A publication for the alumni, students, faculty and friends of Community College of PhiladelphiaSpring 2008

Alumna and Former Dean Now College President in Maryland

IN THE SPRING OF 1970, THE BEATLES broke up, the crippled Apollo 13 moon mission was forced to return to earth, the United States invaded Cambodia and the shooting of students at Kent State and Jackson State Universities made front-page news

That same spring Kate Hetherington was a senior at West Catholic Girls’ High School trying to decide about her future in uncertain, turbulent times. She wanted to go to college, but as the eldest of six children, she had to consider how to pay for her education. Kate asked the nun, who served as West Catholic’s guidance counselor, about Community College of Philadelphia, then located at 34 S. 11th Street in Center City.

"I found this remarkable place"

- Alumna Kate hetherington

“She really tried to dissuade me from going to Community,” Hetherington recalled. “Sister told me it was a place for hippies and communists!” Undeterred, she enrolled. “I found this remarkable place where the students were a mix of men and women, old and young, veterans and housewives. It had a new faculty who were full of vitality, and they gave me a new way to look at the world and at life that I found very exciting. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Today, Hetherington is the new president of Howard Community College in Howard County, Maryland, near Baltimore. She says Community College of Philadelphia provided a foundation that has inspired and energized her throughout her 30-year career in higher education. In an interview shortly after assuming the position of president on June 1, she talked about how her experiences in Philadelphia helped prepare her for the challenges of the job.

Hetherington, 54, is the former executive vice president at Howard, where she led a successful $14 million capital campaign; was integral in the creation of a child care facility; and managed the College’s administrative offices with some 136 employees, serving more than 7,000 credit students and some 14,000 noncredit students. The Board of Trustees tapped Hetherington as the successor to former President Mary Ellen Duncan, who retired at the age of 65. Hetherington is thoroughly imbued with the community college philosophy, having been a student, an acting director of Financial Aid, acting vice president for Student Affairs and dean of Student Systems at Community College of Philadelphia. In addition, she was an adjunct faculty member at Delaware County Community College.

Beyond the intellectual stimulation she found at Community College of Philadelphia, she also met her future husband when they were students in 1971. They were in the same introductory Spanish course and shared a Spanish textbook. “I went on to Penn State’s Capitol Campus, and he went to the University of Pennsylvania, but you could say that our love bloomed at Community College of Philadelphia,” she said. They have been married for 30 years.

Majoring in the social sciences, she had not thought about a career in administration. “Because women’s career options were so limited at that time, you basically had a choice between homemaker, nurse or teacher. Role models were very important, and I was fortunate to have met a female administrator at the College who showed me

Howard Community College’s new president, Kate Hetherington (third from right), with college staff.
how one could make a professional life in college administration,” she said. It was that example that set Hetherington on the path, via Villanova University for a M.S. degree in Counseling and Widener University for her Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership, to academic leadership.

She decided to return to Community College of Philadelphia in 1977 as assistant director of Financial Aid and served, successively, as associate director and acting director before assuming the post of dean of Student Systems, a position she held for a decade. In that post she led the Admissions, Records and Financial Aid areas, with 70 fulltime employees and a $2.3 million operating budget. She also served as acting vice president of Student Affairs during her tenure at the College. Bill Hunsberger, the former vice president for Information Systems and Telecommunications, and Preston Pulliams, former vice president for Student Affairs, now district president of Portland Community College, were among her mentors.

During the decade she was in charge of Student Systems, Community College of Philadelphia had three presidents; grew from approximately 22,000 to nearly 28,000 credit students; added regional centers in the West, Northwest and Northeast sections of Philadelphia; and became a regional leader in two-year education.

But after 22 years at the College, Hetherington was ready for a change. “I realized I wasn’t learning and growing,” she said. “I needed new experiences and a new challenge.” She saw an ad in The Chronicle of Higher Education for the position of vice president of Student Services at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland. “I was interviewed, I liked what I saw and I got the job” in 1999, she said.

At Howard, she has been a member of the president’s staff and managed the College’s enrollment management team.

As president, Hetherington’s primary goal is to make Howard affordable and accessible to all county residents. To accomplish this, she plans to raise more funds for endowment, make the College a center of culture for students and the community, build a new health sciences building and support expanded course offerings.