The Halifax Community College Board of Trustees were scheduled today to begin the process of selecting the school’s next president after presenting three finalists over the last three days.

On Wednesday, the third candidate, Pamela Monaco, talked during a public forum on the college’s campus.

Discussing her previous experience at a Historically Black College and University, Monaco, in response to an rrspin.com question, said, “My HBCU experience was and is part of what shaped me in really understanding that there’s so much history in a region and in a town and a community that shapes who we are today. It was important for me then to listen carefully to hear where there were tensions, where there were opportunities, where there was still pain.”

She said it afforded her the opportunity to think carefully and deliberately how to address those issues and how to keep building relationships. 

Monaco was also asked how her experience in a metropolitan college system would help her should she get the HCC job. “In terms of systems, North Carolina is as complicated as any other. We serve many different people. I was delighted to hear today that getting a new program through, even at the system, takes just a year. It takes years in Illinois. It’s learning and knowing how to negotiate and work very carefully not only with a system office but also the politics that go with it.”

In Chicago where she currently works in a unionized system, Monaco said the college board is appointed by the mayor and the chancellor is appointed by the mayor. “We just averted a faculty strike that was very carefully timed because there was a mayoral election in February. How everybody would respond to the strike was going to have a big influence on who was going to be the next mayor. It’s knowing those kinds of politics and understanding the political situation.”

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As far as her biggest professional accomplishment, Monaco discussed one of her former students — Ilana Xinos — who currently serves as the executive director of the National Buffalo Museum in South Dakota.

“I could have said that certainly with Northwestern College delivering a budget that was back in the black was a great accomplishment. I would say at North Central getting a very reluctant faculty to agree that we needed graduate programs and being able to offer an occupational therapy masters degree that the first year it opened turned a profit was a very important accomplishment.”

But it was Xinos who left a huge impact on her when Monaco was teaching composition. “She earned her living by playing pool and she was rough around the edges. She did not want to be in that class and she let me know it from day one.”

It was a preliminary writing assignment where Monaco saw the potential in the reluctant student. “She threw it at me and said, ‘Here, I can’t write.’”

At home Monaco read Xinos’s assignment. “She was wonderful.”

At the next class she asked where she got the idea she couldn’t write. The reply was, “‘That’s what my high school teachers told me.’”

While she described Xinos as a thorn in her side, Monaco said the student ended up earning an A. “Then she followed me to my next class and then when I started doing theater she became my stage manager.”

From there Xinos, with encouragement from Monaco, was accepted into William & Mary. “We figured out how to get her in front of the right people. I wrote an incredible letter. Other people wrote incredible letters. We got her money. She went to William & Mary and was an English major. She was involved in Tidewater Shakespeare.”

Xinos ended up a doctorate student at Louisiana State University. “She got that doctorate and this was a young lady who could have been lost in that first class because she had an attitude. All it would have taken was somebody who didn’t like that.”

Monaco said there were others who encouraged Xinos. “I always go back to that. Ilana Xinos is still somebody that is a friend of mine and I can tell you at a different point I actually hired her. She taught as an adjunct at one of my schools.”

Monaco is vice president of academic and student affairs at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago. 

She previously served as dean of instruction at Wilbur Wright College.

Monaco earned a doctor of philosophy in English and a master of arts in English from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C; and a bachelor of business administration in marketing from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

In response to a question about students wanting to leave the area upon the completion of their HCC credentials, Monaco said, “It’s a long-term, hard process and I’m afraid your students today, we’re not going to be able to convince them because we have to transform this area. People need to see opportunity and have hope in it.”

She said the pandemic did no one any favors. “Businesses closed. Shops closed. That made places more economically depressed. We’ve got to get some new industry in here because when there’s new industry there’s more investment in the community. They recognize you can bring in engineering, you can recruit people but if there’s nothing to do then where are they going to go?”

Monaco said there first needs to be an investment in industry and getting more jobs. “When you can get jobs and you can get a new lifeblood then you can also, working with different organizations, the chamber and economic development, get more grants to put in more things, more parks.”

Monaco said the Griffin Centre on the campus could be a draw. “It is a process, but it starts from that investment of your students’ elders into bringing people and jobs and industry here. It’s hard work and it means also that this institution has to be willing to also change. It means some new programs.”

She mentioned that on Tuesday night she came by the campus. “It was awfully dark and empty. If you’re attracting adult students you also need to have something going on at night. If this is going to be the heart of the community, it shouldn’t be dark at 7 o’clock.”

Even if the area doesn’t have all the attractions of a Virginia Beach, “when young people see that investment then we can talk about it and you can start getting them engaged.”

She said there are also things that the college can do with the curriculum “in terms of how we are developing young people.”

Engaging the students to contribute so they feel they have a stake is also part of the curriculum, she said. “Students who come to class and then go home are not going to be the students who are going to be invested in this community. It’s about how do you connect what they’re doing here to their homelife, their community life and make it so this is just the start of something very big.”

On the question of morale, Monaco said, “It’s the acknowledgment of all you are being asked to do. I’m not going to stand here and say, ‘Poof. Hire me and you’ll just have one job.’ it doesn’t work quite like that.”

She said the college has to develop a more robust resource base so “then we can think about how we strategically get you help so that you’re not doing all of those jobs.”

One factor is working on retention, she said. “In the North Carolina system you get that performance funding. It is thinking about where there are growth opportunities and building those partnerships so we can go after robust rates. By doing that we start working on where we can find new populations, how we’re attracting new students, how we’re working on the academic programs. All of these have to happen simultaneously, very calibrated, carefully executed. You can’t look at taking any load off until we have really looked at this resource base.”

In the meantime, she said, “People are tired and I understand that. I think if you have a president that you see is working tirelessly with you and keeping you informed about this is what we’re doing and this is how we’re doing it and how we are doing on this and recognizes your good work, that sometimes can motivate you to keep on just a little bit longer.”

In her closing comments, Monaco said, “I’m very excited about this opportunity. I think that you (asked) very good questions. You’ve gotten a sense of my personality, my work style, my work ethic. I am somebody who throws myself into what I consider a meaningful cause.”

She describes herself as a practitioner of transformation. “I believe this is an institution and this is a community at large in which remarkable things can happen. It’s going to take the right person who will really energize all of you, that you will feel faith and confidence in this person who will connect to these various communities, who will take risks.”

Monaco said, however, “My risks are always based on good research. I was an excellent student because I loved doing the research and knowing things. My research means working with all of you and hearing your ideas and your insights and your knowledge.”

She said that also means working with industry and business partners to move the school “in some directions that might be a little uncomfortable for all of us for a while. But in the spirit of shared governance you will never, if you have me for president, be surprised because you will know where we’re moving and why we’re doing it and we’ll hopefully get you all energized that you want to move that way too.”

She said she is a person who craves, wants and expects staff to come to her and tell her why she is wrong. “We need to have those conversations.”

Going back to the greatest accomplishment question posed earlier, Monaco said, “I think it’s coming. If I could be president here I think that will become my greatest accomplishment.”