Senator Farley Greets New SCCC President

State Senator Hugh T. Farley (R, C, I – Schenectady) had the pleasure of meeting with new Schenectady County Community College (SCCC) President, Dr. Steady H. Moono, on Feb. 1st in Albany at the Senator’s office at the Legislative Office Building. Dr. Moono visited Senator Farley with students  and colleagues from both SCCC and Hudson Valley Community College and discussed the schools’ legislative priorities.

Pictured (left to right) are: SCCC Chief of Staff Paula Ohlhous, Dr. Moono, SCCC students William Pattee and Pat Gareau, HVCC student Tyler McNeil and HVCC President Drew J.Matonak.

Dr. Moono came to the United States from Zambia in 1981. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He also earned an M.A. in Counseling and Theology from the Biblical Theological Seminary, an M.A. in English from Arcadia University and a doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from Immaculata University.

According to his biography at http://www.sunysccc.edu/,  Dr. Moono said that before he found two mentors who helped him feel at home, he struggled as a “young, lost African kid struggling to make it work at a U.S. college.” That experience helped shape his educational philosophies, as he would later found and oversee a nationally recognized mentoring program for minority students during his nearly 10 years at Montgomery County Community College’s West Campus in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he most recently served as Vice President.

Dr. Moono's work to establish the Minority Male Mentoring Program has been widely recognized. He is the recipient of the Yaffe-Smith Civil Rights Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Education and was named “Outstanding First Year Student Advocate” by the National Resource Center. He was awarded the 2011 Innovation of the Year Award at Montgomery County Community College. He and his wife are deeply involved in a non-profit project in Zambia that concentrates on rural drip-irrigation projects.