Former DCCC president Jerry Parker dies at age 71
Friends and loved ones shared memories Tuesday of longtime Delaware County Community College President Dr. Jerry Parker, who died Monday night following a battle with cancer.
“He touched a lot of lives,” said wife Susan Parker from the couple’s home on Greenhill Road in Upper Darby, where countless friends, colleagues and acquaintances had been dropping by in her husband’s final days. “People have kept in touch because it was a real genuine relationship.”
Parker, 71, is almost synonymous with DCCC. He joined the faculty there in 1977 as assistant to the vice president for administration after teaching at Milwaukee Area Technical College and working at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Within a few years, Parker became dean of management systems, planning and enrollment management, and vice president for community and corporate education before his appointment as president in 2003.
Parker is well known for his drive to bring DCCC in line with any other institution of higher learning, building partnerships with local businesses to help usher in an era of modern facilities and updated technical training at the college.
“He was a quiet man with a quiet smile and he was very effective,” said former Republican state representative and county council Chairman Mario Civera, of Upper Darby. “He was the architect of the community college system. He knew it, he understood it and he was effective.”
Civera said he had many breakfasts with Parker, who led the charge in Harrisburg to restore funding to community colleges following drastic cuts many years ago and was the key driver to build a new, state-ofthe-art STEM Center in 2010, teaching science, technology, engineering and math.
Susan Parker attributed that success to her husband’s links to the community, evidenced by his political relationships and the numerous boards he sat on, as well as his open-minded, generous and humble personality.
Susan Parker noted two of her husband’s hospice nurses were able to get their registrations thanks in part to partnerships DCCC made with other surrounding colleges and universities that allowed for the easy transfer of credits and reduced tuitions.
“He was a community person,” she said. “You could come in and share your ideas and you weren’t blown off.”
Though 71 years old, Susan Parker said her husband didn’t look it and even continued to play tennis with some old college pals on Sundays.
Parker also served not only as an inspiration to their own two children, she said, but to their children’s friends and countless others at the college as well, many of which had recently stopped by to say hello or given a phone call. She recounted one woman from Burundi that her husband had helped to secure a teaching position and another student who had his picture as a screensaver on his computer.
Parker’s non-judgmental attitude and willingness to help those in need benefitted at least one of their children’s friends, she said, when the couple took him in during a rough patch and helped him begin a career in commercial air conditioning.
“He met you where you were,” said Susan Parker. “He was their mentor. His humility, I think, said a lot.”
“Everybody liked the guy,” said Civera. “He was well respected in Harrisburg and that’s a big loss, it really is. People will go on, they’ll run the institution, but he really had his footprint there.”