G. Jeremiah Ryan, Ed.D.

Dr. G. Jeremiah "Jerry" Ryan was recently appointed president of Bergen Community College and assumed the post on July 1, 2007. Bergen is the largest two-year institution in New Jersey with 15,000 credit and 10,000 non-credit students and a $100 million budget. As president, Dr. Ryan will supervise all the academic and administrative enterprises of the College.

Bergen Community College is a comprehensive community college offering associate degrees and certificates along with customized training to business and industry in New Jersey's largest county of around one million people. Courses are offered at the main campus in Paramus and at an extension center in Hackensack. The College is developing plans for a future site in the Meadowlands which will serve a major population center in the southern part of the county.

For about a year prior to his appointment as president at Bergen, Dr. Ryan developed the educational consulting practice for the Alman Group, LLC. He concentrated in areas of expertise that included board and senior staff development, fund raising counsel, strategic planning assistance, continuous quality training, and government relations consulting to educational and non-profit organizations throughout New Jersey.

Dr. Ryan also served as President of Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey for six years and as President of Quincy College in Massachusetts for four years. At both public two-year colleges he supervised all of the academic and administrative enterprises of the colleges. While serving as president at both institutions, Dr. Ryan greatly enhanced the Colleges profiles, the services and programs offered, and the colleges involvement in each of the communities they served. He also significantly increased the business and government leaders commitment to the colleges through fund raising and governmental relations.

Before his service as president at Raritan Valley Community College and Quincy College, Dr. Ryan served for over twenty years in other higher education administration positions.

He served as an academic dean, chief advancement officer, research and marketing director, executive director of a statewide college association, assistant dean, and member of an educational research commission. His expertise includes finance and economic development, strategic planning, fund raising, market research, government relations, continuous quality improvement, and staff and board development.

Dr. Ryan remains active as a teacher and scholar. He has served as an adjunct professor at each of the community colleges where he has worked and serves as a national professor of higher education at Nova Southeastern University. He is the editor of four books and the author of over 40 articles about higher education. Two recent articles focused on the role of the president in fund raising.

For the Academic year 2005-2006, Dr. Ryan served as a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He studied politics and leadership of the non-profit sector as part of the New Jersey Community College Mid-Career Fellowship program. Dr. Ryan has had previous post-doctoral fellowships with the League for Innovation in the Community College and the American Association of Community Colleges.

Dr. Ryan is an honors graduate of Hamilton College with a Bachelor's degree in Government and Speech. He earned a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University in Organizational Development and a Master of Science degree from the State University of New York at Albany in Education Administration. His doctorate is in Higher Education Administration from Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Ryan's applied dissertation was an economic impact estimation model that has been subsequently used by over 400 community colleges.

In service to his profession, Dr. Ryan has served on the Board of Directors of the Council for the Advancement of Education, the boards of three councils for the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and three different AACC commissions. Nationally, Dr. Ryan participates in The League for Innovation in the Community College, Campus Compact, Combase, and the Community College Continuous Improvement Network.

Dr. Ryan has been awarded the Lifetime Distinguished Service Award by the National Council for Research and Planning. In Somerset County, New Jersey, he has been honored with the Somerset Spirit Award, the Irish Person of the Year Award, and the Business Partnership Person of the Year Award. He also received the Educator of the Year Award from the Biotechnology Council of New Jersey.

Dr. Ryan has represented the community college sector on three statewide boards: Quality New Jersey, Regional Planning Partnership, and New Jersey Technology Council.

In service to the community college sector, Dr. Ryan serves on the Budget and Legislative Committees. He also is on the Government Committee of the state-wide Council of Presidents.

Dr. Ryan is a member of the Board of Directors of Quality New Jersey and the Education Committee of NJBIA. Locally, Dr. Ryan is a member of the Board of Directors of the Commerce and Industry Association, United Way of Bergen County, and the Workforce Investment Board.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Ryan at gjryan@bergen.edu.