Community college leader Scott Ralls leaving NC

The top leadership positions in both of North Carolina’s public higher education systems will be vacant in the near future after N.C. Community College System President Scott Ralls announced his resignation Thursday.

Ralls will leave his post in early September. His departure follows the forced resignation of UNC-system President Tom Ross in January.

Ralls is leaving the state as politicians increasingly look to community colleges as a potential means of cutting higher education costs. It costs the state less per year to put a student through community college than through a four-year university.

A bill in the legislature would provide N.C.’s top high school students — or those with a 3.5 GPA or higher — with free community college.

Ralls, who has worked in the system for nearly 20 years and served as president for seven years, is taking over as president of Northern Virginia Community College, the second-largest community college in the country.

Linwood Powell, chairman of the State Board of Community Colleges, appointed a presidential search committee at the board’s monthly meeting Friday, according to a statement from the community college system. The 10-person committee will establish a selection process at a future meeting.

As president, Ralls has been responsible for 58 campuses across the state, which cater to more than 850,000 people. Ralls said in a statement Thursday that the new offer was too good to pass up, although he’ll miss working in North Carolina.

“This opportunity was something I had not anticipated but was simply too great to ignore, particularly because I have always intended to return to a community college campus,” Ralls said.

Ralls’ career in the N.C. Community College System began in 1999. In 2002 he became president of Craven Community College before accepting his job as the system’s president in 2008.

Jeff Lowrance, spokesman for Central Piedmont Community College, said in an email that Ralls began his term as president of the N.C. Community College system during a difficult time.

“His tenure began during a period of dramatic enrollment growth across the state as workers, displaced during the recession, came to our campuses looking for hope and enhanced skills and training,” Lowrance said.

Community colleges are generally operated and governed locally, he said. But Ralls and other system officials have worked to ensure that the N.C. General Assembly takes care of the most important issues affecting each campus, Lowrance said.

“Dr. Ralls has worked to ensure the 58 colleges speak with one voice concerning important issues, such as state funding, the transfer of academic credits earned at community colleges to UNC institutions and various state rules, regulations and policies that impact community colleges.”

state@dailytarheel.com