The CNY Community College Leadership Development Consortium

PEAKS was founded in 2014 by the Presidents of Mohawk Valley Community College, Onondaga Community College, and Tompkins-Cortland Community College, and joined by Dutchess Community College (2018) and Finger Lakes Community College in 2019, to provide a unique and innovative professional development experience for community college leaders – of diverse roles and levels of the organization. The program, designed especially for community college professionals, is focused on helping leaders to:

• Develop effective transformational leadership and communication skills and behaviors
• Enhance self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• Develop a strong network of community college professionals
• Consider current issues in the world of community colleges
• Raise opportunities for cross-campus projects that strengthen our service to students
• Nurture a passion for the community college mission

Program Structure

Select participants – 4-8 from each college – will participate in a professionally facilitated year-long program that is designed to integrate into participants’ current responsibilities and work situations so that personal and professional development will become a part of the participants’ life and work, not an addition to it. 

The consortium program consists of:

• • Two 3-day residential retreat sessions
  • Two day-long meetings on one of the partner campuses (Fall and Spring)
  • Individual campus group meetings following a common curriculum
  • Shared readings
  • Development of personal and professional development plans
  • Social and networking times will be built into individual campus and full group sessions

To learn more, contact the facilitators at the consortium campuses:

• Jill Heintz, Mohawk Valley Community College
• Anne DeLand, Onondaga Community College
• Sharon Clark and Julie Gerg, Tompkins Cortland Community College
• Michelle Polowchak, Finger Lakes Community College

Past Cohorts