Council, plan board discuss ways to encourage more development

April 3, 2003

Council, plan board discuss ways to encourage more development
Sinclair Community College announced last week that Barbara Gellman-Danley, president of Antioch University McGregor, was one of four final candidates for the position of the community college’s president.
In an interview Monday, Gellman-Danley said that she had no complaints about Antioch McGregor but did not want to miss an opportunity to lead Sinclair, which she considers one of the top 10 community colleges in the country.
“I love my job, and I have absolutely no dissatisfaction with Antioch,” she said. “I was encouraged to apply at Sinclair, I was nominated for the position and I felt I needed to explore it because it sounded like such a perfect fit for my background.”
Gellman-Danley came to Antioch in 1999 as the first president of McGregor with ideas of improving and growing the adult college. In the four years she has been there, Gellman-Danley said, she and the McGregor faculty and staff have added new degrees in teacher training and community college management and improved existing programs. She said that she has spent considerable time promoting McGregor throughout the Miami Valley, and last year McGregor’s enrollment increased 11 percent.
Antioch University Chancellor Jim Craiglow gave Gellman-Danley a glowing performance review, and said it would be a great loss to the institution if she left. He added that given “this particular opportunity” he was “not completely surprised” by her decision to seek the position.
“Clearly she has been able to make connections to make McGregor’s profile more visible and put it on the marquee,” Craiglow said. “The campus has grown under her leadership, and her technological expertise has been invaluable to the university.”
In 2002 Gellman-Danley became Antioch University’s chief technology officer. Before coming to Antioch she served as vice president of educational technology at Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y.
She has spent 15 years of her 24-year career in community college education, and her nomination at Sinclair came from Dr. Terry O’Banion, former head of the League for Innovators for Community Colleges, of which Monroe is a member.
“It was like being invited back to the family,” Gellman-Danley said of her nomination.
She will interview at Sinclair on April 24. The other finalists include two outside candidates and Sinclair’s provost and chief operating officer, Steven Johnson.
Gellman-Danley, who has a son in school in Yellow Springs, said that she intends to remain at Antioch if Sinclair does not offer her a position.
“I will continue the journey we’ve started at McGregor and I will be excited to do so,” she said.

—Lauren Heaton