Portrait of a Complex Matriarch

Written By Cari Pierce

Many adults of retirement age are exploring the world through travel and relishing time spent with family, perhaps with grandchildren. Not Dr. Faye Pappalardo. Instead of looking toward retirement, she’s exploring infrastructure development, articulation agreements, capital campaigns and spending time with others’ children and grandchildren – the students at Carroll Community College. Never married and with no children, Dr. Pappalardo has found her niche as the matriarch of another kind of family as the President of Carroll Community College.

Growing up in her native Philadelphia, the only child in a home rich with her parents’ Italian heritage, Dr. Pappalardo wanted to dance.

With 15 years of tap, ballet, acrobatics and baton twirling, she aspired to be a professional dancer. When her dancing ambitions were dashed by her father’s desires for her to pursue a loftier profession, she considered becoming a dance teacher. Instead, she pursued teaching of a different kind, earning a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education at Mount Saint Mary’s University in 1960, and launching her academic career teaching in junior and senior high schools.

After years of teaching, studying in Paris, living in Europe, earning an advanced degree – a Master of Science in Higher Education from the Johns Hopkins University – and moving into education administration, Dr. Pappalardo came to Carroll Community College in 1988 as the Director of Student Affairs.

At that time, Carroll Community College was just a branch of Catonsville Community College.

“I didn’t know how big it was going to grow,” said Dr. Pappalardo. “When I first came [to the College] in 1988, I was over at South Center Street in a trailer. This campus wasn’t here. It was a very small college; we may have had about 1,100 students. I was told I would be Director of Student Affairs. My aim was to help that area grow.”

As Catonsville Community College grew, so did the Carroll campus in the late `80s and early `90s. A classroom building and the Great Hall were added, and the administration began looking for a new Executive Director for the Carroll branch of the College. Dr. Pappalardo had some ideas for how the school could be administratively improved.

In 1991, Dr. Pappalardo was Director of Student Affairs and had earned her second master’s degree – a Master of Arts in Higher Adult Education from Columbia University. She joined several other Carroll staff in writing a letter to the new President of Catonsville Community College supporting Carroll’s search for a new campus Executive Director.

The new head of the Carroll campus would be hired with the title of Executive Dean. Dr. Pappalardo opted not to seek the office. Instead, she took an active role in leading the search committee for the right candidate.

“We brought in Dr. Joseph Shields,” said Dr. Pappalardo, “and he did a marvelous job.”

Dr. Shields, who had come from a community college in Panama, wanted the Carroll campus to operate as its own institution; not so entwined with Catonsville. “It was very complicated,” said Dr. Pappalardo.

“We invited the Maryland State Secretary of Higher Education [to the campus]. We were talking to her about [whether] we could get money per student coming here, directly for Carroll.” When the Secretary saw the campus and heard Dr. Shields’ plan for becoming an accredited campus of Catonsville, she had a different suggestion.

“The Secretary said, Ôoh, no, no, no’,” said Dr. Pappalardo. She thought the campus was impressive and more of a college than many colleges she had seen. “ÔYou go after your own accreditation; go after independence,’ the Secretary said.”

“That’s what we had to hear,” said Dr. Pappalardo. Within three years, the Carroll campus separated from Catonsville Community College, established independence, became a candidate for accreditation, gained its own board of trustees and became Carroll Community College. Dr. Shields became the College’s first President and Dr.

Pappalardo became the Executive Vice President of Teaching, Learning and Institutional Planning. It was 1993.

She continued her professional development, receiving her Doctorate in Higher and Adult Education from Columbia University, and in 1998 assumed the office of Associate President. Working closely with the rest of the staff and Dr. Shields, Dr. Pappalardo helped expand the college – adding a new classroom building, the Random House Learning Resources Center, and the Rotary Amphitheater.

In 1999, Dr. Shields retired and Dr. Pappalardo was named President.

Dr. Pappalardo modestly acknowledges that she has had a role in the growth of the College. She suggests that she has just been blessed to be with the College during its natural time to blossom and evolve – as if the institution could have reached such heights without her. Her staff, she said, is “very good to me. They’re very positive.”

“I don’t mean to be self-deprecating in any way,” said Dr. Pappalardo. “I don’t like that – false humility. I know that I’m good at many, many things, and there are other things I’d like to be much better at. I know my staff is happy. I know I’ve created a wonderful team. I think we have students who do well. It’s important to me that whatever we do, we do it with integrity. That’s my underlying philosophy.”

At the same time, watching her settled on the formal sofa in her well appointed office, with a French Impressionist screen saver looping on the computer screen over her right shoulder, one understands that Dr.

Pappalardo is simply complex. She is boldly humble and reservedly capable. She has nurtured Carroll Community College effectively, fully, and almost lovingly, as a mother, a grandmother, would.

Her tailored plaid suit with brown lace trim conveys a professional but approachable image. Carefully selected jewelry and a fun accessory – like the chocolate brown leather flower with beaded detail – pinned to her left lapel, speak of her femininity. A love of shoes?

“Who told you?” she asked, surprised. “Student affairs used to call me Imelda Marcos. I do like to shop. I try to be very put together.”

Her appearance says more about her than one might think. It points to a deeper philosophy, a leadership style. “I work with students all the time and I work with the staff,” she said. “I need to set an example, to say to them that I think enough of you to dress the way I do. If I were at IBM, how would I dress? Why do our students, our staff, deserve any less?”

She has given no less. During her six years as President, Dr. Pappalardo, a quiet, direct leader, has ushered Carroll Community College into a brighter spotlight.

In just the past year, according to figures from the Maryland Association of Community Colleges, the school was Maryland’s fastest-growing community college. The College’s satellite Sykesville Center marked its first year of operation by increasing its full-time-equivalent enrollment 44 percent from 1991 to 2004.

In the first year of its nursing program – housed in the College’s one-year old Allied Health Building – Carroll Community College can boast that it is the only college – among all the two- and four-year institutions in the State of Maryland – that has a 100 percent pass rate on the State Boards for its nurses. Additionally, the nursing program received a rare and honorable five-year accreditation.

For icing on the cake, Dr. Pappalardo was named to the Class of 2005 of Maryland’s Top 100 Women, recognizing her positive impact on the state.

It is almost impossible to talk about Carroll Community College without mentioning Dr. Pappalardo. Still, she is more comfortable discussing the College’s first-ever capital campaign than divulging her hobbies – reading and entertaining (and shopping for shoes). In fact, she becomes obviously excited when she shares details of The Partners Campaign.

“This is the first time we’ve ever been in campaign – looking for $4 million over a period of five years,” she said. Her goal by October 2005, when the campaign is opened to the community, is to have already raised $2 million. She is well on her way.

The campaign, which will support scholarships, a library endowment, technology upgrades and nursing equipment, confirms for Dr. Pappalardo the College’s impact on Carroll County.

“I know we are very respected. I know what this community thinks of this college,” she said. “I never knew before. I know now – having gone around and done presentations for the campaign.”

When she does face retirement, Dr. Pappalardo hopes to be remembered as “somebody who cared and brought the college to the next level. We’ve built new buildings. We’ve had new programs. We’ve brought on new staff. And the staff has grown, the student body has grown, the buildings have grown, the programs have grown.”

If she retired right now, at 74, with the experience she has, and transported herself to some other place, some other role, what would she be doing?

“I would love to be in Tuscany,” she laughed. “No, I would volunteer. I would be on boards – nonpaying boards. I’m not looking for money.

I would volunteer, and whenever I could, I would sneak in some travel.”