All college presidents want their schools to be innovative and dynamic. Mike McDonough, Ph.D., president of Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, New Jersey, is no different. What sets him apart from most of his peers, however, are his humble beginnings and how those early years inform his role as president and Raritan’s role in the community. 

Dr. McDonough grew up “very poor” in the Northwest of London. No one in his family attended college, so he was offered little advice on how to navigate the higher education system. Although not Hispanic, he sees a youthful Mike McDonough in the faces of those first-generation Hispanic students on Raritan’s campus. “I do know on some level what our students are thinking and living and yearning for,” says Dr. McDonough.

Serving a Diverse Community and Nearing HSI Status

In 2019-20, 1,751 of Raritan’s 7,080 students identified as Latino, putting the school just one percentage point shy of the 25 percent required to qualify as an HSI. Thirty-five percent of Raritan’s students received a Pell Award, and 52 percent received some form of financial aid in the same period. 

Raritan serves both Somerset and Hunterdon Counties, which are 15.2 percent and 7 percent Hispanic, respectively. “Where we are located, it is dramatically changing. It is becoming a much more inclusive part of New Jersey, and in particular, we’re seeing steady and significant rises in the number of Hispanic families moving in, and we need to serve those families,” says Dr. McDonough. To ease communication between the school and the Hispanic population it serves, Dr. McDonough decided to include an “En Español” tab on Raritan’s website. 

Dr. McDonough, who has been in education for 40 years and at Raritan’s helm since 2014, was named one of four top Influencers in Higher Education (County College Presidents) by ROI-NJ. And Raritan was named the top community college in New Jersey by several organizations, including BestColleges.com, WalletHub.com, Schools.com, and Niche.com. When he hears a list of these honors, he chuckles. He’s not being dismissive. Rather, he says, these accolades are recognition that his colleagues at Raritan are innovating and imagining a “different college for a post-pandemic world….Like a lot of stuff, I don’t really think it’s about me. It’s about the institution,” says Dr. McDonough.  

Promoting Inclusion and Diversity On and Off Campus

A school’s diversity is a reflection of the culture at large, and successful societies embrace, celebrate, and recognize the value and beauty of difference, says Dr. McDonough. “Opportunity and talent are everywhere. They are not the exclusive property of one group or the other. The more inclusive your student population is, the better an institution you will become. It’s as simple as that,” he says. 

To that end, four years ago, Raritan forged a partnership with Sanofi Pharmaceuticals and introduced the Sanofi Corporate Mentorship Program. Funded by Sanofi and designed to offer mentoring to primarily underserved students, this year-long program matches a full-time Sanofi employee with a Raritan student. “It satisfies Sanofi’s need to promote inclusion and to diversify their workforce. For us, it provides students a wonderful opportunity to explore a career pathway that perhaps they might not have thought about,” says Dr. McDonough.

Participating students acquire a range of employability skills - like networking - to which they would not ordinarily have access and are often taken for granted by students from more affluent backgrounds. Now in its third year, the Sanofi program is very popular, says McDonough, and comprises almost exclusively underserved students, of whom a significant portion are Hispanic. Although participation in the program yields no credits, the 15 students involved receive stipends and are expected to document their growth as workers by writing reflectively about their experiences. “It’s a very intensive program...Like service learning, we try to tie it to the curriculum and the material they are learning in class. How does it translate into the (workforce)? How do you document these skills on a resume?” says Dr. McDonough. Their experiences are also reflected in narrative form on their college transcript.     

Quick and Affordable Credentials 

Many underserved and low-income students are forced to abandon their education after graduating high school to help financially support their families. Some, if they’re lucky, have the opportunity to head back to community colleges years later. And these schools are eager to welcome them. More than one quarter of Raritan’s students are 25 years of age or older. Adult learners who choose Raritan are in good hands. Raritan is one of the best two-year colleges for helping adult learners get back on track. Of all the two-year colleges in the US, Washington Monthly ranked Raritan Valley eighth for adult learners in 2018. 

 From a school’s perspective, the market for adults who have zero to 25 credits is enormous. If Raritan ignored that segment of the population, says Dr. McDonough, that would be “absurdly incompetent.” The power of the community college is that it can serve this segment of the population by providing affordable evening, weekend, and off-cycle classes. “Many four-year institutions claim they foster life-long learning. But it’s very difficult to pay that kind of tuition to complete your first credential,” says McDonough. 

 Some of Raritan’s adult learners are either unemployed, underemployed, or incumbent workers who need to upgrade their skills. Unlike four-year schools, community colleges offer workforce credentials. “We do that very well and quickly,” says Dr. McDonough. Raritan offers credentials in everything from cosmetology, to health sciences, to welding.

 For those adult learners who plan on completing both their associate and baccalaureate degrees, Raritan has a number of “three plus one agreements” designed to accelerate completion. “These empower students to finish quickly and in an affordable way. (So they have) a credential that has some currency in the labor market” says McDonough.  

Providing Pathways

 Dr. McDounough’s list of accomplishments at Raritan Valley is long: Creating a state-of-the-art Workforce Training Center; expanding workforce programs and partnerships with area businesses and high schools; creating new programs to meet employment needs, including the only New Jersey community college Associate of Applied Science degree in Occupational Therapy Assistant; among others.

To Dr. McDonough, education comes down to providing pathways to economic opportunity for those students who may have been told that post-secondary education is not for them. Or to those who may envision themselves in certain professions. 

Raritan serves all students, but especially those relegated to the margins, though no fault of their own,. “If we are serious about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, then you have to assess with a metric how successful you are in that (role),” says McDonough.

 Dr. McDonough praises each and every Raritan Valley student and graduate for the effort they’ve made in their journeys through higher education. “They may not have gone to Harvard, but in number, in effort, and dedication these students deserve applause and to be recognized for what they are: empowered transformational students,” says Dr. McDonough. “There is an enormous and continuous march of individuals who have been excluded from higher ed for a very long time. Now they’re bursting through the doors of our institutions and changing them in dramatic ways,” says Dr. McDonough. “What a cool profession this is. How cool is it to be in education?” •