Dr. Deborah Preston, who was most recently the Provost at Raritan Valley Community College moved into the Administration building in July. PHOTO | Ben Levitt
Dr. Deborah Preston is now the seventh president of Mercer County Community College. Dr. Preston, who received a Ph.D. in English from Tulane University, comes to Mercer from Raritan Valley Community College where she served as the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost.
Originally from Georgia, Dr. Preston comes from a low-income background. She explains that her parents didn’t have the chance to finish school and her father dropped out of college when she was born.
“My parents worked very hard and helped me as much as they could,” Dr. Preston says. They encouraged her as her career directions shifted over time.
Dr. Preston, whose office is prominently adorned with an ornate original poster for Kenneth Brannagh’s “Hamlet,” was 21 years old when, while teaching a writing class for college students, she found herself so inspired that she shifted her pursuits from acting to education.
This was no small decision, as she had already earned a degree in theater from Florida State, a pursuit to which she was dedicated enough to graduate in only three years.
“I could see students writing and getting better, and getting more confident. I felt like I was making a difference,” she says of her first teaching experiences.
Dr. Preston’s career has been wide-ranging. While working at Georgia Perimeter College she went from adjunct professor to Campus Provost in 14 years.
She first considered getting into higher education when her Ph.D. professor Dr. Joseph Roche said, “You know, Debbie, there’s more than one way to change the world.”
Dr. Preston says the shift to administration made more things possible.
“I gained the ability to have an impact on more students, and the higher up I got, I gained the ability to have an impact on the faculty. [I realized] if I could have an impact on the faculty that would have a good impact on the students,” she says.
One of the first issues Dr. Preston faces at MCCC is the college’s rocky finances.
The largest source of financial stability for the college is student tuition, which means more students are needed to fill seats. However, enrollment has been going down dramatically since the start of COVID and is down another 6% this semester.
Dr. Preston says marketing is one way to improve enrollment.
“We weren’t really doing enough marketing in the right kinds of marketing, so we are now taking the money that we would’ve spend internally in marketing and we hired a firm to help us with a better website with digital marketing, digital ads, it’s really important to get the word out online for today’s generation of college students,” she says.
In addition to improved marketing, Dr. Preston says she plans to pursue outreach to local businesses to increase enrollment. She says, “This is going to take a little more time, but that’s when the real enrollment increases happen, when you have programs that employers promise jobs [in] and the students want to come and take those programs.”
In addition to the financial struggles, Dr. Preston is arriving after the previous administration ended in chaos with the former president, Dr. Jianping Wang, being put on paid administrative leave following the results of an investigation into alleged racial misconduct was given to the board of trustees. The outcome of that investigation, and Dr. Wang’s counterclaims against the college, is not clear, but Dr. Preston faces a problem of low institutional morale.
At the start of the fall term she said, “I’m going to talk to the faculty next week in the opening meeting about everyone just making a pledge to be kinder to each other and more supportive. We’re going to offer some training for employees to be better managers, and things that will make the college a happier place to be.”
To the students Dr. Preston says “I know there’s been some chaos, and I know it probably had some students worried, but Mercer is a great college with great people, and you’re in a good place, and it’s only going to get better.”
Student Government Association President Christian Perez says of Dr. Preston, “I like the reports that I’ve heard that she’s been interacting with students and trying to have more of a presence in the Student Center and on campus in general. I think students really need that, they need to know their president, and they need to know they can reach out to her and interact with her as an equal.”
Destiny Pierre, who is the President of the Women in Business club, says that in the past many students such as herself didn’t know Mercer even had a president or who it was, so the new president’s approach has been meaningful to her.
“I do like that Dr. Preston was able to go to the cafe, and walk around with students and introduce herself and make herself known, which is great, because like I said before I didn’t even know we had a president,” Pierre says.
Pierre added “I just hope that she really puts the students first, and works on just providing a very safe and inclusive environment for students. I feel like when you go to a community college, It’s very easy to get lost in your way, and kind of just feels like you’re not having the best time. So I just hope she’s really about the students and not into any drama or anything like that.”
When asked about her plans for the James Kerney Campus in Trenton, Dr. Preston says that there are a lot of supportive people interested in sharing ideas to help that community, but she needs to figure out what is the right idea for the improvement of that campus. She says that one of the options is to hire a firm, but ideally she wants to use the support of the college’s four year institution partners.
Another issue of concern at MCCC is the lack of minority representation. According to institutional data from December 2021, the student body is 58% people of color, while full time faculty are only 15.5% people of color, and the number seems to be even smaller in administrative positions.
Dr. Preston says, “I think one of the things we have to do is we have to shake that up a little bit and, and give applicants of color some opportunities to really shine in maybe some nontraditional ways.”
Faculty response to the new administration has been generally positive.
Math Professor Kyle Anderson says, “It gives me a sense of hope that things can actually change for the better for the faculty, staff and students here at the college. I think that’s the general consensus as well, that everyone’s very excited to see what further improvements can be made.”
His perspective is echoed by Professor of Psychology Dr. Heather Jennings, who is also the President of the Faculty Association, who says that although she has had a short time to get to know the new president, “The kind of feedback that we’ve been hearing among the faculty is really positive that a short amount of time to hear her plans and to see what her leadership style is going to be, and everybody’s very optimistic.”
In terms of her overall take on the job Dr. Preston says, “If you’re not in it to change the world I don’t know why you’re doing it, honestly. Because it is not like a big university. I’m not making millions of dollars doing this. I’m not going to get my own airplane or anything, I’m in it for the work.”
