Laying groundwork
School president says coalition of 5 community colleges unique in his view
HVCC chief fosters critical links to muster coalition of community colleges.
Hudson Valley Community College President Roger Ramsammy has dedicated much of his career to advancing science and technology education, and he knows the value that a highly trained technical workforce can have on a local economy.
Ramsammy, who has a PH.D. in molecular biology and a master’s degree in genetics from Howard University, is also a seasoned academic leader, having been president of the West Campus of Miami Dade College, and provost and chief academic officer at Northern Virginia Community College before that.
And while he was a professor of microbiology and anatomy and physiology at Palm Beach State College, he served as associate dean of STEM (i.e. science, technology, engineering and math) education and dean of academic affairs.
So it is no surprise that when Ramsammy became president of HVCC in July, he got right to work making connections with local employers, especially those who value a highly trained workforce that the college wants to help educate.
HVCC is part of the new C5 consortium of local community colleges that is focused on creating new workforce development projects, and Ramsammy and other consortium leaders were on hand Tuesday when the group held a news conference at the HVCC campus in Troy.
After that event, Ramsammy talked about his listening tour of local employers. Of course, the local workforce shortage — created by a low
low unemployment rate, a hot economy that has produced thousands of new local jobs, and a technical skills gap — was one of their top concerns.
“I had 79 visits at different (employer) sites within two and a half months, and there isn’t one particular place that I’ve been that didn’t talk about the shortage that’s there,” Ramsammy said.
Ramsammy, who was part of former President Barack Obama’s STEM Education College Opportunity Initiative and also won the Virginia Governor’s Award for the most innovative STEM program in that state when he was at Northern Virginia Community College, believes that C5 is just the solution to the problem.
“I’m hoping with all five of us, the plan that we’re putting in place is going to be one that will really secure this region for the next 10 to 15 years, with us building on that to make sure in the
future we don’t have this kind of issue.”
Ramsammy says that HVCC is well-poised to help the coalition, especially with the construction of its new 37,000-square-foot, $14.5M Haas Center for Advanced Manufacturing Skills that will be at the forefront of manufacturing training locally once completed.
“We have so much that is going on with our engineering department,” Ramsammy added. “We have so much need for engineering students and so a lot of investments are being placed in this area.”
Ramsammy says that in all of his experience in teaching and being an administrator, he has never seen a group of community colleges band together to work on solving an economic issue such as workforce development. However, the issue appears to be more severe here, he said, compared to in Florida and Virginia.
Ramsammy has worked in Miami-dade County (population 2.7 million), Broward
County (population 1.9 million) and Palm Beach County (population 1.3 million), all in Florida, and Fairfax County in Virginia (population 1.1 million). As a comparison, Rensselaer County where HVCC is located has a population of 160,00, although it has a second campus in Saratoga County which has a population of 230,000.
“I’ve worked in three of the biggest counties in Florida, and of course in Virginia, and now here in New York,” Ramsammy said. “And no, there’s never been a team like this anywhere that’s come together to address an issue like this. But there is a greater need here.”
Ramsammy says HVCC is also working to create a research program partnering with places like the University at Albany and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that would bring research from those schools to be worked on at the HVCC Troy campus.
He said that high school students and grade-school students could be exposed to that research as well.