The search for a Harford Community College president has been narrowed to four candidates who were selected from more than 90 applicants. Three are women.
Dating to the college's founding in 1957, all of the seven presidents have been men.
The candidates were announced Thursday at a monthly meeting of the college's board of trustees.
They are Dr. Roger C. Andersen, president of Adirondack Community College, Queensbury, N.Y.; Dr. Claudia E. Chiesi, vice president of academic affairs and student services at Lorain County Community College, Elyira, Ohio; Dr. Donna S. Thigpen, assistant vice president of student affairs at Trident Technical College, Charleston, S.C.; and Dr. Judith K. Winn, president of Northwest College, Houston Community College System, in Houston.
"These are individuals who are able to create an environment to provide challenges to all segments of the college community to excel more, to stretch more," said Patricia A. Perluke, chairwoman of HCC's presidential advisory committee.
Drs. Andersen and Chiesi have worked in Maryland colleges.
Dr. Andersen has a doctorate in higher education administration. He was vice president of administrative affairs at Allegany Community College in Cumberland from 1985 to 1988. Before that, he was dean of continuing education and executive assistant to the president there. He also had been a full-time faculty member, starting in 1975.
In his cover letter to the search committee, he wrote, "My family and I have wanted to 'come home' to Maryland for quite some time."
Dr. Andersen currently oversees 3,791 students and 500 employees, has developed a long-range planning process for the college and teaches mathematics. He said in his letter that he is student-centered, and thinks partnerships with business and industry and other groups "are essential to the college's overall effectiveness."
The author of numerous professional papers, he also has written a humor book, "Some Days You're the Pigeon, Some Days You're the Statue: Comic Confessions of a College President."
Dr. Chiesi, who holds a doctorate in social, philosophical and historical foundations, was director of development and international education and a professor of English at Catonsville Community College from 1976 to 1988. She was a consultant to Essex Community College from 1986 to 1988.
In her cover letter, Dr. Chiesi said she has "commitments to technical development, fiscal prudence, global education and multicultural inclusion for program and personnel."
She has represented her current college in business partnerships and oversees 410 full-time and part-time faculty, and 85 support and administrative staffers. She manages a $24 million budget.
Dr. Thigpen, who has a doctorate in adult and community college education, also has Maryland ties. She received her master's degree in nursing from the University of Maryland at College Park.
"I still teach an occasional class in order to keep in touch with the heart of college -- the teaching/learning process," she wrote to the selection panel.
Dr. Thigpen believes in working cooperatively with business and industry, and calls herself an "expressive leader." One of the characteristics of an expressive leader, she said, is to be "fun-loving with a good sense of humor."
Dr. Winn, who has a doctorate in educational psychology, also stresses the importance of a sense of humor. She is an administrator in the second-largest community college system in the country.
"When I started my presidency in Houston, I adopted for my college the motto, 'serving our communities with a commitment to excellence.' "
Dr. Winn, who has been at Northwest since 1991, has created a business community steering council, initiated lunch meetings with small groups of faculty and staff and developed student focus groups.
Harford Community College's search for a new president began in June after Richard J. Pappas announced he was leaving the college to become president of Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor, Mich.
The 14-member advisory panel included trustees, faculty members, administrators and a student representative. The panel worked with a consultant, the Association of Community College Trustees, in the search.
"A lot of time went into it -- and energy," said Ms. Perluke, who also is vice chairwoman of the trustees.
The pool of initial candidates was whittled down to 14 who were invited to the campus for interviews.
The four finalists will be invited to the college beginning Dec. 2 to meet with students, faculty and administrators.
"We're looking forward to an announcement [of a new president] in January," Ms. Perluke said.