Dr. Gordon F. May had not initially thought of entering higher education until his wife proposed the idea to him nearly 30 years ago.
With a background in business management and 15 years of service in the private industry, May took a leap of faith and applied for a part-time position at the Auburn Hills campus of Oakland Community College (OCC) in Michigan.
May, 68, says he did not hear back about the position for another four to five months after he applied until one night, he received a call asking, “Could you start tomorrow night?” he recalls laughing. “And I did.”
At OCC, he taught a Principles of Business Management course and served in various administrative capacities – including as president of two of the OCC system’s campuses over a span of 27 years.
May retired from OCC in 2013, but says that he was not ready to “retire retire.” To this day, he still keeps in contact with the students he taught at OCC and the students he taught in the Educational Leadership doctoral programs at Wayne State University and Oakland University.
A year later in 2014, the education leader got a second chance to fulfill a dream of his.
May was selected among 50 other candidates to serve as president and chief executive officer of Baltimore City Community College, Maryland’s only state-sponsored community college.
