CEO retirements
Patricia Gentile, president of North Shore Community College in Massachusetts, has announced her plans to retire on July 6, 2020. She has served at the helm of the college for seven years.
“The work that we do together has been at times difficult because of the external trends impacting our sector,” Gentile said in a press release. “Yet I am so grateful for the creativity, determination, good humor, and adaptability of the trustees, faculty, staff and students that has positioned this college to remain an award-winning, student-centered institution and in a strong place to weather the challenges to come.”
Significant accomplishments of Gentile’s tenure span student success, academic rigor, infrastructure expansion, strong fiscal management and philanthropy, innovation and partnership development. Under her leadership, the college has honed its student-centric focus resulting in: improved student outcomes, closed achievement gaps and graduation rates that rose 31 percent, among other accomplishments. Major community partnerships under her leaderships include: CommUniverCity, an early-college program to cut time and cost for a college credential for lower-income, first-generation students; shared services with Salem State University, which offers residential housing options for NSCC students; and supports for students to address transportation, food and housing insecurity.
Previously, Gentile served at Atlantic Cape Community College (New Jersey) in various posts from 1999 to 2013, including overseeing the college foundation, college resource development, public relations and communication services. She was appointed chief operating officer of the college’s Cape May County Campus in 2009. Prior to Atlantic Cape, Gentile served in an executive position with several nonprofit organizations, including chief operating officer of the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington D.C., chief executive officer of two large mid-Atlantic Girl Scout Councils and the Women’s Humane Society in Pennsylvania.
Clyde Muse, president of Hinds Community College, plans to retire June 30, 2020, after 42 years as chief of the college and 68 years as an educator. He is the longest-serving community college president in Mississippi. Muse, who became president of then-Hinds Junior College in 1978, is known for passion and dedication to the college’s students and employees, crediting them with helping to guide the college’s success.
“Although I was called as a ‘servant’ early in my life, I could never have imagined the path that God would lead me and the blessings I would receive on my journey,” Muse said in a statement to Hinds employees in announcing his retirement plans. “Any success for which I have been credited is because I had the best team standing beside me. Over these years, we’ve enjoyed a great deal of success, and it is most certainly due to the dedication and commitment of each one of you. We are often considered as one of the best community colleges.”
Muse, an alumnus of East Central Community College, started his career in education as a teacher and coach in Mississippi before becoming a principal and school superintendent. He served a total of 26 years in K-12 public education in Mississippi, including leading Hinds County schools, through desegregation in 1970.
Muse’s accomplishments as Hinds president are vast. Over the last 42 years, Muse has improved infrastructure at all six Hinds locations, guiding two branches that began as vocational-technical centers into comprehensive campuses, the Jackson Campus-Academic/Technical Center and the Vicksburg-Warren Campus. He expanded the Raymond Campus where agricultural programs are housed at the Ted Kendall III Agricultural Complex. As the demand increased for business and industry training, the college opened the Eagle Ridge Conference Center.
Over the years, Muse has been honored by many groups, including by the Association of Community College Trustees with the Southern Region Chief Executive Officer Award, Gov. Phil Bryant with the inaugural Governor’s Award for Excellence in State Government, and the Mississippi Association of Partners in Education with the prestigious Winter-Reed Partnership Award.
Appointments
Megan Webb is now dean of advancement and innovation at Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College. She previously held the position of beef production systems extension specialist at the University of Minnesota, where she oversaw the research direction of the university’s cattle herd.
Khayree Williams is the new director of the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center at Austin Community College in Texas, effective January 2020. The college is one of 10 institutions nationwide — and the only one in Texas — selected to establish a TRHT center by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Williams has served underrepresented students at colleges and universities for more than a decade.
At Mesa Community College (MCC) in Arizona, Carmen Prado Newland and Nora Amavisca Reyes will fill the newly created senior associate vice president positions. Newland previously served as MCC interim senior associate vice president and dean of enrollment services. Reyes has served as vice provost of the MCC Red Mountain Campus since 2016.
