Not only are community colleges facing a crisis with budget cuts and overcrowding, but many are also facing a crisis of leadership, with many presidents due to retire and a shallow pool of successors.

A 2008 study found that 79 percent of community-college presidents planned to retire within four years.

In fact, a community college in Maine was so unsuccessful at finding a replacement for their president after she retired, that after two years she decided she’d just come back.

Kennebec Valley Community College’s president, Barbara W. Woodlee, announced her retirement from the Maine college in 2010, but after two national searches for a replacement found no “viable candidate,” Woodlee has agreed not to retire after all.

Woodlee, 65, has worked at the college since 1976, when she started as director of adult education. She also serves as part-time chief academic officer for the Maine Community College system. She told the Kennebec Journal that she would think again about retiring when the time was right.

Woodlee returned just in time to help the campus through an expansion.

KVCC, sited on about 65 acres, acquired 690 acres and 13 buildings from Good Will-Hinckley, previously a residential school for at-risk youth, in mid-January after the Harold Alfond Foundation gave $10.85 million to the Maine Community College System and Good Will-Hinckley.

The college system used $4.5 million of that gift to buy the property on U.S. Route 201 adjacent to the Kennebec River. The property purchase will allow KVCC to expand its campus, enrollment and course offerings.