Rockland Community College formally installed Dr. William P. Mullaney as its ninth president on Monday, November 9, in a late-morning ceremony at the Cultural Arts Center on the college's Suffern campus at 145 College Road. The college's Board of Trustees had opened the ceremony to alumni, partners and the public, and the inauguration is the first event in a week of programs that continues through Friday, November 13.

Who the new president is

Mullaney is not new to the job. The Board of Trustees appointed him in December 2024 and he started at the college in June 2025, so the ceremony marks his first full academic year at Rockland Community College rather than his first day. The inauguration of a community college president is traditionally held once the president has settled in, and the college has described this one as the formal start of his tenure.

He arrives with more than three decades spent working with community college students. Before Rockland, he was the seventh president of SUNY Corning Community College in the Southern Tier. Earlier he served as vice president of academic affairs at Bergen Community College across the state line in New Jersey, and before that as dean of arts and sciences at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona.

A native New Yorker and a first-generation college student, Mullaney holds a doctorate in English from Tulane University, a master's degree in literature from the University of California, San Diego, and a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia.

A week of events, not a single morning

The college built a week around the ceremony. On Thursday, November 12, the Rockland Community College Foundation holds its annual Champions of Change celebration at Manhattan Woods Golf Club in West Nyack. The fundraiser honors Mullaney alongside Peggy Zugibe for their contributions to the college, to education and to Rockland County.

On Friday, November 13, at noon, the president hosts a veterans luncheon in the Nelson Mandela Room of the Student Union Building on the Suffern campus. The program, titled Service, Leadership, and Lifelong Learning: Honoring Those Who Serve, welcomes active and retired members of the military and recognizes their service. The full schedule of inauguration week events is posted on the college's site.

Why it matters in Suffern

Rockland Community College is the county's public two-year college and part of the State University of New York system. Its main campus sits on College Road in the Town of Ramapo, with Suffern as its mailing address, near the Suffern train station and the Thruway. For many Rockland families it is the first stop after high school, whether for a two-year degree, a transfer pathway to a four-year school, a workforce certificate or the English Skills Academy.

The presidency sets the direction for all of that. In the weeks before the ceremony the college announced that it had expanded the capacity of its SUNY ASAP program, which supports students through to graduation, and held a fall open house on November 5 for prospective students. Those are the kinds of decisions a new president's first year is judged on, and the inauguration is the moment the college puts a name and a face to them.

If you want to go

The veterans luncheon on Friday, November 13, at noon is the last public event of inauguration week, held in the Nelson Mandela Room of the Student Union Building at 145 College Road, Suffern. Details, the week's schedule and the college's news releases are at sunyrockland.edu. The main switchboard is 845-574-4000.

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