Donald “Guy” Generals
Donald “Guy” Generals has come to appreciate Community College of Philadelphia’s three regional centers during his four-plus months as CCP’s president.
Those three centers are located at 47th and Chestnut streets, 13th Street and Godfrey Avenue and 12901 Townsend Road in the Far Northeast, which opened in 1994.
Generals said the centers have their own missions, identities and relationships to the communities they serve, adding that they have different demographics and needs.
“My goal is to make them more prominent,” he said.
Generals, the college’s sixth president, met recently with media members at a breakfast at CCP’s Center for Business and Industry, 18th and Callowhill streets.
Prior to joining CCP, Generals was vice president for academic affairs at Mercer County Community College in Central Jersey. He pointed out that MCCC’s West Windsor campus is closer to CCP’s Northeast Regional Center than the regional center is to CCP’s Center City campus.
Generals assumed the presidency on July 1, replacing Stephen Curtis, who was dismissed in June 2013 without cause. He took the job in the midst of the college’s 50th anniversary celebration.
A native of Paterson, New Jersey, where he served on the school board, his noneducation experience includes playing drums in a band with Cissy Houston, Whitney’s mom.
As for his new job, Generals sees CCP as having an outstanding faculty and quality course offerings, particularly in the honors program. The college is not merely 13th grade of high school.
Surveys show that alumni are happy with their education. Moreover, tuition is much less costly than four-year schools.
Generals wants to build on the college’s existing internship and co-op programs. In that regard, he’s already met with leadership of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
“They have a need, and we have the capacity to fill that need,” he said of job opportunities among Chamber members.
One of the new president’s top challenges will be securing additional funding from the city and state.
Some 70 percent of students need federal student aid, and Generals wants to be able to provide more scholarships, in part, to lower the dropout rate.
“We have to find new revenue sources,” he said.
Textbooks are costly, he said, adding that faculty have the option of using online sources, which he said could make books in the classroom “dinosaurs.” Book companies, of course, could adapt by lowering prices.
The overall cost of education is growing, and Generals knows it.
“My job is to slow it down as much as possible,” he said.
To boost enrollment, Generals plans to meet with high school students and parents at settings such as recruitment fairs and assemblies. Dual-enrollment courses will be a selling point. To reach a bigger student market, he wants to increase the number of online courses.
Competition for students comes from private and public colleges, along with the for-profit University of Phoenix and its 200,000 enrollment.
As he looks ahead, Generals — author of Booker T. Washington: The Architect of Progressive Education — wants to make sure the education CCP students are receiving is relevant to the job market.
“I’m a progressive educator,” he said. ••
