Dr. Shelley White, the president of Haywood Community College (HCC), was recently named President of the Year by the North Carolina Community College System, State Board of Community Colleges, and the North Carolina Community College Foundation. The award recognizes exceptional leadership and achievements of a community college president who has significantly contributed to their institution and the entire system, according to a press release.
says Lynn Milner, Chair, Haywood Community College Board of Trustees.
Locally, White”s leadership is also seen and celebrated. In June 2023, White received the award for Woman of the Year from the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce. In August 2024, she received a standing ovation at the end of convocation.
“I feel like Dr. White supports the programs here at Haywood with her genuine authenticity and very approachable nature,” says Amy Putansu, an instructor at HCC. “I’ve been teaching here for 16 years, so I’ve been through many different administrative changes, and Dr. White has created a family-oriented culture on campus. At a convocation after the mill closure, she was recognizing the efforts the College had made in response, and she was visibly moved and maybe had a tear in her eye. And that meant a great deal to everyone because it was really, really heartfelt.”
Haywood County is just west of Asheville. While some community colleges serve more than one county, HCC serves just Haywood County.
As it continues to offer an open door to all students, HCC time and again also finds a way to excel in all things, including training the early child care workforce, providing early child care, training first responders, supporting the mental health of those at the college and in the community, training the health care workforce, creating opportunities through its nationally-regarded early college, providing opportunities for other high school students to experience college, imagining the future of work, providing local leadership, and more.
White’s presidency started on Jan. 1, 2020. This was her first presidency, and her dreams for her own leadership at that point did not include a pandemic, historic flooding, wildfires, the closing of Canton’s beloved paper mill, or Hurricane Helene.
Under White’s leadership, the team at HCC has anchored its community, led through crisis after crisis, and served as its architect of the future.
Meet Dr. Shelley White
White has lived in Haywood County for more than two decades after growing up, as she says, “all over” North Carolina.
Her dad was a minister, and as a young child she watched her mom go back to school to become a nurse, imprinting on White the value of education.
At the time White was graduating from high school, her family wasn’t in a position financially for her to go to a four-year college, so she is a very proud graduate of Isothermal Community College.
White and her husband own a small business on the main street of downtown Canton. They are huge Star Wars fans.
They have been licensed foster parents. She says that gave them real insight into the issues faced by many members of the community she serves.
White is an uncommonly good human, which centers her great leadership.
Her capacity to lead in and through crisis after crisis
White’s leadership from the get-go of her presidency has been made possible because of her deep understanding of people and leadership.
White has an undergraduate degree in the psychology of learning — why people are the way they are, why people make the decisions they do, and how people can interact better together. She also has a master’s degree in human resources, allowing her to understand how people interact in the workplace and informing her understanding of how to set expectations for personal and professional growth to foster career development. She is intentional about developing leadership skills over time — both her own and others — with specific attention to communication and problem solving, two things she will tell you leaders take for granted but are essential.
David Francis, president and CEO of the Haywood Chamber of Commerce, says White’s “calmness, steadiness, and long-term thinking show why leadership matters in times of uncertainty.”
Rewriting the playbook for the role of presidents and community colleges in the face of an economic disaster
The closing of the papermill in Canton was announced in a national earnings report on March 6, 2023.
The very next day, White reached out to a group of thought leaders statewide. She wanted to do things differently this time around. She knew she couldn’t do it alone.
States have a plan for natural disasters, and Haywood County knew that process all too well from the historic flooding that wiped out whole communities in August 2021.
But economic disasters are different.
With her significant experience in workforce development and prior experience with rapid response teams, White could see the gaps.
By March 10, she was calling for a “unified response” at a press conference. She announced that day the creation of the Haywood Strong Scholarship and $56,000 in committed funding to support mill workers.
Local leaders, she knew, were already overworked and under-resourced.
White’s leadership help secure $200,000 in philanthropic funding that overnight provided support for the town, the county, the community college, and the school district for the first six months of the response. This led to:
- An initial assessment of leadership capacity and relationships;
- Weekly crisis team meetings;
- A first-of-its-kind consolidated legislative request, which led to more than $60 million in relief;
- Inclusion of Haywood Community College in the federal budget request;
- Additional philanthropic funding, and more.
What does it take to be a successful community college president?
A commitment to the role of technology in building our 21st century talent pipeline
Haywood Early College is on the campus of HCC. Since 2020, EdNC has been studying why this early college continues to be among the best of the best not just in Haywood County, not just in North Carolina, but nationally and internationally.
