When Adrianne Washington, dean of special academic programs at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), found that the Honors Program was overlooking the school’s Black men, it didn’t sit right with her.
Adrianne Washington
“Especially as a minority woman, how can I say that I'm successful if there are students who look like me who feel like a program that I'm leading isn't a space for them?" she asks.
What followed was her pursuit to recruit and empower African American men as part of the Honors Program’s comprehensive transformation into a full-fledged Honors College.
Over the 15 years she’s been at CCBC, Washington’s roles and responsibilities have vastly expanded. Her time there has seen her teach social science and study abroad courses, head CCBC’s Honors Program as lead director, and become the school’s dean of special academic programs, all while keeping her work “student-centered.” Outside of CCBC, she has taught at Prince George's Community College and built online classes for the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University’s music and dance conservatory.
Washington is dean of the nascent Honors College. In this role, she is looking at proportionate demographic representation between the program and CCBC at large; diversity in the classroom in terms of race, ethnicity, and age; and concepts of how students can give back to the community.
Washington says she wants the Honors Program to cater to the demographics of a community college. “A lot of institutions focus on full-time students, not part-time students, not non-traditional students,” she says. “One of the things that's really great about our program is that it was created intentionally for community college students and keeping non-traditional and part-time students in mind."
