Robert C. Maxson has been appointed president of Sierra Nevada College, the institution said today, as reported in the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, at a time when the college is looking to merge with another institution.

Sierra Nevada has been seeking partnerships with other institutions. Already it has already accepted an infusion of cash from Knowledge Universe Learning Group, which runs a for-profit institution, in exchange for some control of Sierra Nevada.

Paul B. Ranslow, who was president, resigned after the institution went in this new direction. “My role as president has changed,” he said, “from that for which I was hired and for which I was prepared to dedicate all of my energy and talent.” An interim president has been in place since then.

Mr. Maxson served as president of California State University at Long Beach from 1994 to 2006 and has been special assistant to the chancellor of California State University for the past two years, the Sierra Nevada announcement said. Before that he was president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas for 10 years. —Dan Carnevale