Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
When Alycia Marshall interviewed to become the permanent president of Community College of Philadelphia earlier this month, she stated plainly: “I am here for the students.” In them, she is reminded of her own son, her only child, who died in 2016 in a car accident. Aaron Gene Marshall, known as AG for short, had been on his way to attend classes at the same Maryland community college where she worked at the time. “When I see the students, you know, I see my son,” she said in an interview the day she was named CCP’s president. “There’s still kids and students that need my love, my support, and so I believe that I’m here for a reason.” » READ MORE: Community College of Philadelphia interim president is selected for permanent role Marshall, 51, is a little over a week into the permanent role, but had been leading the school as interim president since April when former President Donald Guy Generals was forced out. In an hour-long interview this week at her CCP office, she detailed her priorities including increasing funding, boosting employee morale, and expanding workforce development opportunities. A mathematician, Marshall also said she’s been deeply influenced by former University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski III, who decades ago launched the nationally recognized Meyerhoff Scholars program to bring more students from underrepresented backgrounds into STEM fields. The program has had the distinction of cultivating the most Black graduates with both a medical degree and a doctorate, and the second most in STEM doctorates. Her experience as a mother also shaped her. Marshall said she was a single parent the majority of the time. She was 22 when she had her son and people often mistook them for siblings, she said. “He hated that. I loved it,” she said. She went to work the day he died, never thinking it would be the last time she would see her 19-year-old. “It was devastating,” she said. But she said she recommitted to her work and found comfort in it. “I had this long-term career plan that I felt like you’ve got to still do the things that you said you were going to do because he would want that,” she said. As a higher education professional, Marshall had moved up the ranks from faculty member to department head to provost, all along with ideas how to make things better, she said. “All I could do was say ‘I think we should be doing this,’” she said. “Sometimes people would say ‘yeah we should’ and more times they would say ‘yeah that’s a good idea but we’re not doing that.’ I kept thinking I need to get to a place where I actually can make these calls.” The daughter of an electronic engineer and a vice president of human resources, Marshall said both of her parents had master’s degrees and were an inspiration for her educational journey. Her mother’s side of the family is originally from Panama, and Marshall considers herself an African American of Hispanic heritage. » READ MORE: Community College of Philadelphia is poised to select its next president Tuesday Marshall said she first crossed paths with Hrabowski, also a mathematician, when she was an undergraduate at UMBC and he became president there. She wasn’t a Meyerhoff scholar, she said, but lived in the dorms with them and saw the impact of the support Hrabowski’s program had on the group of high-achieving students of color. “I saw how he could change these lives just by bringing these resources,” she said. “I never forgot that.” At Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, where she worked for nearly 23 years, she started a grant program to bring underrepresented students into engineering, she said. And Hrabowski, whom she calls her mentor, invited her and her team to UMBC to learn more about his program. At CCP, Marshall sees finances as the greatest challenge and said she will advocate for more funding and look for additional revenue sources. The college gets most of its funding from the state, the city and tuition. “We are moving into that space where we have to think outside the box and we can’t continuously rely on the funding sources that we have,” she said. She plans to reach out to alumni for donations and ask faculty to become more involved in fundraising, leveraging their expertise and vast connections in their fields, she said. As interim president, Marshall held office hours for faculty and plans to continue that. “They have really great ideas about a new program or a new experience for our students that would require funding,” she said. “So let’s take those ideas and you know vet those ideas and think about working with institutional advancement” to get them funded. She said she also plans to address the low staff morale reported in the most recent employee satisfaction survey, which she believes is due in large part to the sudden change in leadership last April and uncertainty. The survey hasn’t been released publicly yet. “Over the next few months we will be rolling out a communication plan,” she said, and seeking staff input on how to address the issues. As CCP provost, a post she held for nearly three years, she held an annual faculty and staff celebration and hopes to do that on a wider scale as president, she said. She also wants to strengthen the path from community college to four-year institutions and noted she recently met with John Fry, president of Temple University, where the largest number of CCP students transfer. She also noted CCP’s new partnership with Cheyney University, an historically Black state school, that will allow students to complete a bachelor’s degree while staying at CCP. “I definitely see there’s other opportunities where we might want to build on that with other institutions and really make sure that we’re shoring up that pathway to the bachelor’s degree and ... advanced degrees as well,” she said. Enrollment is a bright spot, she said. It’s up 5% over last year, she said, and the highest of the community colleges in Pennsylvania. The college currently enrolls 12,939 credit students and 1,619 non-credit students. Just two weeks into the job, Marshall has already participated in national and statewide higher education meetings. “I guess you could say I hit the ground running,” she said. Marshall said she plans to move to Philadelphia full-time with her husband, a criminal justice professor at Bowie State University and a former agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. They married in 2022, a month before she got the provost job at CCP. Marshall got a Center City apartment within walking distance of CCP and they started their marriage somewhat long distance. “I’m thankful that I have a very supportive husband who has always been there and and kind of cheering me on,” she said. Marshall said her favorite hobby is exercise. “I do a lot of weight training and cardio,” she said. “These jobs require you to be in the best health as you can so you can show up and be there for everybody else.” Here’s a few of Marshall’s other favorite things: Favorite spot in Philly other than CCP? The Mann Center Favorite dessert? Butter cakes Favorite music? R&B Favorite Musical Artist? Michael Jackson Favorite vacation spot? My husband and I have done most of the islands in the Caribbean. We like beach.
