SANFORD — Central Carolina Community College has recently hired five new administrators: Dr. Bill Adams, interim dean for the Continuing Education Department; Virginia Brown, liaison for Vocational and Technical Programs; Dwane Hodges, grants writer/coordinator; Celia Hurley, director of Institutional Effectiveness/SACS liaison; and Theresa Phelps, director, Financial Aid.

Dr. Bill Adams
Dr. Bill Adams, of Lexington, is serving as interim dean of Continuing Education following the retirement of Dean Alice Gilchrist on May 31. Dr. Adams is the retired chairperson for Continuing Education at Davidson County Community College and has worked part-time in Continuing Education at Randolph Community College since his retirement.

Other professional experiences include serving as vocational-agriculture instructor at Western Alamance High School and as instructor of agri-business at Davidson County Community College.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education, master’s degree in education, and a doctorate in occupational education, all from North Carolina State University. He is past president of the North Carolina Community College Adult Educators Association and has served on the boards of FarmHouse Fraternity at North Carolina State and of the North Carolina Region of the Horseless Carriage Club.

Virginia Brown
Virginia Brown, of Chapel Hill, fills a new position at the college, liaison for Vocational and Technical Programs. She will work with high schools and their students in the college’s service area of Lee, Harnett and Chatham counties to help them become more aware of the many quality vocational and technical education programs offered by Central Carolina that lead to well-paying careers.

Brown is bilingual English/Spanish and plans to reach out to the Latino population to increase their presence in the programs and higher education as a whole. She is a graduate of Blue Ridge Community College, UNC-Asheville, and Western Carolina University. She has her undergraduate degree in Spanish and a Master of Arts in Education-Community College Administration.

Dwane Hodges
Dwane Hodges, of Fayetteville, joined the college in May as the grants writer/coordinator. A native of Hempstead, N.Y., he was special projects coordinator and manager of the JFK Center for the Buffalo (N.Y.) Youth Opportunity Program prior to coming to CCCC. From 2000 to 2002, he served as dean of Enrollment Management and special assistant to the president of Iowa Wesleyan College.

For 12 years, Hodges worked at the University of Buffalo, in New York State, in university preparatory programs, holding positions with the Science and Technology Enrichment Program; the School, College, University Partnership Program; and Upward Bound.

Originally from Hempstead, New York, Hodges has his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Buffalo, and is completing his Master’s in Humanities with a combined concentration of Educational Administration and Environmental Design.

Celia Hurley
Celia Hurley, of Sanford, has been with Central Carolina Community College since 2003. She was director of Distance Education and Staff Development, then Quality Enhancement Plan co-director, and then Assessment Resource developer. In June, she became the new director of Institutional Effectiveness and the liaison to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

During her 20 years with the North Carolina Community College System, she has held leadership roles in distance learning, professional development, instructional excellence, institutional effectiveness, and media services.

Prior to coming to CCCC, she served as the director of Teaching Excellence/Distance Education at Randolph Community College. Before that, she taught broadcast audio, video, and writing courses at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. She has been editor of two newsletters, on assessing and distance education, designed for community college educators.

Hurley has her bachelor’s degree in broadcast/cinema from UNC-Greensboro, and her Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of Florida-Gainesville. She is also a graduate of the 1997 class of the NCCCS Leadership Program.

Theresa Phelps
Theresa Phelps, Financial Aid director, came to CCCC in May from North Carolina State University, where she had been an assistant director in scholarships and financial aid since 2006. Prior to that, she was the senior financial aid officer at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 2003-06.

Phelps received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Communications, in 2002, and a Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration, in 2006, from Eastern Michigan University. Originally from Detroit, Phelps resides in Garner.