Judith Hansen's not in Kansas anymore. OK. Maybe she is - but not for long.

Hansen, the president of Independence Community College in Independence, Kan., accepted an offer Monday night to become the president of Southwestern Oregon Community College.

Hansen will become the college's fifth president on July 1, and will be the first woman ever to take over the reigns at Southwestern. After leading Southwestern for the last 15 years, President Stephen Kridelbaugh is retiring.

Over the last three months, college employees and community members helped the board choose the college's next president. They heard from five candidates - Hansen, Kenneth Wright, Michael Gaudette, Kathleen Noble and Burt Glandon - during separate public forums at various venues on the college campus. About 60 people attended each of the faculty forums where candidates were questioned and forumgoers filled out feedback forms for the board.

One of the final steps came on March 18, a little more than a week after the board ranked the five finalists, when board member David Bridgham traveled to Independence to visit with students, faculty, staff and the college's board of trustees there to ensure that Hansen came, as he said, "as advertised."

It was Bridgham who recommended to the board Monday that Hansen be offered the job. None of the other candidates was discussed during the meeting.

"This was our top candidate," Bridgham told the crowd of about 15 who had gathered for the meeting. "Clearly, our top candidate."

Bridgham's recommendation was followed by a formal motion by Dan Smith in favor of Hansen. It was seconded by Carol Oelke. The six board members present - Harry Abel, Marcia Jensen, Clara Radcliffe, Smith, Bridgham and Oelke - voted in favor of Hansen. Attempts by the board to reach fellow board member Mike Murray, who was at an awards banquet for a high school girls basketball team he coaches, were unsuccessful, leaving the board one vote shy of a unanimous vote.

With the board in agreement over who should lead the college in the coming years, all it needed now was for Hansen to accept the position.

Oregon School Boards Association consultant John Carnahan, who has helped guide the college through the presidential search process, stepped out of the fifth-floor board room in Tioga Hall to call Hansen.

While Carnahan made the call, Julie Johnson, the union representative for the college's classified staff, took the opportunity to tell the board how satisfied she was with the entire search process.

"We felt like a real part of it," Johnson told the board.

Physics and mathematics instructor Randall Sloper praised the board.

"You had such good candidates across the board. It was a real treat," he said.

As the minutes passed and Carnahan had not returned, those seated around the board room table began to get a little nervous.

"Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" said Chairwoman Marcia Jensen. But, moments later, Carnahan entered the room with an announcement.

"You have a new college president," he said.

Shouts of joy and applause filled the board room.

Gaudette, Southwestern's dean of college advancement and recruiting, was the only internal candidate for the position. He was at the table when the announcement was made. Carnahan made a special point to thank him for his professionalism during the entire search process.

In what can only be described as a strange coincidence, this is actually the second time Hansen will replace Kridelbaugh as a college president. When Kridelbaugh left Olney Central College in Olney, Ill., in 1990, it was Hansen who replaced him.

"I'm sure he's wondering, 'Why? How?' It's just one of those things that life brings," Hansen said when contacted by phone late Monday night.

She said she has no intention of coming in right away and making drastic changes. Instead, she said she will spend the first year putting together a master plan with input from not just those in the Bay Area but Curry and Douglas counties, too.

"I am anxious to find out what the community thinks is a first priority," she said, adding that in her second year she would work with the board to solidify those ideas.

Southwestern was not the only community college Hansen was looking into leading - but it was the job she wanted most, she said. Compared to the other colleges, she said, she liked Southwestern's interest in recruiting international students, the college's emphasis on academic excellence and its support of college athletics.

"The possibilities at Southwestern exceed what I have worked with in the past," she said.

During her public forum in January, Hansen had said she agreed, in some respects, with Southwestern's capital expansion projects. In the mid-1990s the college constructed numerous facilities including a family center, an indoor athletic facility, student housing, a baseball field and a performing arts center. In January she said Southwestern had taken a more aggressive approach to growing by building than she would have.

As with all the candidates, forumgoers were interested to know how Hansen would tend to what some faculty members called low morale around campus.

On Monday, she said rebuilding that relationship would be a top priority.

"Any new president coming in knows that there needs to be relationship building," she said.

Faculty and staff also wanted to know where she would find money during a time when state and federal aid to colleges is drying up.

While every state has funding issues, she said Monday, Hansen's impressed with the manner in which Southwestern has fought to right the ship by establishing what she called small profit centers, such as the culinary arts program and residence halls. She pledged to look for similar programs to ensure continued economic growth as well as work with the Southwestern Foundation to seek additional funding sources for the college.