Dr. Daria J. Willis, a rising star in the world of community colleges, has been selected as the next president to lead Howard Community College located in Maryland.
Willis—who is currently the president of Everett Community College in Washington—will become the first African American to lead the college in its 51-year history.
Nestled in between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Howard Community College has long been lauded for its innovative approach to learning and community and civic engagement.
Dr. Daria Willis
Willis, who previously served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Onondaga Community College before taking the helm of Everett Community College in 2019, has long held aspirations of being a community college leader and was a 2017 Cohort fellow of the Thomas Lakin Institute for Mentored Leadership, an organization dedicated to training African American community college administrators for the presidency. In 2017, Willis was profiled by Diverse for her participation in Lakin.
“The board of trustees is excited to welcome Dr. Willis as the fifth president of Howard Community College,” said Christopher G. Marasco, chair of the Howard board of trustees. “The trustees were impressed with Dr. Willis’s energy and accomplishments, her commitment to students and their education, and her steadfast focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in her work. We look forward to working alongside her as she leads Howard Community College into the future.”
In a recent interview with Diverse, Willis said that honored and humbled to join Howard Community College. Still, the decision to leave Everett, she said, was not an easy one.
