Currently the longest-serving college president in New Jersey, A. Zachary Yamba is widely credited with transforming Essex County College (ECC) into the vibrant and progressive institution that today enrolls more than 20,000 students. Yamba joined ECC when it opened in 1968, serving first as a faculty member in its Humanities Division and then as Dean of Faculty. He was named interim president in May 1980 and was formally appointed president in February 1981. Within a year of his appointment, the college was awarded full reaccreditation for a ten-year period, a status that was again reaffirmed in 1991 and 2001.  Yamba reorganized the college, mandated academic standards and tightened fiscal controls. He also engaged faculty in early efforts to upgrade the core curriculum, revitalize programming, and establish a successful developmental education component that would become a national model.

Under his leadership, ECC has experienced unprecedented stability and growth. Campus expansion in Newark has seen the addition of a Gymnasium/Child Development Center complex, a Center for Technology, the Clara E. Dasher Student Center, a Center for Health Sciences, and an eight-story parking deck. The college also expanded its outreach through the development of a thriving branch campus in West Caldwell, enhanced satellite operations at both the Ironbound and FOCUS community centers in Newark, and assumed control of the Essex County Police Academy in Cedar Grove. Yamba spearheaded the creation of the Africana Institute and the Urban Issues Institute, both of which offer a host of educational resources and community forums. He also campaigned for the upgrade of college facilities, including the expansion of classroom and laboratory space, the transformation of a former auditorium into the Mary Burch Theater for the Performing Arts, and major renovations to the college’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Library.

Yamba was one of the early founders of a partnership that has enabled ECC and neighboring NJIT, Rutgers-Newark and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to collaborate on numerous collegiate and community initiatives in the city’s University Heights district. His advocacy of excellence and opportunity in higher education includes more than a decade of service as a commissioner of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. He is also a founding member of the Presidents’ Round Table, an affiliate of the National Council on Black American Affairs of the American Association of Community Colleges. His numerous community affiliations include serving on the boards of the Victoria Foundation, Newark Downtown Core Redevelopment Corporation, Christ the King Prep School in Newark, Two Hundred Club of Essex County, and the American Conference on Diversity. He is a 2008 inductee into the Newark Athletic Hall of Fame.

Yamba holds the title of Regent Emeritus on the Board of Regents of Seton Hall University, his alma mater, which has also inducted him into its Athletic Hall of Fame and awarded him an honorary degree. He also holds honorary degrees from Rutgers University and the University for Development Studies in Ghana.