Departing president: Community college in strong position to embrace challenges

LACONIA — Whether it’s a high school student unsure of which college to apply to or an adult considering going back to school, more and more people today see attending a community college as a viable option for enhancing their level of education and job skills.

Larissa Baia has lived through this trend since joining the administration at Lakes Region Community College 10 years ago.

Now after five years as president of the college she is stepping down to become president of a community college in Florida.

As she sat in her office along with Patrick Cate who will serve as LRCC’s interim president for the next year, she reflected on how the college has changed and grown during her tenure.

There has been a cultural change at the college, which Baia said has impacted its approach to students and its interactions with the wider community.

“We worked to come up with a strategic place in 2018 and '19 and in which we set as our main goals being greater transparency, accountability, and doing a better job of being open and honest.”

“We are more deliberate in setting goals for the school, and we are paying more attention to what it means for our students to be successful,” she said.

“LRCC is in a strong position,” said Cate, who has been serving as the college’s vice president of academic and student affairs. “Enrollment is up. We have high staff morale, and we are in a sound financial position.”

Baia said the college’s enrollment is up 15%. So far 419 students are enrolled for the fall semester. But Baia noted that with the enrollment period still open, that number is expected to increase between now and the start of classes on Aug. 29.

But while growing enrollment is important, for Baia that is just the beginning of LRCC’s mission.

“We don’t want students just to enroll, we want them to complete,” she said.

For a student at LRCC, completing a program or major might take anywhere from one to seven years. At LRCC about 60% of students attend classes part time, which is typical of community colleges.

Nearly 30% of U.S. undergraduates are enrolled at public, two-year colleges. The main draws for community colleges are lower cost, a path to a four-year college, proximity to home, flexible schedules, and workforce training.

Baia and Cate say one of the keys to LRCC’s success is its nimbleness, which allows it to more easily add courses and training programs in fields where there is the greatest or growing need.

For example the college has just added a paramedic program — a need which the college learned in talking with many area fire chiefs and EMS professionals. During Baia’s tenure it has added a licensed practical nurse program, a medical assistant program, an automotive technology program with its own building on campus. In addition, the culinary arts and hospitality program are now on campus after operating for several years at off-campus locations.

That adaptability also means the college has at times discontinued programs when there was not the demand for that training out in the local workplace. The media arts program, and commercial driver’s license classes were discontinued because of declining enrollment in those areas.

Because students at community colleges tend to be older than those at four-year institutions — at LRCC the average age is 27 — the benefits of their education have a more direct impact on the area’s economy and quality of life because the students are less apt to leave the area after graduation.

“About 95% of the students we train stay and work in the state,” Baia said.

The challenges posed by the COVID pandemic not only put the college’s ability to adapt to the test, but provided administrators and faculty with new insights.

“We learned things we thought we could only do in person, but that we now see don’t need to be done in person,” Baia said, offering academic and financial counseling as an example. “We learned how to deliver services in a different way.”

Baia started in the state’s community college system in 2008 when she came to Manchester Community College as associate vice president of enrollment management. She came to LRCC in 2012 to take the position of vice president of student service and enrollment. She was named interim president of the college in 2017 and became the permanent president a year later. Prior to coming to New Hampshire Baia worked as director of graduate and evening admissions at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Baia now moves from LRCC with its enrollment of 413 students to take on the duties of president of the Ybor City Campus of Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, which has 3,445 full-time students and 13,662 part-time students, according to a Hillsborough Community College spokesperson.

Heading an institution with an enrollment more than 40 times larger than LRCC does not worry Baia.

“I will approach it from a learning standpoint,” she said. “I will be learning how things work. I will lean on the team” at Ybor.

Baia, who is Hispanic and grew up on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, said the high representation of Hispanics in Ybor’s faculty and student body is one characteristic of that institution that she sees as a particularly exciting challenge.

“It’s an environment I can bring something to,” she said.

Cate will take over as interim president on Aug. 1, the day after Baia’s official last day on the job.

“I am a strong believer in the community college mission,” Cate said. “I have seen first-hand the talent and determination of our students and the pride we all take in their success. I was happy to heed the call to serve in this interim capacity and I am especially looking forward to the energy that surrounds the start of a new academic year.”

Baia and her husband, who has been the deputy city manager for development in Concord, are in the midst of preparing to move back to the Sunshine State in order for her to start her new job on Aug. 15.

“I am grateful for what New Hampshire has done for me, my husband, and our kids,” she said.