News
NSCC Names Interim VP for Instruction
Monday, September 11th, 2006
Mary Ellen O’Keeffe is the new interim vice president for instruction at North Seattle Community College (NSCC). O’Keeffe, the college’s executive director of professional-technical programs and workforce education, succeeds Karen Demetre in the vice president’s role. She will retain her workforce education responsibilities.
“Mary Ellen brings an impressive and varied background to the vice president’s responsibilities, which I know she will handle with excellence,” said NSCC President Ron LaFayette. A search for a permanent vice president will be conducted later this year, he said.
O’Keeffe’s background includes stints as an administrator, instructor, nonprofit organization founder, social worker, and Peace Corps volunteer.
At NSCC, she was the force behind the college’s development of the Greater Seattle Area’s only two-year program in nanotechnology and its emerging role as a regional educational leader in this area. She also initiated the Radiologic Technology program the college offers in partnership with Bellingham Technical College and was instrumental in establishing NSCC’s program in Communication, Business, and Media.
NSCC’s new Broadband Cable Technician program was made possible through her work with Comcast. Additional partnerships with the Seattle/King County Workforce Development Council and Children’s Hospital have generated more than $700,000 in new funding for the college. She also played a key role in developing a community-based jobs training program for the Seattle Community Colleges, which recently received a $2.7 million grant from the U. S. Department of Labor.
O’Keeffe will continue to play a major role in the development of a pilot project which would, if funded by the state, integrate offices and services of the Department of Human Social Services, Employment Security, the King County Workforce Development Council, and the college on the college campus.
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