Page 28 - BusinessWest Women of Impact 2020

and staff was the ongoing accreditation process and the comments offered by the team at the New England Commission of Higher Education.
“I really prioritized this as part of our crisis- management plan — we really had to increase communication at the college,” she told BusinessWest. “When people are feeling isolated in their homes, and they’re uncertain about
this thing called COVID, and they’re uncertain about their own health and safety, and they’re
“I want us to look at
this moment in time as an opportunity, and focus not just on the things that are outside of our control, but the things that we do have the ability to control.”
concerned about the college, I felt it was really important to come together.
“And while it’s really nice when we can
come together in the same room, community
is community, and we need to bring people together to feel a sense of community through this,” she said, adding that another initiative she’s implemented is the formation of a volunteer team of students and staff tasked with calling every student enrolled at the school every week “just to
Christina
Royal leads Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on a tour of HCC’s new, $44 million Campus Center earlier this year.
check in and see how they’re doing.”
These town meetings and weekly check-ins
are just some of the ways Royal is providing both stewardship and forward thinking at a time when every college administrator’s abilities are being sternly tested. And the pandemic provides a lens through which her leadership skills and ability
to build partnerships and create collaborative initiatives can be seen.
But first, we need to talk about life before anyone had ever heard the phrase COVID-19.
Royal became just the fourth president in HCC’s history in early 2017 after a stint as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.
In an interview with BusinessWest soon
after taking the helm, she provided some clear evidence of both her empathy for students
and commitment to creating ever-stronger ties between the school and the communites it serves.
“I have a phrase that I’ve used often during my career — that ‘it takes a village to raise a student,’” she noted at the time. “And I really
congratulations
to DR. CHRISTINA ROYAL on her
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