When Kenneth Adams became president of LaGuardia Community College in March of 2020, he seemed the perfect fit to lead during this time of massive change. He quickly addressed students’ remote learning needs during the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic and is now building a much stronger future for LaGuardia and its diverse population of students.

“As community colleges, we have the tremendous potential to be engines of economic recovery after the pandemic,” said Adams. “Now is the moment. We have a changing labor market and employers need skilled labor in all fields. So we have a sense of urgency to get this right, to provide educational training for students, to provide economic recovery.”

Located in Queens, New York, and one of 25 CUNY (City University of New York) schools, LaGuardia is in the perfect position to do exactly that. The community college serves 30,000 students, 56 percent of whom were born outside the United States, 54 percent of whom are first generation students, and 48 percent of whom  are Hispanic, according to 2019 statistics. In addition, 88 percent are ethnic minorities, 31 percent are over 25, and 66 percent receive some form of financial aid.

When Adams took the helm of LaGuardia, he came in with a passion for community colleges and schools like LaGuardia that are extremely diverse and non-traditional. He understood that if he could address the needs of this population and help them obtain the skills to do sustainable work they love, they could be the engines of a more equitable economy recovery.

Adams was the ideal candidate for this, given his experience as dean of workforce and economic development of Bronx Community College, and his 20 years leading economic and workforce development organizations in New York State.

In 2021, he launched an impressive fundraising campaign where he raised $15 million to help LaGuardia students receive the training they needed to create a stronger economy. With these funds, Adams decided it was time to give financial support to students in need who wished to take non-credit workforce development training courses and to help students who, under state aid programs, would normally not get assistance.

“Before, we were saving all our scholarships for students with top GPAs,” he said. “But now we can give scholarships to students needing to learn ESL (there are 800 students currently in the program). We gave scholarships for incoming freshmen (which was never done before) and mini grants to high school students with an 80 average or better who may be interested in college. We also wanted to give scholarships for workforce development training for key industries such as building trades, technology, and health care.”

Beyond this, Adams is determined to do more. With his eye on the 700,000 people in the New York City area who started college and didn’t finish, he just launched a Credits for Success program. The program is funded by a $1 million grant from Robin Hood. “We have a program now to bring them back to school, to rebuild their transcript, and to see if we can give them credit for work they’ve done,” said the president.

For far too long, working class families haven’t received the support they need to afford an education, explained Adams. “We want to make sure we can help with expenses for working class families, even if that includes helping pay for subway cards or laptops,” he said. “We want to have a pool of funds to accelerate our students’ return to the classroom.”

Given the fact that almost half of LaGuardia’s students attend part-time, Adams is intent on serving this population as well. “A 25-year-old Ecuadorian woman living in Queens is our typical student,” he explained. “She may be first-generation with elderly parents at home and a child. We are working on making it easier for a student like her to receive financial aid as well.”

In the past years, Adams and others lobbied New York Governor Kathy Hochul, requesting the state consider aiding part-time students who normally don’t receive state financial assistance. And thanks to their push, the governor announced new financial support for part-time students in April this year. Now students who take two or more courses can receive assistance.

With this new state assistance and Adams’s efforts to make LaGuardia more affordable, more first-generation and diverse groups of students can return to college or attend for the first time. And bit by bit, more students are coming back to in-person learning, which for many colleges has been a challenge since the lockdown.

“We lost a third of our students since the pandemic. Now the way to get them to come back and succeed is to get them back on campus,” said the president. “LaGuardia remote is LaGuardia reduced. Many of our students are the first in their families to go to college. For many, English is not their first language and 48 percent are Hispanic. Older students haven’t been in a classroom for a long time. So they need support, mentorships, advising, and help in person.”

In drawing students back to campus and helping them feel at home at LaGuardia, Adams has also focused on the school’s large population of Hispanics. “When I got here in 2020, I knew I was coming to the second largest HSI in New York State,” he said.  “And while I found great qualities to this school, I couldn’t find anything they were doing here to celebrate the fact that they were a big HSI.”

At that time, Adams approached the chancellor, suggesting they create a center for Hispanics. He was told that normally that only happens at four-year colleges. But with the help of a commission of 30 faculty and staff who drafted a proposal, the Board of Trustees approved a new center for Hispanics on June 27 of this year.

El Centro de Las Americas was thus born, or at least on paper, with space already set aside to celebrate the Hispanic cultures present among 145 countries represented at LaGuardia. “We will now have a space for cultural activities, academic research, guest lecturers, performances, and the celebration of Hispanics,” said Adams. “My hope is that this will make LaGuardia feel like a second home for students from these countries.”

While Adams describes himself as completely “Yankee Gringo”, he carries a passion for the Spanish culture. His wife’s family is Mexican, and he taught and ran a study abroad program in Madrid, Spain for four years during his younger years. His accent is impressive too, and he even received a master’s degree in Spanish literature when in Spain.

Due to his own background and the large percentage of Hispanics at LaGuardia Community College, Adam’s desire to celebrate Hispanic heritage is understandable. The school also has the largest English as a Second Language Program in New York City. In addition, CUNY schools offer the CREAR (College Readiness, Achievement and Retention) Futuros Program, a Hispanic Federation program designed to address the systemic barriers that prevent many Latinos from earning a college degree. Through this, students receive peer mentorship, leadership development, internship opportunities, and connections to social services.

Hispanics at LaGuardia also benefit from the fact that a Stanford University Study ranked it #5 among U.S. two-year colleges in economic mobility. The school trains many of its students for jobs in high growth areas, including technology, health care, advanced industries and manufacturing.    

Given LaGuardia’s earlier successes and Adam’s recent push to help more students receive the training needed for success in tomorrow’s economy, it seems things can only get better.

“Success for our students isn’t about graduating from here or from a four-year college. It is about achieving a rewarding job that sustains a family,” concluded Adams. “It’s about helping people from diverse backgrounds and needs climb the economic ladder to become the glue of prosperous communities.” •