TCC president receives Woman of the Year award

Tidewater Community College President Edna Baehre-Kolovani has been named the 2013 Mildred B. Bulpitt Woman of the Year by the American Association for Women in Community Colleges (AAWCC).

This award recognizes an outstanding record of service to women in two-year college settings. Additionally, the recipient must be a woman whose service deserves national recognition as a role model for two year college women throughout the country.

The award will be presented at a breakfast hosted by American Association of Community Colleges in San Francisco on April 22. AAWCC is the leading national organization for women in community colleges, and has been fostering women’s success since 1973.

Baehre-Kolovani joined TCC in July 2012 and is the college’s fifth president. Her experience as a community college president includes extensive work in strategic planning, expanding and diversifying college enrollment, and exemplary fundraising and public advocacy campaigns.

From 2010 until April of 2012, Baehre-Kolovani was president and superintendent of Napa Valley College in Napa, California. Under her leadership, the college received federal recognition as a Hispanic Serving Institution, receiving a $3.8 million Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) grant as a result. In addition, the Napa Valley College Foundation embarked on a major gifts and capital campaign and developed a robust alumni program. Several initiatives to increase revenue were started, including The Institute for Business Excellence, which provides industry-relevant workforce training to Napa businesses.

For 13 years, Baehre-Kolovani was president of Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Area Community College (HACC). In that time, she initiated several international educational endeavors in China and Europe; developed and implemented the college’s strategic and master plans; and secured appropriate funding and support for the college’s operations and new programs. Through collaborative public and private partnerships, Baehre-Kolovani led several capital and annual campaigns resulting in the construction of seven new buildings during a five-year period. During her tenure, the HACC Foundation became one of the largest community college foundations in the nation, with endowments and investments of more than $42 million.

Baehre-Kolovani holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in German and comparative literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Pädagogische Hochschule in Heidelberg, Germany. She is trilingual in English, German and French and is acquiring Spanish proficiency.