FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 13, 2021
CONTACT: Nate Mackinnon | 857-990-3327| MackinnonN@macc.mass.edu
Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges Welcomes Gina Yarbrough as General Counsel
BOSTON, MA — The Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges (MACC) announced today that Gina Yarbrough is now serving as General Counsel for the Massachusetts Community College System. She is succeeding Kenneth A. Tashjy in the role who recently retired.
“Gina Yarbrough brings not only an extensive legal background to the role, but also has valuable experience serving both the Massachusetts Community Colleges in a previous position, and serving as counsel on a Massachusetts college campus,” said Mount Wachusett Community College President James Vander Hooven, who chaired the search committee for the General Counsel position. “This combination of a deep knowledge and understanding of Massachusetts Community Colleges and a campus-based experience gives her a unique perspective that will be very valuable to the colleges and the students we serve,” added Vander Hooven.
Yarbrough served as Associate General Counsel for the Massachusetts Community Colleges from 2005 to 2018, where she provided strategic and legal advice to Presidents, Boards of Trustees and senior administrators on a wide variety of higher education, labor, employment and student matters. Since 2018 she has served as General Counsel for Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt).
Yarbrough relishes the role of working again with her colleagues at the General Counsel’s Office providing system-wide legal services to the community colleges. “The fifteen-member community college system is the largest sector of public higher education in Massachusetts. We are able to pivot quickly to meet the needs of a diverse population of students as well as the workforce and community needs of the Commonwealth,” said Yarbrough. She looks forward to partnering with the community college presidents and members of the boards of trustees as they face an ever-changing educational landscape. “We all have gone through a very difficult year and a half, and I know we have a wide variety of unique challenges to face together,” said Yarbrough.
Prior to her work with the Massachusetts Community Colleges and MassArt, Yarbrough was Associate in the Education Law Group at Stoneman, Chandler & Miller LLP and Staff Attorney at Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee of the Supreme Judicial Court. She is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, past member of the boards of the Women’s Bar Foundation and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and previously chaired the Department of Mental Health Human Rights Committee and Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the Massachusetts Bar Association.
Yarbrough is a graduate of Boston College Law School and Emerson College.
MACC works on behalf of the Community College Presidents and their local Boards of Trustees to advocate, communicate, and collaborate in order to strengthen community colleges for the benefit of students, communities, and the Commonwealth. The 15 Massachusetts Community Colleges currently serve more than 136,000 students across every region of Massachusetts, representing nearly half of the total students in the state’s public higher education system.