Genesee Community College
Candice Vacin is President of the SUNY Faculty Council of Community Colleges (FCCC) and a member of the SUNY Board of Trustees. She is also a professor of psychology at SUNY Genesee Community College, where she has served on the faculty since 2007 and has been an active shared-governance leader as an academic senate senator, committee chair (Curriculum and Educational Initiatives), and executive committee member.
Vacin brings more than a decade of Faculty Council service, including roles as alternate delegate and delegate for SUNY Genesee, executive committee member, secretary and chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. She has also served as a liaison for system-wide initiatives, including the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice (DEISJ) Fellowship workgroup, the DEISJ General Education Advisory Committee and the SUNY "Ban the Box" workgroup. Vacin was elected FCCC president in April 2024 and appointed to the SUNY Board of Trustees effective July 1, 2024.
During her first year as FCCC President, Vacin visited all 30 SUNY community colleges to support campuses in implementing shared governance excellence. She regularly partners with campuses welcoming new presidents, chief academic officers and campus governance leaders to establish an early line of connection to the FCCC and provide onboarding focused on the principles of shared governance excellence through brief presentations, facilitated dialogue and Q & A, and she contributes to panels and discussion-based sessions with statewide groups including the SUNY Student Assembly; the CUNY and SUNY University Faculty Senate; the New York Community College Association of Presidents; the SUNY Association of Chief Academic Officers; the NYS Community College Leadership Academy, the SUNY LEADS Institute and SUNY Academic Affairs Fellows. In partnership with SUNY University Faculty Senate President Bruce Simon, she co-leads the ongoing "Realizing the Promise of Public Good U" statewide tour, which advances shared governance education and highlights SUNY system initiatives. Vacin serves on system-wide bodies including the Chancellor's Working Group on Faculty and Staff Wellbeing and Development and the Transfer Advisory Council, and annually convenes FCCC plenaries, committee meetings and governance trainings.
A SUNY triple-graduate, Vacin earned an associate degree from SUNY Niagara, a baccalaureate degree from SUNY Geneseo, and a master's degree from the University at Buffalo. As an undergraduate psychology major, she assisted with research conducted by scientists at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology and SUNY Geneseo's Department of Psychology. She later contributed to behavioral neuroscience research at SUNY Buffalo, investigated rodent models of sexual behavior, maternal behavior, and nociception. Her professional experience also includes work as a research affiliate in the Department of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, service in New York State politics and government, and even a stint in stand-up comedy.
Vacin has taught psychology across diverse settings, including adjunct appointments at the University at Buffalo, Niagara University, and SUNY Niagara, as well as teaching justice-impacted students through SUNY Genesee and the University of Rochester's Rochester Education Justice Initiative (REJI). Her course experience spans the psychology curriculum from Introduction to Psychology to Biological Psychology and Behavioral Statistics. Her work with justice-impacted learners inspired the creation of the Information Literacy Lab, a pre-release program designed to strengthen cognitive skills and social competence through evidence-based scientific research and practice.
Vacin is the author of numerous conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications and has received the College Consortium of International Studies Scholarship, the SUNY Geneseo Department of Psychology Senior Award for Research, and the 2017–2018 SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Beyond teaching and governance, Vacin is committed to student mentorship. As faculty advisor to the Gay–Straight Alliance (GSA), one of her proudest accomplishments was a semester-long antibullying collaboration with Christian Students United (CSU), an initiative that modeled civic engagement and demonstrated what is possible when civil discourse is used to pursue shared goals.
Outside of work, Vacin enjoys playing the drums, rock-paper-scissors competitions, traveling, and living an authentic life with her wife Sara and their two Miniature Pinschers, Dr. Fauci and Fiona.