Pitt Community College’s Board of Trustees is continuing deliberations on the selection of the college’s next president, with an announcement expected to be made next month.
The board on Monday held a special called meeting to discuss the three finalists who visited the campus last week to meet faculty, staff, students and community members and to answer questions about their qualifications for replacing retiring president Lawrence Rouse. Rouse is scheduled to end his tenure this week after nearly six years leading the state’s sixth-largest community college.
Among candidates to replace him are Roger W. Davis and Maria Pharr, both sitting presidents of smaller community colleges, and Nicole Reaves, vice president of North Carolina’s largest community college. If either Reaves or Pharr is chosen for the position, it would mark the first time in Pitt Community College’s 63-year history that a woman has served as president.
Pharr was PCC’s assistant vice president for academic affairs from 2011 to 2014. “I truly believe that everything in my life has led me to right now,” the Havelock native said Thursday in the last of three public forums hosted in the Goess Student Center.
Pharr, who began her community college career two decades ago as an instructor at Craven Community College, left PCC to serve as executive director of BioNetwork and Life Science Initiatives for the N.C. Community College System before becoming president of South Piedmont Community College in 2017.
“The connections that I have to to this community and this college run very deep,” said Pharr, who received her master’s degree and also her doctorate in higher education administration from East Carolina University.
“When I moved to the system office, I never left Greenville because it meant something to me,” she said. “I traveled 87 miles one way on that commute. But I love it here, love it so much that my husband and I purchased land here because I knew I was coming back. I would either come back when I retired or when an opportunity presented itself.”
Reaves also traces her roots to eastern North Carolina. She grew up in Rocky Mount and received undergraduate and graduate degrees from ECU before receiving her doctorate in higher education administration from N.C. State. The SouthWest Edgecombe High School graduate said Tuesday that she is eager to give back to eastern North Carolina.
“This is personal,” Reaves said of the decision to apply for the PCC position three years after being named executive vice president and chief program officer at Wake Tech. “I went to a rural high school, and I stand here today because of my education and the community that rallied around me from my parents to the church to the schools that I attended .... I understand the importance and the power of education.”
Davis, who has nearly 30 years of experience in higher education, is the president of the Community College of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and previously served as the executive vice president and provost of the college. He said colleges need innovative leadership in order to thrive in today’s world.
“It’s either innovate or die,” said Davis, who has a master’s degree in adult education from Coppin State University and a doctorate in urban educational leadership from Morgan State University. “You see higher education; you see the enrollment cliff. You’ve seen the value of higher education is being challenged across America, and either we’re going to innovate as higher education leaders and take this by the reins or higher education will not be here for America. This is our challenge.”
Candidates fielded a variety of questions from the feasibility of adding a performing arts center to campus to their views on remote work and shared governance. Other topics of discussion ranged from how to address developmental education and students’ mental health needs to ways to strengthen partnerships with local high schools and area industries.
Pharr, who has seen South Piedmont grow during her tenure from 31st to 18th of the state’s community colleges in terms of enrollment, said part of her mission has been to improve the perception of what community college is.
“I do not like hearing when somebody says students aren’t ready for college so they should go to the community college. We are college; we are higher education,” she said. “We know that we’re changing lives and we know that we do it in a way that is affordable, that is personal and that is successful.”
Reaves, who previously served in senior leadership roles at Northern Virginia Community College, Wilbur Wright College and Westmoreland County Community College, complimented PCC for its comprehensive programs, pointing particularly to health sciences and biotechnology. She said community colleges need to focus on student success by helping to address non-academic barriers for those enrolled, including such issues as food insecurity, transportation and childcare. She said Wake Tech has begun a care team approach to help provide assistance to veterans, students with disabilities and others facing challenges.
“Change is not easy,” she said. “I do consider myself a transformative leader so if I’m a change agent, I’ve got to figure out how to manage change.”
In response to a question about his financial acumen, Davis said the Community College of Beaver County had a $1 million budget deficit when he began. Today, he said the school has a $500,000 surplus.
“It was the hardest work I’ve ever done,” he said of budget cuts that included the layoff of 20 employees. “You cannot wait to say we’ll make it in two years. You have to continually make small little adjustments to the budget, small little adjustments in your organization so you can be nimble.”
He said that due to prior adjustments he had made in spending, there were no layoffs at the college during the coronavirus pandemic, when several larger institutions in his state were struggling.
“Every year you’re paying attention. You have to have courage to make tough decisions every single time,” he said. “You cannot put it on the back burner.”
All three candidates discussed college’s role in economic development. Reaves said economic development and workforce development should not be considered separate issues.
“Workforce development is economic development,” she said. “That’s how we woo them is being able to show them that you can provide the talent that they need to be able to thrive in our community.”
Pharr said that as the workforce development agency of the state, the community college must have a business mindset.
“Business operates at a different speed than education,” she said. “Part of what a community college does is stay very connected to the needs of our business and develop programs that meet those needs. You have to be able to do it all. That’s the hallmark of a community college.”
Davis said conversations about students’ future roles in the workforce need to begin in middle school and that the community college should help educate people about how jobs such as those in skilled trades, have changed.
“We are the center for workforce,” he said. “We continue to do that work because we can do it faster and better than anyone else.”
Davis also said that the community college must work to be the center of the community.
“The community college that will survive in today’s America will be those that are so tightly knit with the community that if you unknit the community college you would take apart the community,” he said. “That is the ultimate strategy. You have to be so entangled with the community that they can’t even pull you apart from it.”
Kennon Briggs, a consultant with the Association of Community College Trustees, a nonprofit assisting the college with the search, said members of the Board of Trustees are not at liberty to share details of their decision making. An announcement will not be made until the state Board of Community Colleges meets July 19 to confirm PCC’s new choice for president.
PCC Vice President of Finance/Chief Financial Officer Ricky Brown will serve as the school’s interim president beginning in July.
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