Shaun L. McKay

About Me

Shaun L. McKay, Ed. D.

Dr. Shaun L. McKay is an accomplished leader in post-secondary education, who, from 2010 to May 2019, served as President of Suffolk County Community College, the largest community college in the State of New York, with an annual enrollment of over 30,000 credit-earning and 8,000 continuing education students.

Before becoming its President, Dr. Shaun L. McKay served as Executive Dean, CEO of Suffolk’s Grant Campus, serving the western communities of the county. Prior to joining Suffolk, Dr. McKay served as Director of Planning for the Community College of Baltimore County and spent eight years in various positions at Morgan State University. He has also taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at several institutions.

Dr. Shaun McKay received his Ed. D. in Higher Education Administration with a specialization in Community College Leadership from Morgan State University in Baltimore, his M.A. in Management and Communication from the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore and his B.S. in Business Management from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Shaun McKay has garnered progressive academic and administrative experience, demonstrating significant career achievement in the areas of campus administration, academic program development, budget and finance, strategic planning, and institutional assessment.

Active in national and local organizations, and serving on many national and regional boards and work groups designed to improve student success in higher education, Dr. McKay has received numerous awards for distinguished service in higher education, including an honorary doctorate from St. Joseph’s College in New York.

Among Dr. Shaun L. McKay’s many achievements at Suffolk County Community College were a substantial increase in total enrollment since he became President, a 44% increase in the number of students in dual-enrolled students through high school partnerships, and an increase in 3-year graduation rate from 20 to 27%, an increase in transfer to 4-year school rate from 8 to 16% (bringing the student success rate from 28 to 43%), and a doubling the number of students in the school’s English as a Second Language programs.

Dr. Shaun McKay created an integrated planning model that connected strategic and operational planning, budgeting and resource allocation, and assessment and evaluation, a model that allowed the College to be removed from accreditation warning status from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education when he became President to reaffirmed accreditation, with a series of commendations at its last reaccreditation Self-Study and visit.

Working with state and local partners, Dr. Shaun McKay secured funding of over 200 million dollars for 30 capital projects. Dr. McKay was responsible for Suffolk’s first ever public-private partnership construction with Long Island University serving student of both schools. He established dozens of articulation agreements with partner schools and created over a dozen new academic programs, emphasizing programs preparing students for careers in STEM fields.

Always an advocate in support of student access to hire education, Dr. Shaun L. McKay established the Stay on Long Island Scholarship and the New York Presidential Scholarship programs, partnering with regional four-year schools, which have provided almost 200 students with 9.3 million dollars in scholarships to four-year institutions over the last 9 years, and he secured a one million dollar donation for scholarships to the school’s Foundation, the largest single donation in the school’s history.

Dr. Shaun McKay is often invited to conduct professional presentations at regional and national conferences on the topics of retention, strategic planning, governance and administration. He is firmly committed to the important role played by institutions of higher education in transforming people’s lives intellectually, professionally, economically, and personally.

Dr. Shaun L. McKay and his wife, Tanya, are the proud parents of three children: Caroline, Riley, and Michael.