When Dr. Gordon F. May started his tenure as president of Baltimore City Community College in 2014, the institution was in rocky shape. Its accrediting agency had placed the institution on warning, threatening the loss of federal funding if accreditation was ultimately revoked.
Middle States Commission on Higher Education lifted the warning in 2015, but lingering challenges still beset the college.
“It was a dark cloud,” May said in an interview with Diverse. “Even though we were still fully accredited, just that warning status had a terrible impact on us.”
Student enrollment declined from over 7,000 in 2010 to 4,409 in 2016. Approximately 95 percent of incoming students require at least one remedial course, more than any other Maryland community college.
“We meet students where they are and take them where they want to be,” May said.
Early this month, May announced that he would step down when his term expires in August 2018. Prior to joining BCCC, he spent 15 years in private industry and 27 years at Oakland Community College in Michigan in various leadership capacities, including leading two of the system’s campuses as president.
After he retires, he said that plans to rejoin his family in Michigan.