There are many factors.
The principal was a regional principal of the year. Student performance during the pandemic increased. Scholarship dollars have increased from $330,143 in 2019 to $2,489,758 in 2022. A student, Lily Seymour, served as a member of the N.C. State Board of Education and worked to help state leaders develop the state’s Portrait of a Graduate. Importantly, it is one of North Carolina’s only Apple Distinguished Schools.
White’s leadership is also a factor.
Principal Lori Fox says, “Dr. White is supportive of our commitment to technology and innovation at Haywood Early College. As an Apple Distinguished School, we are fortunate to partner with a community college president who understands the infrastructure needed to be successful. She is a true visionary and committed leader on campus and in our community.”
In August 2023, Seymour, Fox, and White were featured on a panel along with a representative from Apple at the NC Chamber’s annual education and workforce conference. From the student to the principal to the president to the corporate leader, you could literally see our 21st century talent pipeline.
This early college and HCC together continue to pilot and lead the way for North Carolina on best practices in current and evolving technology and how to integrate it into the classroom, the campus, and beyond.
Her commitment to professional growth for faculty and staff on issues that matter most
When Susannah High heard in 2021 that public funds would pay for one person at each community college to receive mental health training, she jumped, with White’s blessing, at the opportunity.
High, director of student wellness and success at HCC, was familiar with the training, called Mental Health First Aid, a national program that teaches people how to spot and navigate the signs of mental health challenges.
The goal, she explained during a board meeting at the community college, is to “train as many people as you can, give skill sets to as many people as you can, so that we can better support ourselves as a society.”
High got trained first and then immediately prioritized training faculty and staff, including White herself.
White continues to seek funding to expand this important intervention. During the Pillowtex mill closure, there were 70 suicides. To date, there have been none in Canton, at least in part because of the proactive leadership of White, High, and others in the community.
Just as important is the role of the training in addressing a community challenge that predates White’s presidency.
“Since 2003, Haywood’s overdose death rate has been steadily increasing, reaching a high of 30.9 deaths per 100,000 county residents in 2018, relative to a statewide rate of 22.4 deaths per 100,000 North Carolinians in the same year,” according to a case study released just before White became president. With the local jail near or at capacity since 2013, the case study called for leaders to find innovations that prevent “the churn of people through the cycle of arrest and incarceration.”
Mental Health First Aid is just the kind of innovation for which the case study called.
White is committed to seeking professional growth for herself, her faculty, her board, and members of the community she serves on the most important issues facing her community, especially those that carry stigma like mental health and substance abuse.
Cooper directs federal funding to mental health supports for colleges and universities
Her innovations in early child care, not just for her community college but for the region
Community colleges across North Carolina train most of our early child care workers. Some of the 58 also have child care centers and provide child care for students, faculty, and the communities they serve.
Back in 2008, The Duke Endowment and the Janirve Foundation made an investment in the Regional Center for the Advancement of Children at HCC. It is to this day the only state-of-the-art early child care laboratory in the region.
The center includes 12 classrooms, observation rooms, and space that could be used for classrooms or convenings — 13,900 square feet in total.
The child care center remained in continuous operation throughout the pandemic, and it became an even more important community asset when the papermill closed and workers needed retraining.
White quickly sought investments that would allow the community college to:
- Increase staffing to boost capacity from 88 to 140 to increase early child care for displaced workers going back to school;
- Given the move to online learning for early ed students, address a multi-county need for in-person observation space; and
- Invest in the regional early ed workforce by providing education and other professional development opportunities for early child care providers.
Because of her leadership on this issue locally, regionally, and statewide, White was asked to serve on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation.
This regional early child care laboratory is a model across the Great 58.
Her visionary leadership on campus, in her community, across her state, and in the postsecondary ecosystem
“The job of a college president is demanding under even the best circumstances,” says MC Belk Pilon, chair of the John M. Belk Endowment. “Dr. Shelley White has shown us all what it means to be a president in a time of crisis. When her community faced a devastating economic situation, Dr. White quickly emerged as the coordinator of a recovery and assistance effort that has touched every corner of her service area. She has been a beacon of stability during unprecedented uncertainty, and when her community roars back economically, as I am certain they will, Shelley will be seen as the rock her neighbors leaned on when it mattered most.”
Even in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and an unprecedented local economic crisis, White has been able to look seven steps ahead.
