CCP board appoints provost as interim leader after ousting president

The Community College of Philadelphia’s board of trustees named its provost, Alycia Marshall, as interim president at a special meeting Monday.

The move comes about 2½ weeks after the board placed current president Donald Guy Generals on paid administrative leave, following a decision not to renew his contract.

Marshall, who has served as provost and vice president for academic and student success for nearly three years, was appointed during a brief board meeting that didn’t include discussion before the unanimous vote.

She will be in the interim role as college officials on Tuesday must appear before City Council for a budget hearing, and on Saturday at the college’s commencement.

» READ MORE: CCP board removes president, voting not to renew contract and placing him on immedia

The board said Marshall would serve in the role while it conducts a nationwide search for a permanent president, which board chair Harold T. Epps said is beginning immediately. Marshall, who is a rising presidents fellow with the Aspen Foundation, a non-profit aimed at creating thought leaders in their fields to address critical challenges, could be a candidate for the permanent job. She said she will decide when the time comes, but added “hopefully yes.”

Marshall, 51, a native of Maryland, started her career as an adjunct professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, near Annapolis, and later became a full tenured professor and chair of the mathematics department, according to her LinkedIn account.

She was promoted to associate vice president there and founded the African American Leadership Institute and spent a total of nearly 23 years at the Maryland community college.

Marshall received her bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, her master’s in teaching from Bowie State University ,and her doctorate in mathematics education from the University of Maryland.

“It will come with its celebratory components, but it also will come with its challenges,” Epps said, congratulating Marshall after the vote.

He called for the rest of the board and administrators to “give all of your support to Dr. Marshall because it’s going to take all of us fully aligned, and in lockstep, to carry forward what we all say and that is that we’re here for the students of the Community College of Philadelphia and therefore the city of Philadelphia.”

In a statement after the vote, Epps said the board decided that an internal candidate with knowledge of the institution was the best choice for an interim leader.

“Dr. Marshall’s academic and organizational leadership, along with her extensive expertise in STEM, her focus on mentoring and serving underrepresented student populations, made her the perfect choice,” Epps said. “... We are heartened by and confident in Dr. Marshall’s leadership as a stabilizing force to help lead the college through this transition.”

Marshall in an interview acknowledged that the disruption of the last couple of weeks has been disconcerting for the college.

“I did have to communicate with my division, which is one of the largest divisions here at the college, and talked about specifically how we are doing good work here at the college and we’re committed to the students and their success,” she said. “They are counting on us. The city is counting on us, and we will continue to do the work.”

Epps said the board and Marshall will be working on a comprehensive strategy for the fall that will emphasize local workforce needs and look to expand the academy started in the last year at Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s request to train municipal employees.

The board has been “pushing, prodding” the cabinet to achieve a greater balance between graduates who matriculate to four-year colleges after CCP and those who go into the workforce.

“We’re going in the right direction but not fast enough, and so we’ve got to continue to build strategic partnerships with the private sector employers here in Philadelphia and in the region to make sure we’re delivering the workforce programs that are going to get people into jobs and then the additional skills that they need ...,” Epps said.

The college, he said, needs to be “part of the solution that’s going to move Philadelphia forward.”

The city has requested that the college add additional programming, in the areas of a public safety certificate, paramedic emergency services, behavioral health, and human services, Marshall said.

The college also will aim to increase the percentage of students who attain their associate’s degree within three years, Epps and Marshall said. Graduation rates are a bit tricky at community colleges because many students work and take longer to complete their studies. The rates apply only to full-time, first-time students, and the majority of CCP students do not fall into that category.

Marshall said the graduation rate had improved since she has been at the college, but both she and Epps said more work needs to be done.

Earlier this month, trustees voted to oust Generals, who had led the college for nearly 11 years. Generals has said the move was unjustified, citing his record, and called the decision to place him on leave “retaliatory.”

The board hasn’t specified reasons for its decision, and Epps again declined to discuss the reasons.

“It was time for change; we stand by that decision,” he said.

But the transition has been much more challenging than the board had hoped, he said. The board decided to place Generals on immediate leave because he went public with what was happening during the process to negotiate his departure and violated terms of the contract, Epps said.

“We made every effort to reach an amicable transition,” he said. “That went on for at least 75 days if not longer, and we were quite frankly a bit surprised by the path he took to take confidential negotiations and make them ... public, and so we’ve been responding accordingly.”

Generals did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The president of the college’s fundraising board resigned in protest over Generals’ ouster, and questions have been swirling over the board’s decision.

» READ MORE: ‘What’s going on at CCP?’ The college remains without an interim president

Generals had touted his accomplishments, including the college’s progress in enrollment since the pandemic, fundraising, and recent settlement of contracts with the faculty and staff union — which avoided a strike.

At the meeting Monday, the board voted to ratify its decision to place Generals on paid administrative leave.