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JANUARY 2005

Regina Peruggi

College President’s Series
President Regina S. Peruggi, Kingsborough Community College

By Joan Baum, Ph.d.

For Regina S. Peruggi, Kings-borough Community College’s new president, and the first woman to hold the position in the college’s 40-year history, the opportunity to come back to CUNY—where she forged her administrative expertise after an earlier career in social work and serving on numerous nonprofit agencies and community institution—is truly “a homecoming.” Prior to coming to Kingsborough (KCC), Dr. Peruggi was the president of the Central Park Conservancy and before that, for 11 years, the president of Marymount Manhattan College. Knowing that it may sound hokey to some, the new president speaks with unscripted enthusiasm about the mission of CUNY and the opportunity to serve at one of the system’s most successful (she also says “unique”) two-year colleges. She doesn’t wait for a question about definition—she’s got data at her fingertips but also an investment of heart. She beams, talking about what she has inherited and what she hopes to enhance. KCC is not only “the most beautiful” of all the CUNY campuses, a 70-acre waterfront complex of, for the most part, interconnected low-scale buildings, right off Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, but with over 20,000 credit and 15,000 continuing education students (with national outstanding GED and ESL programs), many older adults, many working women, one of the most desirable, to judge from an unprecedented number of applications for admissions. Enrollment is at an all-time high.

Word has obviously gotten out: KCC, which used to be called “the best kept secret in New York City higher education,” now has an enviable reputation for preparing students for professions that lead to real jobs, especially in technology-related fields in business, nautical training programs, travel and tourism, and health-related areas (nursing, science, physical education). Often students choose KCC even when they can get into one of CUNY’s senior colleges, and the school attracts students who come from other boroughs and nearby states, though the overwhelming majority of those enrolled come from Brooklyn. At the college’s Fall 2004 Convocation President Peruggi, who has a strong record forging and maintaining ties between town and gown, announced to a packed and cheering house at the Leon M. Goldstein Performing Arts Center that she will continue to strengthen links between the college and the borough and especially extend a hand to its “first generation and new immigrants.” And what could be better than the just- established free Winter Concerts—a series dedicated to Sounds of the Big Bands and open to the entire Brooklyn community? (A classical concert is scheduled for March.)

In spite of its large numbers, the college looks, feels, and acts like a suburban campus, an impression confirmed for the president in many informal conversations she has held with students, faculty and staff since her arrival last August. Indeed, on the day Education Update came calling Kingsborough was closing down its annual Clothesline Exhibition against domestic violence but the place was packed with the curious and dedicated. Though an urban, working-class institution, KCC boasts over 80 student clubs and activities, and the president suggests that KCC may have the most long-time and faithful faculty and staff in the CUNY system. Turnover is extremely low, the feeling of belonging high, and the national news promising. President Bush has said on numerous occasions that he considers community colleges vital in the nation’s drive to improve education in the country.

Of course it is too early for  President Peruggi to articulate particular plans but she has already made her presence felt in unusual ways—holding lunches and dinners for faculty and student leaders and taking visitors on tours—in a golf cart. On one recent trip, she just happened to meet two students, one an 18 year old, the other a senior, both from different countries and cultures, but both serving on the school newspaper. “That’s Kingsborough, that’s CUNY.”#

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