CEO on the move
Steven Bloomberg will serve as the next chancellor of the Kern Community College District in California, effective March 1. He is currently president of Southeast Arkansas College.
Bloomberg has roots in the district, where he began his higher education career in 1994 as a workforce development director at Cerro Coso Community College, which is one of three colleges that comprise the district.
Bloomberg, who has been in his current position since 2018, has focused on increasing enrollment, especially high school students, workforce training, incarcerated students and student athletes, according to a release. Part of those efforts include establishing housing for students at the Arkansas college and starting an athletics department as a recruiting tool. He led efforts to transition a former local nursing home into a residential complex.
Guiding the college through the Covid pandemic was also a major effort for Bloomberg. “Surviving Covid was always top of mind for me, making sure we got out of the pandemic as unscathed as possible,” he said in a release.
Previously, Bloomberg was executive vice president at Oklahoma City Community College and also served there as vice president for community development.
New CEO
Scott W. Thayer will become Cypress College’s 13th president in January. He has been vice president of student services at San Bernardino Valley College since 2017, having also served as its interim president.
Thayer has served as an administrator in the California Community College system for 24 years in various executive leadership positions, including vice president of student services at Cuyamaca College and dean of student affairs at Pasadena City College.
Thayer, an alumnus of Normandale Community College (Minnesota), is known as an advocate for historically underrepresented students and an authority on student access, retention, equity, success, enrollment management and K-20 partnerships. He is a founding member of two non-profit organizations: Have Faith, Be Strong, an organization for childhood cancer awareness, and the African American Male Education Network and Development (A²MEND), an organization established to foster institutional change within the community college system to increase the success of African-American male students.
Kudos
It’s not every day a college CEO gets a street named after him or her. But this week, the city of Detroit unveiled Curtis L. Ivery Street, named for the long-time chancellor of the Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD).
The road that will carry the secondary street name is where the district’s office and its Curtis L. Ivery Downtown Campus are located. The Detroit City Council hosted an unveiling on December 14 on Fort Street at Third Avenue.
The secondary street signs honor important Detroit figures. Each year, city leaders approve only five new ones. Ivery has served as the leader of WCCCD since 1995 and has received many awards and accolades for the district’s work to strengthen student success and equity. In 2022, Ivery received the inaugural CEO of the Year Award from the American Association of Community Colleges as part of its annual Awards of Excellence.
Margaret M. McMenamin, president of Union College of Union County, New Jersey (UCNJ), was honored this month by the Urban League of Union County as the recipient of the 2023 Ella S. Teal President Award. She was selected based on her transformative leadership at the college, where she has served as CEO since 2010, and commitment to diversity and inclusion. The League cited UCNJ’s Project Achievement Initiative, which combines advising with a programming component to help African-American male students succeed. The initiative has more than quintupled the African-American male graduation rate over the last decade, according to UCNJ.
Juan Salgado, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago, this week received the 2023 Ohtli Award, which is one of the highest honors given to citizens living outside of Mexico and recognizes individuals who have empowered the lives of Mexican nationals who live abroad.
Consul General of Mexico in Chicago, Ambassador Reyna Torres Mendivil, presented the award to Salgado at a special event, which was attended by many state and local leaders, including Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and Beatriz Ponce De León, Chicago’s deputy mayor of immigrant, migrant and refugee rights.
Appointments
Dale Dan has been named chief diversity officer at Lansing Community College in Michigan. Most recently, Dan was chief diversity officer for Empire State University, which is part of the State University of New York system.
Osvaldo Gomez is the new director of equal employment opportunity and compliance/Title IX coordinator at Houston Community College, which is similar to a position she held when she served at the Texas college from 2018 to 2021. Most recently, she was district director for human resources employee relations and Title IX coordinator for Tarrant County College (Texas).
Andy Green is now dean of student services at Gadsden State Community College in Alabama. He comes from Jacksonville State University, where he worked for 18 years, most recently as assistant dean of honors and special programs.
Joe Hopkins, campus police chief at Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI), is now the college’s director of public safety and chief of police. The former detective captain for the Warwick Police Department joined CCRI in 2019 as a captain and has served as its interim chief since August 2022.
Kim Van Savage is joining Piedmont Virginia Community College as its new associate vice president of human resources and chief human resource officer. Most recently, she was senior director of human resources at Harvard Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chris Williams will serve as chief information officer at Lone Star College in Texas, starting January 4. She comes from Rice University, where she was chief digital transformation officer and associate vice president for enterprise systems.
At the Maricopa County Community College District in Arizona, Lee Ann Bohn is now chief operating officer and Heather Carter is senior vice chancellor of external affairs. Bohn previously was assistant manager for Maricopa County. Carter served as executive vice president for Greater Phoenix Leadership.
