Alamance Community College’s board of trustees has appointed Dr. Larry Keen, retired president of Fayetteville Technical Community College, to serve as interim president of ACC until a permanent successor to Dr. Algie Gatewood can be located.
Gatewood, 71, will retire Friday after serving 10 years as ACC’s president.
Keen, 76, served as president of Fayetteville Technical Community College for 15 years from 2007 until his retirement in 2022 and previously as the vice president of economic and workforce development in the North Carolina Community College Systems office in Raleigh.
A retired U.S. Army Reserve officer, Keen holds a doctoral degree in higher education from Oklahoma State University; a master’s of science in business education from Pittsburgh State University in Pittsburgh, Kansas; and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Missouri State University.
ACC officials told The Alamance News this week that they hope to hold an informal gathering at the college next week to introduce Keen to the community.
North Carolina’s State Board of Community Colleges (SBCC) gave its final approval to the contract for the interim president this week. The SBCC held a special-called meeting last Tuesday to consider approving an interim president for ACC, among other matters.
The trustees had voted 8-0 during a special-called meeting late last month to offer the interim president position to “a candidate, as named in closed session,” but whose identity they hadn’t publicly disclosed, pending approval by the State Board of Community Colleges (SBCC), in keeping with state board rules.
ACC’s administration plans to issue a Request for Proposals from search firms to conduct a search for a permanent president, Gatewood said in an earlier interview with The Alamance News.
The community college hosted a retirement party for Gatewood at ACC’s Biotech Center of Excellence Tuesday afternoon.
