000 upgrade to the Palomar Adaptive Optics system will deliver extreme adaptive optics correction to a suite of three infrared and visible instruments on the 5.1 meter Hale telescope. PALM-3000 uses a 3388-actuator tweeter and a 241-actuator woofer deformable mirror, a wavefront sensor with selectable pupil sampling, and an innovative wavefront control computer based on a cluster of 17 graphics processing units to correct wavefront aberrations at scales as fine as 8.1 cm at the telescope pupil using natural guide stars. Many components of the system, including the science instruments and a post-coronagraphic calibration wavefront sensor, have already been commissioned on the sky. Results from a laboratory testbed used to characterize the remaining new components and verify all interfaces are reported. Deployment to Palomar Observatory is planned August 2010, with first light expected in early 2011.