The work

Four things she keeps building, in whatever order the decade allows.

Access

A campus with no walls, built for adults who could not come to one. Open Campus at Jacksonville, from 1986.

Workforce

Programmes shaped around what employers actually needed next, including associate degree completion for the US Navy.

Technology

Leading pilot site for a statewide enterprise resource planning project. Best online programme in the country, 2026.

Succession

Several people she mentored now run community colleges of their own. She counts that as the part that lasts.

The through-line

A bond issue is the only education argument that has to survive a vote.

Most of what a college president wants costs money that does not exist yet. Four times, Dr. Spalding took the case for Rowan-Cabarrus Community College to the people who would pay for it, and four times they said yes. That money built out four campuses.

She had already spent two decades proving the harder version of the same argument in Florida. As the first president of the Open Campus at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville, her job was to reach adults who could not sit in a classroom: shift workers, parents, and sailors finishing associate degrees between deployments.

She began as an instructor in 1975. Fifty years later the through-line has not moved. What changes is the delivery: a speaker series, a night class, a campus with no walls, then an online programme the Instructional Technology Council named the best in the country in 2026.

Her advice to people entering the field, in her own framing: stay open-minded about opportunities, learn continuously from every experience, and balance perseverance with discernment.

This recognition highlights the impact of the Okuma Machine Tool Academy as an innovative model for industry-education partnerships.
On the college’s 2026 Innovative Leadership Award, North Carolina Community College System
4

bond issues passed

4

campuses funded by them

2

terms on the AACC board

50

years in community colleges, since 1975

The record

Two colleges, fifty years, one job description that kept widening.

Rowan-Cabarrus Community College · Kannapolis, North Carolina

  1. 2008 onward

    President

    Four bond issues carried. A statewide ERP pilot. An online programme named best in the country in 2026.

Florida State College at Jacksonville, formerly Florida Community College at Jacksonville

  1. 1986–2008

    First President, Open Campus

    Online development and workforce programmes for adult learners, including associate degree completion for the US Navy. Also served as Interim College President.

  2. 1978–1986

    Director of Continuing Education

    Built a speaker series bringing noted educators to talk on emerging issues and community engagement.

  3. 1975–1978

    Instructor, and Coordinator of Grant Funded Programs

On air

  1. 1983–2008

    Host and producer, Politics is Your Business

    A cable programme produced by the League of Women Voters. Twenty-five years of civic dialogue on policy affecting communities.

Dates and titles as stated in her Marquis Who’s Who release of 5 June 2026.

What she built

Things that exist now and did not before.

Four bond issues

Put to voters, carried, and spent on growth and innovation across four campuses.

The Dr. Carol S. Spalding Advanced Technology Center

Named for her by the College’s Board of Trustees. She did not name it.

Best online programme in the country, 2026

Named by the Instructional Technology Council, an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges.

A statewide ERP pilot

Rowan-Cabarrus became a leading pilot site for North Carolina’s enterprise resource planning project.

Degrees finished at sea

Open Campus workforce programmes built around associate degree completion for the US Navy.

A city’s visioning project

She led Mayor Ed Austin’s year-long citywide visioning project with Leadership Jacksonville and the Chamber of Commerce. Volunteer work, and the highlight she names herself.

Recognition

First place in the same national category, two years running.

Awarded to the College under her presidency

Service and credentials

Where she sits when she is not running a college.

  • Since 1980American Association of Community CollegesMember. Two terms on the board of directors.
  • Since 2008North Carolina Community College President’s AssociationMember
  • Board memberInstructional Technology CouncilThe national body that named her college’s online programme best in the country
  • Past chair, 2000Association for Community Leadership OrganizationsNational
  • Past presidentLeague of Women Voters of JacksonvilleAlso produced and hosted its cable programme for twenty-five years
  • Since the early 1990sRotary ClubMember

Education

  • Columbia UniversityDoctor of Education in Educational Leadership, 2003. New York City.
  • Pepperdine UniversityMaster’s degree in Human Resource Management, 1986. California.
  • University of LouisvilleBachelor of Arts in International Relations, 1971.
  • Boat CaptainCertified since 2015. Not every credential has to be about work.

Contact

Through the college.

No direct contact details appear in the public record. Rather than a form that quietly discards enquiries, here is the office she actually holds.

Office of the PresidentRowan-Cabarrus Community College, Kannapolis, North Carolina
Rowan-Cabarrus Community CollegeFour campuses across Rowan and Cabarrus counties

Career facts on this page are drawn from her Marquis Who’s Who release of 5 June 2026, with the 2026 Innovative Leadership Award and the naming of the Advanced Technology Center confirmed separately in the North Carolina press.

© 2026 Carol S. Spalding

made by Rana Tahir Bilal