Charlene Dukes, Ph.D. is driven to make college an attainable goal for students of all backgrounds. The first female president of Prince George’s Community College (PGCC) in Maryland, Dr. Dukes recognized the value of higher education early in her own life. She has spent the majority of her career leading by example to ensure that all students, regardless of finances or circumstances, are able to envision their own success and pursue opportunities for learning in higher education.
Tell us about yourself and your work.
I was born and raised in Johnstown, Pa. with eight brothers and sisters. In high school I participated in Upward Bound, which is a federal program that focuses on creating a culture of college awareness for low income and underrepresented students in higher education. I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education with a concentration in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a master’s and doctorate in Administrative and Policy Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. I’ve been in higher education since 1980 and have worked at three institutions: the University of Pittsburgh, the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, and now Prince George’s Community College for the last 23 years.
What drew you to the work you do?
I can’t tell you if there was something like a lightbulb that clicked on one night. It was really sort of simple for me. I went to college, majored in English, and my goal was to be a high school teacher. But I left college for a few years and worked, first at the Bell Atlantic phone company and then Chase Manhattan Bank. My job at Chase was really simple. If you worked for the bank and were being transferred anywhere within the Chase network, nationally or internationally, you would call the communications office (there were only three of us), tell us your name, current address and what your new address and contact information would be. My job was to draw a line to strike out the current address, handwrite your new address and then send the form on to the next office. After a couple of years I approached my boss to say I thought that I had mastered the job and was ready for a promotion. He told me that the only reason I was hired was because I had a year of college. That was in October 1977. By January 1978 I had resigned, re-enrolled in college and was living back in the dormitory. I thought if one year of college got me that job, then four years of college would do something extraordinary.
However, when I graduated from college in 1980 we were in the midst of a recession and I couldn’t find a job teaching high school English. I was living paycheck to paycheck, looking for a job, and had moved back in with my parents. I was lamenting the fact that I was a burden on them when a friend called to tell me about an ad for an institution looking for an admissions and financial aid officer. The criteria was a bachelor’s degree and good oral and written communications skills. I got the job and have been in higher education ever since. I guess it came down to being in the right place at the right time. And as I saw more and more students who looked like me, and students of color from a background like mine, that were described as low income but with a motivation and a desire to succeed, I thought that I could do well in this work because I was once who those students were at the time. That’s what kept me motivated and engaged in this work.
Is there a specific goal you have achieved or change you have led about which you are particularly proud?
I would say there are two that are particularly near and dear to me. We live in a community that is predominantly one of color and within that community there is a tale of two cities. The median income is around $80,000 annually, but there is a clear divide of those who are really benefiting from great salaries that result in really beautiful communities and are able to take advantage of all our community and country have to offer. And then there is that community that very few speak about, those who struggle from day to day, who are not making sustainable or living wages, who have the same kind of desires, but the opportunities are just not there.
So here at PGCC we’re focusing on ensuring that we’re not just serving all people in our community, but that we’re doing it in ways that support our values of excellence, success, diversity, respect and lifelong learning. To that end, we’ve partnered with the Prince George’s County Public Schools to offer a middle college high school, the Academy for Health Sciences, which enables students to begin taking college courses in ninth grade and by the time they graduate they will have earned a high school diploma and an associate degree. We now offer six additional partnership programs in a number of industries that enable students to earn their diplomas and associate degrees simultaneously.
Fifty percent of our students are low-income or first generation college students, and their average GPA is about a 3.56 on a 4.0 scale, so the notion that if you are low-income that translates to high risk is absolutely not true. If you are surrounded by the right support, with the right expectations and people who care, you can succeed. And that’s what we’ve been able to prove over these last few years. I am so very proud of that.
We’ve also gone through a major reorganization at the college during which we worked with our team members around the idea of change management and what it means in order to change the work that we’re doing and keep our eyes on what’s important. We participated in focus group sessions with employees, including faculty, staff and administrators, as well as students to find out what we’re doing wrong, what we’re doing right and what we could do better. During the course of two years we have turned this institution around organizationally.
