DiCroce still has big plans for Tidewater Community College Issue Date: Week of September 29 2008 Photos by Steve Morrisette Deborah DiCroce (left), president of Tidewater Community College, talks with TCC counselor Janice Rahsada‐Womick and students Cra’Shetta Thomas and Patrice Regester on the Norfolk campus. MARY WORRELL Deborah DiCroce, president of Tidewater Community College, proved Thomas Wolfe wrong when she came home again to Hampton Roads as president of the college just over 10 years ago. The return to TCC and her hometown has given the 56‐year‐old something she wouldn’t have otherwise, as she starts her 11th year as the president of the second‐largest community college in Virginia. "Leaving, you develop a perspective I don’t think you’d get if you stay," she said. DiCroce, born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital and raised in Norfolk, graduated from Norfolk Catholic High School before moving on to Old Dominion University for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English. She thought law school was the next step until she taught her first English class at Norfolk Skills Center, then part of TCC. "I got hooked on teaching," she said. "I found my niche, my place in the world. In many ways I grew up professionally at TCC." Later she went on to receive a doctorate from the College of William and Mary. DiCroce worked for TCC in many positions, from instructor to dean’s level positions to provost of the Portsmouth campus before moving on to her 10‐year stint as president of Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. 1 "When I came back, I had an immense amount of faculty support," she said. "It’s been so fast. It doesn’t feel like 10 years. I feel we’ve just begun." Mark Greer, a physics professor at TCC, met DiCroce during her time as provost of the Portsmouth campus. "She came across as very inclusive – the kind of thing you want to see in an administrator. She was interested in opinions and getting faculty involved in the decisions," Greer said. "I noticed she would listen to everybody, but deferred taking any action until she’d had a chance to hear from everyone. She’s definitely not a shoot‐from‐the‐hip person." Greer also worked as chair of TCC’s faculty senate and helped field new presidential candidates 10 years ago, including DiCroce. "Faculty tend to be cynics, but when she left the room after the interview, everybody was looking around stunned. I said it first – ‘Wow,’" he said. "She ran the interview. She was good at it. She answered questions we didn’t know we had." Greer also experienced DiCroce’s people skills personally after she’d left for Piedmont Virginia Community College. His first wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and he arrived at work one day with a call from DiCroce, letting him know she’d heard. "It really touched me. She had no reason to do that – nothing to gain," Greer said. "It’s a wonderful comment on how she was as a person. She didn’t view the hierarchy as us and them." When DiCroce started her tenure as president of TCC, she set about developing the college’s vision and strategic plan. "Everything we’ve done has been in the concept of shared vision and partnership," she said. "We’re willing to venture outside the box with you." Nowhere is this more evident than in many of TCC’s buildings, including the Roper Center on Granby Street in Norfolk, which involved partnerships with the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the city of Norfolk, and the college’s educational foundation. "This is run as a profit center. We both do good and do well and I’m also not apologetic for that," she said. "We look to ways to continue to do the right thing for the people we serve, but to fashion it as a business so that we draw from the very best of private enterprise and accrue that to the benefit of the people we serve." DiCroce said she doesn’t want to worry about people reflecting on her tenure 20 years down the road and wondering why she didn’t aim higher for certain things. "Make no small plans. Aim high and hope and work," she said. "I’m a big believer in big plans and big vision. I think that’s a danger for community colleges sometimes, that we don’t think big enough or grand enough." 2 One of TCC’s biggest plans in the works right now includes its four student centers, one for each campus, reminiscent of a traditional four‐year college’s amenities. "More students are looking to us as an on‐ramp for baccalaureate study and there have been huge expectations to deliver on the full collegiate experience," she said. DiCroce is unapologetic about the need to engage business and private enterprise in furthering the success of TCC. In fact, she said it’s become a requirement for college presidents to be able to hold their own in the business world. "If you look at college presidencies over the past 25 years, what you will see is an evolving expectation that the presidency is defined externally," she said. "There’s a huge expectation that to do the right thing for the college, you must reach out, engage, roll up your sleeves and wade around in the muck of challenge and opportunity as it defines the region and the commonwealth." But there is still the expectation of scholarship, DiCroce said. "Successful presidents are those who can walk very comfortably in both worlds," she said. "We play a role in baccalaureate‐bound education and workforce development and readiness. To do that, and I don’t apologize for this, I have to in part view what we are as a very distinctive business." Albeit a specialty business, with its essence rooted in the classroom, she said. "The day I lose sight of that is the day I need to find another job," DiCroce said. There have been other offers, but DiCroce said it would take a lot to pull her away from TCC where she enjoys the challenges of the community college system. "Education for the masses is distinctly American," she said. "You have to believe in that. You have to believe you’re doing something more here that’s of greater value than simply drawing a paycheck." DiCroce helped make a connection with the University of Virginia and launch a bachelor’s of interdisciplinary studies at TCC through U.Va. Students are completing U.Va. degrees at TCC without ever leaving Hampton Roads. The partnership is something she brought back to TCC after working at Piedmont Virginia Community College and closely with U.Va. President John Casteen. "She was a generous colleague who shared information, advice and resources without hesitation," Casteen said. "She was completely transparent. What you see is what you get and that’s good." Casteen said DiCroce brings respect to the community college system, pointing out she is the only community college system president ever elected to head Virginia’s Council of Presidents of Public Colleges and Universities. "All predecessors have been four‐year college presidents," he said. "And when she finished the year for which she agreed to serve, we quietly elected her to serve again." 3 Greer, of TCC, said if he was forced to point out a flaw in DiCroce it would be that she takes on too much. "She never sees a good idea she’s comfortable letting go," Greer said. "She tries to find a way to put it into practice, both she and her staff." DiCroce worked as chair of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and recently received the organization’s Athena Award for volunteerism. "There’s no question that Debbie has had great success in leading TCC any way you choose to look at it," said Jack Hornbeck, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. "She was the first person from a public organization to serve as chair of the chamber. That says a lot about her interest in the college as a key part of economic development in Hampton Roads." Deborah Stearns, managing director of GVA Advantis in Norfolk, worked with DiCroce in various regional organizations. "I was very impressed from the first time I met her," Stearns said. "She is thoughtful and brilliant and has an ability to vision what can be and bring people together. That is a true talent." Stearns said DiCroce has an understanding of the business community and its needs. "Early on she understood the significance of workforce training to help businesses here grow and help create the environment to help attract new businesses to the region," Stearns said. "I think the community is very fortunate that she chose to come here and help make Hampton Roads a good place to work." DiCroce is focused on regionalism and TCC’s place, with its four campuses, in Hampton Roads. "Our mission is so tied to this region that, heaven forbid if Hampton Roads were to fall off into the Atlantic, there’d be no reason for us to exist," she said. Last fall, close to 50 percent of Hampton Roads residents enrolled in a Virginia college or university were at TCC, DiCroce said. "TCC epitomizes the very best of regionalism," she said. "We’re leveraging each of our four campuses as a whole." Dana Dickens, president and CEO of Hampton Roads Partnership, has known DiCroce since the mid‐
1990s and worked closely with her when he was mayor of Suffolk. "She is very clear about the direction she wants to go and is a strong advocate for TCC," Dickens said. "One of the marks of a good leader is having a clear vision of where it is they want to take their organization. She has that down pat." 4