Whittier College President Defends Her Tenure and Refuses to Resign, Despite Alumni Pressure

Up a small flight of stairs, behind a heavy, turn-of-the-century door, Linda Oubré is conductor. Whittier College’s 15th president, on this mid-April day, is simultaneously summoning an IT employee to help with an errant laptop, giving instructions to her new vice president of planning about how to file a report and delegating the next task to her assistant who is waiting in the wings. Oubré, despite a meeting which isn’t starting as planned, is cool and patient. She’s here at the 136-year-old private liberal arts college once attended by Richard Nixon to do a tough job. And, she’s going to see it through. Because, despite a backlash calling for her ouster and in spite of $500,000 in pledges promised if she leaves, Oubré is steadfast: She isn’t going anywhere.