For example, White opened a new Health Sciences Building in Dec. 2022. This 16,000 square foot building expanded, enhanced, and modernized the student experience while supplying critical health care professionals for the region. It includes an 85-seat lecture hall, 40-seat biology lab, 60-seat classroom, 8-bed skills lab, and 8-bed simulation lab with several types of mannequins that can simulate real-life nursing situations.
White and her team were intentional about making sure the mannequins had various skin tones. I happened to be on campus on a day when school children were visiting the new building on a field trip. One student, pointing to a mannequin, exclaimed, “It looks like me!”
In the same room where she held the press conference about the mill closing and promised to create short-term training programs to support workers in transition, White welcomed students to the first CDL Truck Driver Training graduation in Aug. 2023. It was a celebration for graduates and their families, but it was also a celebration of the partnerships and resources at the local, state, and federal levels that came together to make this program possible.
She moves from promises to action that quickly. “THIS is why we do what we do, THIS is why we work together for the benefit of our citizens and community,” she said at the graduation.
White led the college through comprehensive strategic planning during the pandemic, and HCC’s plan for institutional excellence will bear directly on the future of the county:
- ENROLLMENT | Increase enrollment to pre-pandemic levels (2019-2020) over a four-year period college-wide, with an emphasis coming from Haywood County residents.
- Highlight | 2024 Fall FTE was 521, a 9% increase, and 2024 Fall Student Headcount was 1318, a 5.5 % increase.
- ENGAGEMENT | Consistent year-over-year improvement on engagement levels with students, community, and employees.
- Highlight | Haywood County Commissioners approved a 3.5% increase in the county budget for the community college in 2024-25.
- FACILITIES & INFRASTRUCTURE | Progress on short- and long-term facilities and infrastructure needs based on HCC’s comprehensive infrastructure facility roadmap.
- Highlight | In the works are plans to modernize the Regional High Tech Center for high-demand infrastructure and construction fields, including energy, communication, transportation, and construction industries.
- TALENT | Meet or exceed expectations on employee engagement, diverse representation, people development, and talent recruitment, based on a defined workplace culture of excellence, well-being, and high performance.
- Highlight | Employee retention is increasing.
- GROWTH | Increase student success metrics over a four-year period, to ensure students are progressing on or meeting their goals and the college is providing skilled workers to the community.
- Highlight | In May 2024, 390 credentials were awarded to 345 individuals.
In addition to her leadership of the community college, White is also a member of Waynesville Rotary and serves or has served on the boards of several community and regional organizations, including Haywood Regional Medical Center, the Economic Development Coalition of Haywood County, the Forest Restoration Alliance (FRA), Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western North Carolina, and WNC Communities.
She served as state-level president of the North Carolina Community College Adult Educators Association, an organization supporting the work of all workforce programs through professional development, networking, and advocacy.
In Nov. 2023, White was invited to provide the North Carolina response at the Dallas Herring Lecture held by the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at N.C. State on “Daring To Be Extraordinary: Transforming the Structure of How We Work.”
And HCC is now a member of NC Reconnect, a pilot to recruit adult learners that we believe is a national model.
“She has positioned the college to be the foundation of change,” says Francis with Haywood’s Chamber of Commerce.
My experience of White’s leadership
I first got to know White when the flooding wrecked Haywood County. She and her team volunteered in the communities that were most destroyed — Cruso, Bethel, Center Pigeon, Lake Logan, and the towns of Canton and Clyde.
Throughout that academic year, I embedded in the early college on her campus studying and documenting how they were using technology and iterating online instruction to provide an even better educational experience with even higher expectations for the students.
I documented the economic impact of HCC on EdNC’s most recent blitz, which led to deeper research by our team on the Regional Center for the Advancement of Children and how she was scaling Mental Health First Aid into the community.
It was my privilege to watch White’s leadership throughout the mill closing up close and in person.
Much of the most important leadership happens behind the scenes. Crisis after crisis, I have watched White fight for her college and her community and for the future she believes Haywood County deserves.
White has been able to support and carry out long-range planning and goal setting for the college even as she has handled multiple crises.
Her leadership is felt on campus, in her community, across North Carolina, and in the postsecondary space nationally.
“This award represents the work of our college family and everyone who shares the belief in our mission to strive for a brighter future,” says White.
“Find bravery amid fear,” she urges leaders, “and resilience through inevitable change.”
Her leadership is considered. Her leadership is exemplary.
Editor’s note: The Duke Endowment and the John M. Belk Endowment support the work of EdNC.
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