Lloyd Holmes brings wealth of experience to SUNY Niagara

Rob Creenan, Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
·4 min read

Jul. 6—Lloyd Holmes already feels a certain familiarity with SUNY Niagara despite taking over as the college's president this week.

"It's felt like I have come home," Holmes said Wednesday.

The first week of July marked Holmes officially becoming the community college's eighth president since its founding in 1962. He was announced as the new president in early June, signing a three-year contract running through August 2027.

Holmes is already learning about the institution in more ways than one, having worked at five other two- and four-year institutions across the country. Along with meeting staff and students and figuring out how things work, he has been staying in the campus dorms while finding a home in the Niagara Falls area.

A Mississippi native, Holmes originally wanted to be an architecture major, but the three institutions that offered him scholarships did not have such programs. He ended up attending Itawamba Community College in Fulton, Mississippi, where his love of the community college environment started.

"I dreaded the fact that I had to graduate," Holmes said, who switched his major to accounting. He went on to the University of Mississippi, with all his campus involvement leading someone to tell him to consider a career in student services. After getting his master's degree in higher education and student services, he got a job at the college's counseling center, falling in love with the work.

"From that, doors just began to open," Holmes said. "Whatever position I was in, I was like, 'How do I get the most out of that position?' "

With a goal to become a dean of students, Holmes served that role at Coastal Carolina University, located northwest of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for three-and-a-half years before taking on the same role at North Shore Community College, located about 20 miles north of Boston. He experienced many students with the same issues from his upbringing in Mississippi, growing up poor and living on public assistance. Several students experienced hunger and homelessness while attending.

"I was 34 years old at the time, and the student government president was older than I was," Holmes said, fascinated at how much these adult students are involved. "I didn't feel the students were so entitled, and that appealed to me."

After six years there, he spent the next six years as vice president at Monroe Community College in Rochester. Holmes grew to love the SUNY system, so much so that he said he never wanted to leave.

He heard about Niagara County Community College all the time while at MCC, going to a meeting at the Culinary Institute. Whenever family would come to visit, they would go out to Niagara Falls.

After six years there, Holmes served four years as president of De Anza College in Cupertino, California, outside of San Jose. After resigning on Feb. 29 this year, he saw the SUNY Niagara's presidency was open.

His past accomplishments at the previous institutions include:

—Revamping the Coastal Carolina campus judicial system and overseeing its assessment of student services.

—Creating a student conduct system at North Shore Community College and involved with the shared governance there.

—Creating the TRIB411 answer hotline for Monroe County Community College.

—Starting a four-year automotive technology and management program at De Anza College.

Holmes comes to a SUNY Niagara campus that is in much better academic and financial state than a few years ago. It saw its first enrollment increase in at least a decade, 4,217 total students in the fall of 2023 compared to 3,838 the year before, and its fund balances are growing rather than being used to cover budget shortfalls. It also started new workforce development programs for the cannabis industry, commercial truck drivers, EMTs, and drone operators in the past few years.

Holmes plans on continuing these programs as the school grows its relationships with its workforce partners. Discussions are ongoing about how the school can be marketed towards new segments, which programs need to grow more or can be sunset, and looking at the mental health needs of students. These talks with faculty and students will lead to the development of a shared vision.

"There has to be a focus not just on recruitment, but retention as well," Holmes said.

While at MCC, Holmes was the school's chief diversity officer for two years, the job was not about making sure the campus was diverse just by people's skin color but creating an environment where all students feel like they belong there. He intends to create that position at SUNY Niagara to do the same things he did there.

"We have to get beyond thinking that diversity is merely beyond black and white," said Holmes, bringing up the need to look at economic, gender, and religious diversity and those who are disabled.

As Holmes becomes more acclimated with his job and goes out representing the school in Niagara County, he wants community members to engage with him and for students to feel this campus is their home the same way he feels it is for him. Ultimately, he said he wants to create a place, "where each individual can walk away from this institution and say, 'I'm proud to say that I was a Thunderwolf.' "