Local News Features DeCinque Discussing Interim Presidency

When Gregory DeCinque retired as president of Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York, after 19 years in the job, he and his wife talked about his taking on interim president roles.

They could try living in places that they'd always wanted to explore, she suggested. Like Virginia.

Now they live in Norfolk, where they rented an apartment while DeCinque was president of Tidewater Community College.

"It was just sort of fate that I wound up at Tidewater," DeCinque said.

DeCinque, 72, is a couple of weeks into his fifth community college presidency at Thomas Nelson Community College, coming off a year-and-a-half stint at TCC.

He took the helm a few months after the college announced it would lay off 45 employees after it finished last fiscal year with a roughly $1.8 million shortfall. DeCinque, who has led and advised several community colleges during financial crises, said that the financial health of the college is among his top priorities.

"My goal, as an interim president, is to get the college in the best position it can be for a new permanent president. That's my job," DeCinque said. "That means that I'm actually going to have to do some things, not just be a caretaker."

In the next few months, while the state community college system starts the search for a new president, DeCinque plans to have informal "conversations" with employees and students in a bid to build trust.

Senior leadership scored the lowest of all categories in a workplace survey last year.

"Whenever you go through a reduction in force and you're letting people go, it's not going to be a happy place," DeCinque said. "That can come down pretty heavy on the leadership."

He also wants the college to move ahead on a new strategic plan - its current one runs until 2020. He had paused the process at TCC while interim president there, but the search for a permanent president lasted longer than he expected, leaving the college behind in the process.

Read more in the DAILY PRESS.