Martha A. Smith, Ph.D., began her tenure as the fifth president of award-winning Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland, on Aug. 1, 1994.

Under her leadership, the college and its programs have received national and state recognition and awards. The prestigious League for Innovation in the Community College unanimously selected Anne Arundel Community College in October 2004 as the 20th college represented on its board of directors. The 800-member international organization partners with more than 100 leading corporations and works with numerous organizations, foundations and government agencies to bring new ideas to league members.

Anne Arundel Community College is the only community college to have won the National Council for Continuing Education and Training’s Exemplary Program in Workforce Development Award four times -- the latest one in 2006 for its Words for Work program that helps Spanish-speaking students learn key words and phrases needed to move into better jobs. The Exemplary Program Awards recognize outstanding programs and promote replicable best practices nationally in four categories: continuing education, community services, workforce development and learning technologies.

The college was named a Carnegie Foundation institution for Curricular Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships in 2009 for its institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment with its mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices. For a third consecutive year, AACC was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for its exemplary service to the community. Selected for the honor by the Corporation for National and Community Service, AACC was one of two community colleges in Maryland and one of eight schools in the state named to the 2008 honor roll.

AACC received two awards, a 2008 Innovation of the Year Award from the League for Innovation of the Community College and the National Council for Continuing Education and Training Exemplary Program Award in the Continuing Education category, for its 10-hour “Parenting the Middle School Child” course that gives parents information about adolescent development, strategies for successful parent-child communication, teen substance abuse, sexuality and popular teen culture.

The college shared the 2007 Comcast Hall of Fame Business Partnership of the Year award with the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation and the BWI Partnership for the one-stop careers center that provides workforce training information to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport employees, employers and patrons.

AACC received the West Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce’s 2006 “Nonprofit of the Year” award, which recognizes a nonprofit organization that has developed close partnerships with the business community as a way to achieve its overall mission. AACC earned the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce’s 2005 National Achievement Award for strategic planning that has allowed the college to meet both workplace and community needs; award-winning technology allowing students and the public access to its resources; and entrepreneurship education.

In addition, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaffirmed AACC’s accreditation in 2004 and commended the college on its progress to date; the Consortium for Community College Development named AACC as Profile College for Organizational Development in June 2004; the Center for Digital Education awarded AACC first place in its category in national competition on the use of digital technology in 2004; and the BWI Business Partnership Inc. named AACC the 2004 Employer of the Year.

One of the most prestigious honors was when the National Alliance of Business named AACC its 2001 Community College of the Year.

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