Brief College History

1945 – 1965

Solano College was founded in 1945, when the California State Department of Education authorized the Vallejo Unified School District Governing Board to establish a junior college on the campus of Vallejo Senior High School. Classes for junior college students started in the fall of 1945 with fewer than 100 students.

In the fall of 1957, the Governing Board of the Vallejo Unified School District voted to completely separate the junior college from the high school by relocating it to a site on Mini Drive. Vallejo Junior College began offering summer classes in 1964, and enrollment increased to 1000 students that year.

By 1965, it was apparent that there were more advantages to a county-wide community college district, so the voters of Solano County voted overwhelmingly to establish such a district upon recommendation of the Solano County Committee on School Reorganization. At the same time, seven trustees were elected to the new governing board, representing the district's committees.

In the short span of a year, the new board selected a new Superintendent/President, Dr. N. Dallas Evans, and then proceeded to name a committee of fourteen members chosen from various county committees to select a site for the new campus. An architectural firm, Johnson, Poole, Storm, Lillis and Smith, Architects Associated, was engaged early in 1967 to draw plans for the new campus.

1965 – 2000

Finally, in mid-1967, the board approved plans for a $12.6 million bond issue to be placed before the county's electorate on October 17, 1967. The issue passed with a record-high vote in California, with an 84% 'yes' margin. The committee’s recommendation was to purchase the Smith-Martin property on Suisun Valley Road. The property consisted of 192 acres across from the Stonedene mansion.

Phase I construction included 10 buildings, the sports fields, and the swimming pool. These were the Library, Science, Business Education, Administration, Social Science-Language Arts, Math-Engineering, Cosmetology-Home Economics, Student Union, Physical Education, Central Plant and Warehouse buildings. Construction began immediately, and the campus was occupied on February 8, 1971, at the current location on Suisun Valley Road in Fairfield. Student enrollment at the new location exceeded 3,000 when it was dedicated in April 1971.

Throughout the latter half of the 1970s, construction continued at the Suisun Valley Road site with the addition of the Music/Little Theatre building (1974) and the Vocational/Technical building (1974). In 1976, the Horticulture building and Greenhouse were built. In 1978, the Health Occupations/Multidiscipline building and the Fine Arts building were constructed. By this time, the student population had grown to over 5,000.

During the 1980s, the student population doubled to 10,000 by 1990, and it became clear that the District needed to reach out and expand its services to residents of both South County (Vallejo/Benicia) and North County (Vacaville/Dixon/Winters). In 1984, the District leased space on the ground floor of the Vallejo Library to provide South County residents with five classrooms for instruction in college courses. By 1992, the student population had grown to over 12,000. In 1996, the District leased space on North Village Parkway in Vacaville (eight classrooms).

As student fees increased during the latter half of the 1990s, enrollment declined to about 10,000 and slowly grew back to about 11,000 by 2004.

2000 – 2010

In 2002, the College Governing Board authorized its first bond issue in 37 years to acquire a permanent location on ten acres for its Vallejo Center (now located at 545 Columbus Parkway) and build a center in Vacaville as part of a master plan to eventually build a campus on 60 acres of land at 2000 North Village Parkway. Measure G, a $125 million bond passed by voters in November 2002, included renovations to the Fairfield campus. The addition of a new Student Services building and a Faculty Office building on the Fairfield campus, and a new Aeronautics complex at the Vacaville Nut Tree Airport, enhanced renovations to each building in the District.

Superintendent-President List

Since becoming the Solano Community College District in 1965, the college has had 16 Superintendent/Presidents (including Interims, Acting and Administrator-in-Charge).  Below is the list from 1976 onward.

July 1976 – June 1984, William H. Wilson, Sr.
March 1984 – June 1984, Marjorie K. Blaha, Ed.D. (Acting)
July 1984 – June 1989, Marjorie K. Blaha, Ed.D.
July 1989, Ione H. Elioff, Ed.D. (Acting)
August 1989 – June 1990, Otto Roemmich, Ed.D. (Interim)
July 1990 – June 1994, Virginia L. Holten, Ph.D.
July 1994 – June 2002, Stan R. Arterberry
July 2002, Administrator-in-Charge, James M. Bracy
August 2002 – January 2003, Armond Phillips (Acting)
January 2003 – December 2006, Paulette J. Perfumo, Ph.D.
December 2006 – September 2007, Gerald F. Fisher (Interim)
September 2007 – October 2008, Gerald F. Fisher
October 2008 – March 2009, Lisa J. Waits, Ed.D. (Interim)
March 2009 – June 2009, Robert Jensen, Ph.D. (Interim)
July 2009 – July 2015, Jowel Laguerre, Ph.D.
July 2015 – December 2015, Stan Arterberry (Interim)
January 2016 – July 2024, Celia Esposito-Noy, Ed.D.
July 2024 – present, Kellie Sims Butler, Ph.D.