Blue Mountain Community College has hired John Fields as the new vice president of instruction.
Fields, from Jacksonville, Fla., begins his new role on July 9. He replaces Mary Jeanne “MJ” Kuhar, who has held the position in an interim role since November 2016. Fields will oversee the Office of Instruction at BMCC, which manages all academic programming and faculty.
Fields spent 12 years as a French professor, seven of those as a tenured professor and four as chair of the Department of World Languages, at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He was most recently the Dean of the Department of Humanities at the same institution, where he also served as the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Chair of the Integrative Learning and Signature Works Committee and was a member of the Achieving the Dream Committee (BMCC is also an Achieving the Dream institution) and a member of the administrative bargaining team for interest-based collective bargaining.
“We’re excited to have John join our team,” said BMCC President Cam Preus. “He has strong leadership skills that will continue to help guide our academic programming and outstanding faculty in innovative ways that put our students first.”
Fields has both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree in French from the University of Florida, and also earned a law degree from the Rutgers School of Law. He has a passion for languages, and is fluent in French, proficient in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and a beginner in reading, writing and speaking Italian.
Fields has been active in his community as well. He served as an executive board member for the Jacksonville Sister Cities Association, and coordinated the National French Contest for the southern region of the American Association of Teachers of French. Fields also was active with the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, Florida Humanities Council, Wounded Warrior Project, and the Jacksonville Symphony. Fields also spent a year as a licensed mediator for New Jersey Superior Court.
