Dr. Lester Edgardo Sandres Rápalo recently began his new job as the eighth president of Rockland Community College.
Prior to joining the Suffern-based school, Rápalo was the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Bronx Community College, City University of New York. He is a National Community College Hispanic Council fellow and board member and the author of several textbooks. Rápalo was born in Honduras and speaks Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
The Business Journal spoke with Rápalo on his goals for the school.
Congratulations on becoming president of Rockland Community College. What attracted you to this opportunity?
That’s an excellent question. I know the legacy that Dr. [Cliff R.] Woods and Dr. [Michael A.] Baston had at the institution [when they served as president], and that was a huge selling point for me. And also, the diversity of the students that we have. RCC is the jewel of Suffern in Rockland, so I was very attracted to that.
What do you see as the role of a community college in today’s education environment?
The role of community college is to provide access to students from all walks of life. We are open access institution, so we take all students who come from all different backgrounds and all different GPAs. And we provide top notch an excellent education at a fraction of what four-year institutions will charge.
Just to give you an idea: Our in-state tuition is $5,212. If you look at the in-state tuition for a lot of colleges, even within New York, it is about $20,000 and up. If you are an out-of-state, we are currently charging students $10,424. So, obviously, this is a bargain that students and their families get, especially in this type of economy where everything is so expensive. It is a fabulous opportunity for students.
We have an amazing American Honors Program and we have placed students in very top tier institutions – Yale University, Harvard, MIT, Cornell, NYU. We have very good articulation agreements with all these great institutions that know our students are the top choice. I’m very proud to showcase our American Honors Program students.
This is your first semester at RCC. What are your priorities for the semester?
I am doing what I call it the “listen-learning tour.” I’m meeting with elected officials, politicians, meeting with faculty, adjuncts, staff, students’ leaders, and I’m learning as much as possible from each and every one from their perspective on what is working, what is not working, what can I improve and what can I modify. Right now, I’m trying to get the lay of the land, trying to understand as many things that makes RCC not only a strong institution, but a unique institution,
We’re working right now with the executive team to roll out what I call it the strategic plan. And that strategic plan has some components of my vision, which is to increase our international students and bring new programs to RCC. With one of those programs, I want to bring in Bloomberg terminals to teach students how to invest.
I also want to expand our nursing program – this semester, we had 427 applications for our nursing program, and because our limited space we were only able to accommodate 100 students. But our nation is dying to get more nurses because there’s a nursing shortage – that’s an area that I want to also expand and grow. I also want to see more students pursuing careers in STEM, and that is something I’m exploring with the faculty and staff.
And obviously, I cannot neglect to mention the great work that we have with workforce and microcredentials. Last year, our institution received close to $21 million dollars in grants, and this is a great opportunity for our students to get those microcredentials and make the transition between workforce to the credit side of the house.
Also, for the third time in our history we were awarded the Title V grant, which is a testament of what we’re doing great in this institution. I’m happy and honored to be in this position.
What are your plans for the RCC faculty? Are you planning to expand the faculty or to bring new professors into the school?
We have 386 faculty members. I just got the enrollment report and we have about 4,500 students – our target is 6,000. We have a plan to increase our faculty body. We love our adjuncts and we’re very thankful about all the all the hard work that they do. But as we move forward and implement new programs, that’s something that is in my it’s on my to-do list. You cannot run programs without full-time professors. So, that’s something that I’m exploring as well.
If we would pick up this conversation a year from now, where would you see the school at that time?
Great question. We’d love to see the school to get more grants – hopefully, we can get that more than $20 million. I would like to have expand our nursing program and I would like to have more faculty in our workforce.
Obviously, all this is correlated to the enrollment and to the fiscal reality of any institution. I’m very optimistic that we will be able to do that provide more scholarships to the students, increase our bandwidth with international students and sign more international MOUs. In my first month, I visited Mexico to discuss MOUs with Mexican universities and see if they’re interested in sending students from Mexico to RCC and helping us to send students from RCC to Mexico. That’s also something that I’m also doing with India – there’s a huge market with India. Those are the ideas that I have right now.
