President of CSU Dominguez Hills to retire

James E. Lyons, president of Cal State Dominguez Hills, who expanded academic programs and helped bring the $150-million Home Depot sports complex to the campus, will retire at the end of the academic year in June, the school has announced.

Lyons, 63, says he plans to move to Atlanta to be closer to his aging mother, three sons and four grandchildren on the East Coast.

“I need to stop all this running back and forth -- trying to be loyal and dedicated to the university and wanting to feel the same way with my family, when the president’s job is 24/7,” Lyons said last week.

Lyons took the reins of the Carson campus in 1999, amid personnel problems and a budget shortfall that forced the university to borrow $441,000 from Cal State Fullerton. The Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, an accreditation agency, put the school on warning, a situation Lyons has turned around.

Under his direction, the university leased about 85 acres to Anschutz Entertainment Group for the 27,000-seat Home Depot Center, which opened in 2003. Today, the center, home to the Galaxy and Chivas USA soccer teams, generates about $500,000 a year for the school.

Nevertheless, the campus, which has among the highest percentage of minority students in the California State University system, has seen steep enrollment declines in the last few years.

As a result, it has received less money from the system and made cuts in instruction and other areas.

Lyons attributed the enrollment declines to diminishing interest in teacher education. Where 38% of the students once enrolled in education programs, fewer than 25% now do. Overall, about 1,500 fewer students attend the school than did three years ago, he said.

“It’s going to take a few years to bounce back,” said Lyons, adding that other Cal State campuses that are strong in teacher education programs had also experienced enrollment declines.

It is healthier for the campus to become more well-rounded, Lyons said, so it has added about two dozen academic and degree programs during his tenure, including a doctoral program in education set to begin by 2009.

He’s counting on new child development and social work degrees -- “two high-demand programs that an urban university should have had long ago” -- to help boost student numbers, he said.

valerie.reitman@latimes.com