SPRINGFIELD — Gail E. Carberry ’77 has been named Springfield Technical Community College’s commencement speaker and distinguished alumna for 2025.

The commencement ceremony and awarding of the Distinguished Alumna honor will be held May 29, at 6:30 p.m., at the MassMutual Center.

In many ways, Carberry exemplifies the transformative power of a community college education. As a Springfield Technical Community College student, she struggled with dyslexia and faced economic challenges, but found the support she needed to succeed. She earned her certificate in administrative bookkeeping from STCC and soared to great heights in the decades that followed. 

Indeed, she served in many roles at STCC, and would go on to serve as president of Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) in Worcester.

“I think, in a lot of ways, I’m very much a typical STCC graduate,” Carberry said. “I was an older student, coming from very moderate means. I’m dyslexic. Reaching this point in my life –— retiring as a college president and now being honored by my alma mater — is very meaningful to me because I am so passionate about the community college mission, having experienced it myself.”

After earning a degree in early childhood education from Worcester State University, she and her husband, Donald H. Carberry, a Vietnam War veteran, struggled to find stable employment. “We were living in subsidized housing with two small kids, trying to get on our feet after an unpopular war,” she recalled. “Teachers were being laid off, and I needed to reschool.”

It was at STCC that Carberry found her confidence. “I had gone through public school struggling, and when I got to STCC, that flipped,” she said. “People believed in me, and I began to believe in myself.”

STCC served as a launching pad for Carberry’s career. She served in several leadership roles at the college, where she worked for 28 years. Early in her career at STCC, Carberry was a grant writer — a role that would define much of her early success. She eventually rose to be the director of Grants and Institutional Development, the assistant dean of Development, and completed her career at STCC as vice president of Grants and Development, a role she held for more than 15 years.

During her tenure at QCC, Carberry continued her legacy of innovation, securing funding and expanding educational access. “I was able to build a health sciences and workforce development building in downtown Worcester without additional state funds,” she said. “We created a campus in Southbridge, and 1,300 students poured through the doors in the first year.”

Throughout her career, Carberry worked to expand access to education for underserved populations. At STCC, she played a role in launching disability services, a childcare center and a women’s center. “I was trying to push STCC into the community to reach into the lives of people, to bring them to the college and to enable some of the colleges programs to move into the community,” she said. “The transformation of lives has always been key to me, and the projects that transform the lives are the ones I’m most proud of.”

Her work in Worcester followed a similar trajectory. “My legacy is in the 10,000 students who graduated from QCC on my watch,” she said. “Nobody does it alone. I had a good team of people at both campuses working with me, and if I didn’t have them, I found them. That’s how you do it.”