(Photos provided)

SARANAC LAKE — North Country Community College officials on Thursday night revealed the names of three finalists to replace President Steve Tyrell: Ron Cantor of Maine, current NCCC official Joseph Keegan and Sara Thompson Tweedy of Westchester County.

The candidates will visit the college Monday through Wednesday and will be available for meet-and-greet time with the public as well as, at a separate time, with students, faculty, staff, administrators and the Board of Trustees.

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Ron Cantor

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Cantor currently serves as special advisor to the Maine Community College System. He was president of Southern Maine Community College, leaving that position after seven years in the summer of 2018.

His previous positions include associate vice president and dean at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica and associate dean for liberal arts at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, where he taught U.S. history.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in administration from the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business and Economics, master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Ph.D in cultural foundations of education/history from Syracuse University.

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Joseph Keegan

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Keegan, of Vermontville, is currently the vice president for academic affairs at North Country Community College in Saranac Lake and has been in that position since 2014.

A NCCC graduate, he holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from SUNY Potsdam and a master’s degree in anthropology from SUNY Albany. Keegan joined the NCCC faculty in 1994 as an adjunct instructor and later as a faculty member and coordinator of the human services program, where he served until becoming vice president.

He is a credentialed alcoholism and drug abuse counselor in New York state and was part of a team that developed NCCC’s AAS Chemical Dependency Counseling program, designed to prepare students to work with people suffering from addiction.

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Sara Thompson Tweedy

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Tweedy is currently vice president of student access, involvement and success at Westchester Community College in Valhalla. She works closely with faculty and staff on a number of institutional reforms designed to increase student retention and double completion rates.

Her professional career has spanned a spectrum of service-oriented professions, including the United States Army National Guard, the nonprofit sector and higher education. Her entry into the community college system began at SUNY Sullivan in Sheldrake, where she was a women’s basketball coach, an adjunct instructor, academic advisor and counselor and dean of student development services.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Hollins College, a master’s degree from Yale, and a doctorate in management from the University of Maryland University College.

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Meet the finalists

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NCCC has scheduled three forums next week at which the public can meet the three finalist candidates named above.

The public can meet one candidate each day from Monday to Wednesday, March 25 to 27, from 4 to 5 p.m. As of press time Friday morning, college officials had not yet announced which candidates will be available on which dates.

Separate meet-and-greet sessions for staff, faculty and students will be held from 10 to 10:50 a.m. on those three days.

Each candidate will appear in person at the college’s Saranac Lake campus, Hodson Hall room 105. These forums will be streamed via video to connect live with the Malone campus in Reshetkina Hall room 107 and the Ticonderoga campus in room 210.

Tyrell, who has led the college for the last seven years, will step down in June. A search committee that includes a cross-section of the college community and local leaders has been meeting regularly to review and narrow the field of applicants for the position. The college hired RH Perry & Associates, Search Counsel to Higher Education, to assist with the search.

After the campus interviews, the NCCC Board of Trustees will meet with the finalists, select one from that group and ask the State University of New York Board of Trustees to approve the appointment after receiving the recommendation of the chancellor.