LYNN — Dr. Patricia Gentile is a Jersey girl. She hails from Cape May County, which is actually closer to Delaware than it is to Philadelphia, even if she wears her Philly colors proudly.
And she’ll be going back to Cape May sometime next month with her husband of 14 years, George Ditzel, after she retires July 6 as the fourth president of North Shore Community College.
“Right now, life is pretty frantic,” says Dr. Gentile, sitting at a small conference table with a cardboard-cutout mask on her face (“it’s amazing how creative some people are with these,” she says). “There are a lot of things that I have to wrap up. And right now, the work is hectic. It was certainly not part of my plan to have a global pandemic thrown at us, but we’ve had to deal with all of that, too.”
When she took over as president of the college in 2013, she didn’t have much experience in Massachusetts, and certainly not Lynn.
“I’d been to Boston,” she said. “But I was happy in New Jersey. A headhunter pointed me in this direction, and when I came up, I really liked what I saw in Lynn. I felt like I was called to do something.”
That love of Lynn has not waned. And that’s probably a good thing, too, because among the first things she did as president — after calling off school during a two-day blizzard in January of 2014 — was meeting with officials from communities that surrounded NSCC. They weren’t all interested in greeting her warmly.
“Joan Lovely (state senator from Salem) was, well, lovely,” she said. “At the time, Tom McGee was the state senator, and he welcomed me. But Steve Walsh (who was the state representative from Lynn) wasn’t quite that way. He was pretty direct. He told exactly what the college was not doing, and how the partnership between the college and Lynn was not good.
“I was glad he was honest,” said Dr. Gentile. “I’d rather know. After he was done, I simply told him, ‘I’ll fix it.'”
She feels she’s done that, mainly by identifying the type of student that seeks out North Shore Community, and catering the curriculum to fit their needs. One of the ways the college did that was through the “Communiversity” program that allows high school students to achieve college credits while still in school.
“Education is the lever by which people can pull themselves out of poverty,” said Dr. Gentile. “Communiversity enabled school kids to get a head start on college, and it helped us establish better relations with the Lynn schools. I think that’s one of the big things that helped repair the relationship with the city.”
Dr. Gentile, and North Shore Community, have actively contributed to the wider network of schools and non-profit agencies that make up the bulk of what has become known as the Lynn Education District.
“One of the great things about Lynn is the amount of collaboration that goes on. It (the education district) brought everyone together,” she said.
North Shore Community also participated in the “Year Up” program, which matches talented young adults with top companies to help further careers and opportunities, she said.
Dr. Gentile is very aware, however, of the financial burdens placed on college students, especially the ones who attend North Shore.
“A lot of our students are single moms, people who are raising families, and people who are coming here because they need to bone up in a skill, or they may even be put in a position to change their careers,” she said. “For them, it’s not so much what’s up here (pointing to her head) but what’s in here (her pockets). Money.”
And it’s not so much tuition, she says.
“Most of the students are covered by Pell Grants (awarded to undergraduate students seeking a bachelor’s degree who demonstrate serious financial need),” she said. “But it’s all the other things. It’s paying for the roof over your head. Food. Transportation. A lot of these students just aren’t able to afford that.”
What’s the answer?
“Philanthropy,” she said. “I don’t think we really got far enough to give people the idea that community college is worth it philanthropically. We’ve made some progress, though.”
In the immediate short run, the problem of implementing the fall semester in the age of COVID-19 will go to Nate Bryant, who will take over as interim president. But Dr. Gentile is not leaving it up to him to start from scratch.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to bring 7,000 students back here in the fall,” she said. “It’s just not possible. We’ll spend the summer training the teachers and professors to be a little better equipped for remote learning.”
The school received CARE money in the spring, and much of that went to purchase equipment such as laptops so students who were pretty much thrown into remote learning had the tools to do it.
“Right now,” she said, “the school is pretty sound financially. But if there’s a recession, that could easily erode.”
Taking the good with the bad, Dr. Gentile is happy with her tenure here.
“I’m glad I was able to come here and was able to make a difference,” she said. “That is what I came up here for, and I’m grateful.”
