AACC President Dawn Lindsay announced on Nov. 3 she will retire at the end of the school year.

“When I arrived at Anne Arundel Community College in the fall of 2012, I made a personal and professional commitment that AACC would be the institution where I would ultimately conclude my career,” Lindsay said in an email to faculty and staff.  “After much reflection, I have decided that I will retire from AACC effective June 30, 2026.”

Lindsay is the second woman to serve as AACC’s president. She presided over the college during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she oversaw the construction of the campus’s largest building, the Health and Life Sciences Building.

She was one of the first community college presidents to appoint a chief diversity officer in 2014.

Lindsay applied to become president of AACC in 2012 because “it was a winner of a college and I knew the reputation of Anne Arundel and I really wanted to be part of a winning team,” she told Campus Current in 2022 during her 10th year with the college. “And so there was nothing broken about this college when I arrived.”

Lindsay said her efforts to enhance the college’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs stand out as a major accomplishment.

“I’m very proud of the work that we’re doing to help minority students and student veterans … to make sure that we’re meeting their needs and helping them successfully attain their goals,” Lindsay said in that 2022 interview.

The process for searching for Lindsay’s replacement, she said, will be determined in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, she said, “I look forward to continuing our important work over the remaining months as we ensure our students achieve their goals.”

Before Lindsay became president of AACC she served as the president of Glendale Community College in California for five years. She was also a dean at Riverside Community College, also in California. 

In the email to faculty and staff, Lindsay noted, “I have every confidence that AACC will continue to thrive, meeting the future with the same excellence, vision and resilience that define this outstanding institution.”