Dr. Gail O. Mellow is President of LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens, one of the most ethnically diverse campuses in the United States. LaGuardia is a two-year, public, open access college, serving students from over 160 different countries and speaking 110 different native languages. Over 41,000 students attend the college on a full or part-time basis.

During her tenure at LaGuardia, the college has won numerous awards and achievements. It was named Top Three Large Community Colleges in the National Survey of Student Engagement; Institution of Excellence by the National Policy Center for the First Year of College; Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence in Undergraduate Education by TIAA-CREF and Best Practice College by the MetLife Foundation.

She has spearheaded local economic development, resulting in such achievements as the establishment of the LaGuardia Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which provides business counseling in four languages. The SBDC has packaged over $17 million in loans for small businesses since its inception just after September 11, 2001, and provided service to over 1,000 businesses through customized training and other workforce activities. Under Dr. Mellow’s leadership, over $15 million in external funding through grants and contracts is secured each year for workforce development, programs that support at-risk students, and initiatives to help low income individuals transition to work and to education. In 2002, the College received over $6 million from various state and federal funding sources to begin NY Designs, an incubator for businesses in the design industries.

Dr. Mellow has served in various capacities at the national level, including serving on the boards of the American Association for Higher Education, the National Commission for Cooperative Education, the Community College Research Center at Columbia University, the Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy, the National Workforce Strategies Board and the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience. She has also served as a Commissioner and Chair of various commissions for the American Council on Education, and Presidential Ambassador of Phi Theta Kappa for the Southern District of NY.

Active in community affairs, Mellow has also served in a variety of boards, including the New York Industrial Retention Network, as a gubernatorial appointee to the New Jersey State Employment and Training Commission, and on the New Jersey Workforce Investment Board, the Board of the United Way of Gloucester County, Co-chair of the American Heart Association Walk, and the Woodbury Chamber of Commerce.

Dr. Mellow founded and chaired the Northeast Connecticut Economic Alliance, a non-profit economic development agency, and was a member of the Human Resource Development Board of the Connecticut Employment & Training Commission and the Connecticut Private Industry Council, the National Women’s Studies Association Women’s Center Caucus, the Northeast Domestic Violence Program, and the Connecticut Women’s Network.

Active as a keynote speaker across the country, Dr. Mellow represented the United States at the first-ever US-China Community College Conference in Beijing in 2004. Dr. Mellow is the co-author of two books and more than thirty articles on community colleges, economic development, diversity, faculty development, job training, and pedagogical innovation. She is a consulting editor for Change Magazine, the national magazine for higher education.

She received an A.A. from Jamestown Community College, a B.A. from SUNY Albany, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from The George Washington University.