We are part of the American Association of Community Colleges Pathways project, so part of our reorganization was to look at all the programs we offer at PGCC and do a deep dive to determine if they were meeting the regional workforce and transfer needs of our students. Through this process, we eliminated about 60 of our 150 programs. We created 10 pathways and attached regional workforce data to each, so that students can understand what’s available in terms of employment, what salaries are, how we can help them move from the college to employment with an associate degree, or move to one of our key transfer partners to finish their bachelor degree. We also offered faculty and staff all kinds of professional development in order to re-engage them and give them access to what is new and exciting in their field, and to ensure that from a technological perspective we had everyone that we need in our classrooms to ensure state-of-the-art experiences.
In your view, why is social equity, diversity and inclusion important? What strategies have you used to incorporate these values within your professional and volunteer work?
Well, I think in some cases it may be simple because we are a changing community. We are a changing nation when it comes to this work. So it’s about race, it’s about ethnicity, it’s diversity of thought and opinion. It’s about geographic location, sexual orientation and gender. When we look at all those kinds of things, who better prepared to respond to that than higher education, which has been responding to that call for generations. We recognize that we’re bringing in both young people, who may just be beginning their college career, and older populations, who are coming back for retooling or reframing. So we understand this diversity work and what it means to be able to respond to people with varying needs and abilities and goals and aspirations and desires.
For us it’s also about making sure the work we’re doing is building communities, particularly at community colleges where we don’t have residents or residence halls. We know that our students go back in their communities to live and work everyday. So our work is also about how we are building communities through education, and I think that’s what’s critically important. We are ensuring that every student, no matter race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious belief has the opportunity to benefit from this thing we call the American Dream. Even though that dream may have changed over the years, I think we all want the same things. We all want safe neighborhoods, good schools, great employment and we want to be able to raise our families and make sure that (to the extent possible) they want for nothing or that they can benefit from a few luxuries in this thing called life.
What is your vision for the future of your organization?
We want to be the institution that people look to first. But we also want to be the institution that people look to in order to meet their educational needs. So we believe that having a regional focus will best suit the work of Prince George’s Community College. When you live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, you know the whole area is really home. Whether you’re from northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, our residents, our neighbors and our friends all leave their neighborhoods and go into some other jurisdiction to work and then home. So how do we make sure that education is acceptable to them? I think that’s important.
I think the other thing is that we talk a lot about student success, degree completion within the shortest period of time, and that’s key and critical to us. Regional impact is also important, making sure that we have partners in business and industry; for profits and nonprofits; who can be collaborative in this work and ensure that we are putting the right foot forward all the time, not just at what we consider to be the right time. We want our students to benefit from internships and externships and apprenticeship programs.
Lastly, what I’d say is organizational excellence – how we look internally at ourselves to ensure that we come to work every day to do the work that is expected of us.
What tips do you have for other leaders looking to spark motivation?
I’m old school, so I believe in a couple of things. I believe in leadership by example, because it’s one thing to stand at a podium and tell people what to do. It’s another thing to roll your sleeves up and be part of the work.
Leadership is also about creating opportunities for collaboration and synergy. It’s about being open and honest up front, accountable and transparent. I know that we all define those words differently, but for me it’s always speaking truth to power and power to truth. And I’ve always committed to that. Other times it’s because I need your voice in this to ensure that we’re moving in the right direction, a direction that everyone can support. Other times it’s that we need to move in this direction because it’s in the best interest of our students and our students have told us this is what they want from us.
Self-care is a leadership skill that is often overlooked. What advice to you have for other leaders for reducing stress and maintaining energy and enthusiasm?
Relaxing for me is being able to spend time with friends and family. Sometimes it’s getting up early and just enjoying the coolness of the morning and being able to see the sunrise. I belong to a book club, so sometimes it’s getting together with friends and debating the text that we read and our different feelings, opinions, perceptions and beliefs about it. It’s being able to laugh and not take myself too seriously. But always being serious about the work.
What is your connection with MHQ?
I have the pleasure of accepting the role of convener of the Presidents’ Roundtable, which is an organization that supports the work of African American presidents of community colleges and those who aspire to be community college presidents. The Presidents’ Roundtable partners with Management HQ to help manage the business side of our operations.
