Two finalists have been certified by the State Board for Community Colleges for the position of president at Rappahannock Community College. Dr. Shannon L. Kennedy of Shelby, North Carolina, and Dr. Mellissia M. Zanjani of Burlington Township, New Jersey, were chosen among 70 applicants from across the nation.
Kennedy has nearly 25 years of higher education experience and is a former television journalist, acc-
ording to an RCC release. She began her career at Gardner-Webb University, in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in 1996 as a public relations assistant. She later worked at the college as an adjunct English professor and director of Foundation and Corporate Relations.
In 2000, she moved to Cleveland Community College, in Shelby, North Carolina to become the director of public relations and grants development. There, Kennedy has been promoted several times to positions including associate dean, dean, executive vice president of Instruction and Student Development, and to executive vice president—the position in which she currently works.
Further, she has been an on-site reaffirmation committee member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC) for eight institutions over the past seven years. Kennedy earned a bachelor’s degree from Millersville University in Pennsylvania; a master’s degree from Appalachian State University; and a doctorate from North Carolina State University.
Zanjani has nearly 30 years of higher education, nonprofit, and fundraising experience. She is also a 2010 Fellow of the Thomas Lakin Institute for Mentored Leadership.
Zanjani began working at Towson University in Maryland in 1991 as a student advisor and director of the African-American Cultural Center Program. She joined the American Lung Association of New Jersey in 1993 as the northern regional program director. In 1998, she became the director of development and alumni relations for Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland.
She moved to Tacoma Community College, Washington state, in 2003 to become vice president for Institutional Advancement and foundation executive director. She held similar roles at Mercer County Community College in Trenton, New Jersey, in 2009; Georgian Court University in Lakewood, New Jersey, in 2013; and at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016.
She became the vice president for Institutional Advancement at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania a year ago—the position she currently holds. Zanjani earned a bachelor’s degree from Chatham University, in Pittsburgh, a master’s degree from Towson University, and a doctorate from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.
The two finalists seek to succeed Dr. Elizabeth Crowther, the school’s third president, who announced last fall that she is retiring at the end of June 2019, after serving in the role for 15 years.
The two candidates par-ticipated in open forums at the Glenns campus on Monday and Tuesday. An announcement of the new president will be made in May. For more information about them, visit www.rappahannock.edu/next-president.