SUNY WCC REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO INCREASING STUDENT SUCCESS

After an extensive search process, SUNY Westchester Community College in Valhalla, has named Ben Naylor as its new chief of staff and vice president of strategic operations, a role in which he will work closely on strategic planning, decision-making and the execution of advancing the president’s leadership agenda, including continuing progress on increasing enrollment and graduation rates, establishing agile processes that improve operations and expanding SUNY WCC’s role as an innovative exemplar for community colleges across the nation.
Naylor has served at Rockland Community College (RCC) for the past nine years, including six as the chief of staff to two RCC presidents. He brings to SUNY WCC experience in working collaboratively with a diverse college community and in supervising the offices of Institutional Research and Information Technology Services as well as providing strategic leadership in the Office of the President.
More recently, Naylor served as the executive director of government relations and institutional planning at RCC, managing the college’s relationships with federal, state and local officials, raising funds through federal and state grant opportunities and coordinating the strategic planning work of the college. Last year, he was the project lead on a $3 million congressional earmark request for construction of a Nursing Simulation Laboratory, matching the largest grant in the institution’s history.
Prior to his time at RCC, Naylor served as a department administrator at the NYU Wireless 5G Research Center, a research analyst at the Global Strategy Group, and a research analyst at The Cook Political Report.