Page 18 - BusinessWest June 12, 2023

George Timmons says it’s important to hear from all constituencies — from students, faculty, and staff to local officials and business people — early in his tenure.
Fast-forward several months — we’ll go back and fill in all the details later — and Simmons is winding down his work at pro- vost and senior vice president of Academic and Student Affairs at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, N.Y., getting ready to start at HCC the middle of next month.
Upon arriving, he intends to embark on what he called a “soft launch of a listening tour,” one that will involve several constituen- cies, including students, faculty, staff, area elected officials, and members of the business community.
“I think it’s important to hear from the stakeholders who are present, as well as getting into the community, meeting members of the business community and key stakeholders, to hear what they have to say and understand their views on the college and where they see areas of opportunity. I think it’s important that I immerse myself in the community to understand and learn where there
are challenges and opportunities, get to know people, and build relationships.”
Elaborating, Simmons said that, overall, he wants to build on all that Royal has been able to accomplish at HCC — everything from bold strides on diversity, equity, and inclusion to a food pantry and a student emergency fund — while putting his own stamp on the old- est community college in the state, one that recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.
For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest talked at length with Timmons about his new assignment, what brought him to the HCC campus, and what he hopes to achieve when he gets there.
Course of Action
Timmons told BusinessWest that, during one of his visits to the HCC campus for interviews, he was given
a 90-minute driving tour of the city by perhaps the best-qualified person in the region to give one.
That would be Jeff Hayden, vice president of Business & Community Services at HCC and former director of Planning & Economic Development for the city.
“He’s a great tour guide,” Timmons said. “He’s a history guy, and I love his- tory and people who like history — and there is a lot of it in Holyoke.”
The tour of the city pretty much con- firmed what Timmons said he already knew — that this was a community, and a college, that he wanted to be part of, one that would provide that opportunity that he spoke of, and not merely a title.
His journey to the Paper City has been an intriguing one, and it began not far from here.
Indeed, Timmons said he grew up in the Hartford area, and was essentially raised by his grandmother, who instilled in him a num- ber of values, including the importance of education.
“She made me understand that, when you want to achieve a goal, it really doesn’t matter what others say or if other people will support you,” he recalled. “Only one person gets to decide whether you will achieve that goal — and that’s you.
“I made a commitment to myself at a very early age that no one was going to outwork me when it came to me achieving my goals,” he went on. “Those values shaped who I am today.”
Timmons has spent more than 25 years working in higher edu- cation in several different realms, from academic support services to online education; from working with adult learners to roles in both academic affairs and student affairs.
“I have a really broad breadth and depth in higher education that allows me to have a comprehensive view of a college,” he noted, adding that he believes his diverse résumé will serve him well as
he takes the proverbial corner office at HCC, becoming just its fifth president in 75 years.
Timmons, who earned a bachelor’s degree in financial manage- ment at Norfolk State University in Virginia, a master’s degree in higher education at Old Dominion University in Virginia, and his Ph.D. in higher education administration at Bowling Green Univer- sity in Ohio, started his career in academia in 1996 at Old Domin- ion as a site director at a satellite campus as part of a groundbreak- ing program called TELETECHNET. It provided the opportunity for students to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees at remote locations through the use of satellites and televisions with two-way video connections, a precursor of sorts of the remote-learning pro- grams that would dominate higher education during the pandemic.
Later, he served as assistant dean of Adult Learning at North Carolina Wesleyan College before being recruited to be the found-
“She made me understand that, when you want
to achieve a goal, it really doesn’t matter what others say or if other people will support you. Only one person gets to decide whether you will achieve that goal — and that’s you.”
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