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H. Martin
Lancaster, President Thank you. I am pleased and honored to be with you today. This is the second Instructors’ Conference held since I came to the Community College System in 1997. When I attended my first one, in 1998, I was simply amazed at the scale, energy and creativity packed into these few days in Greensboro. This return visit certainly reinforces those impressions. Thus I begin today with heartfelt thanks to everyone who has worked to make this conference possible…presenters, guests, and the tireless planning committee under the direction of System Office staff. A major part of my job as President is speaking to meetings like this. Lately, I’m usually speaking about the higher education bonds on the ballot November 7. While bonds are not, I promise, my principal topic this morning, I am going to start out talking about them. In my opinion, this vote will determine whether our destination twenty years out is still defined by economic prosperity, or whether we take a step back in our long history of leadership in support of educational and economic opportunity. On November 7th, the citizens of our State will decide whether or not to provide $600 million to upgrade the facilities at community colleges and $2.5 billion in construction, repair and renovation to North Carolina's public universities. Within the next 10 years, enrollment in our universities and community colleges is expected to grow by at least 100,000 students. Already, the lack of adequate facilities is closing the doors of educational opportunity in the faces of many North Carolinians. Many of our community colleges are bursting at the seams, with long waiting lists for classes due to lack of space. Some universities have already been forced to cap admissions due to lack of space. Today more than ever, with the emphasis on workforce skills, our State's prosperity is tightly linked to our community colleges and universities. Data show, and students of all ages have recognized, that economic progress in almost any field in the 21st century is dependent upon education beyond high school. In the words of Alexis Herman, the US Secretary of Labor, "We don’t have a worker shortage in this country, we have a skills shortage." We have a month to go before the bond vote. We must continue to do our best to educate our students, our neighbors, our friends and our colleagues about the bonds, and we must go to the polls on November 7th and vote. I want to express my personal gratitude for the wonderful work that you, the instructors, are doing on behalf of the bonds. I have read letters to the editors, opinion pieces and interviews you have done for the media. I have heard glowing reports of enthusiastic participation in voter registration drives, speakers’ bureaus and other efforts in your hometowns. Frankly, your voices are perhaps the most important voices to be heard because for our customers, our students, you ARE the community colleges of North Carolina. Buildings are important. But a college is, after all, a community of teachers and students, brought together for the excitement of learning. I know something about the dedication, skill and professionalism you bring to your task. Long before I ever thought of holding the office I do now, I was part of the community college family. My wife Alice taught at Isothermal Community College, at Wayne Community College and in community colleges in Northern Virginia. You and your essential roles in preparing the citizens of North Carolina to be major contributors in a global workforce are the main topics for our time together today. North Carolina’s community college system has an ambitious mission. We strive to train, and retrain the workforce; to provide support for economic development and to provide services to communities and individuals which improve quality of life. Without you, however, those words would be just that…words. Because of you, they are a daily reality for more than 750,000 people who come through our doors every year. And what a reality that is! Did you know that in the past few years, North Carolina has been ranked:
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- The number five state in the nation for biotechnology growth
- Number one in production of fiber optic cable, the ultimate infrastructure of the information highway
- And here’s one of which we should all be proud: for the past two years, the North Carolina Community College System has been ranked the number one worker training program in the nation for the past two years.
That means YOU and your counterparts in occupational extension are number one -- what you teach and how you teach it continue to bring our state national -- and even international -- praise. Last week, I was honored to be in Germany at the invitation of people who are overhauling the German approach to workforce training. They asked me because they knew that North Carolina’s community colleges provide one of the best models in the world. Every instructor in every program at every level in community colleges shares in that accomplishment.
However, you know as well as I do that accomplishments are a part of the past. We have come together this week to look to the future. Your conference theme puts that right out front.
"Technology and Learning" reminds us that the advent of computers and the Internet is changing everything we do so drastically that we must look forward every day, or we will very quickly be left behind.
A major challenge for you as instructors is maintaining the skills and knowledge base that you need to carry out this mission. The 2001-2003 Strategic Plan for the North Carolina Community College System recognizes this need to respond to change and places great emphasis on your professional development. Here’s what it says:
- Business and industrial education/training needs will require community colleges to develop short, focused, modular certification programs that lead to curriculum credit.
- Large percentages of adults in North Carolina are at a low level of literacy and, therefore, cannot function successfully in personal and/or work situations. Community colleges will need to assist these adults to become ready for work. Many of these adults will need "soft-skills" as well as literacy and technological skills.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY, to meet the needs of adults lacking literacy and technological skills, faculty and staff must be current with appropriate technologies. Professional development to prepare faculty and staff for the changing workplace and the diverse student population must continue to be provided.
In order for us to carry out our mission, we must offer state of the art training for our students. And we can’t do that unless we apply the same philosophy of training, retraining and lifelong learning to you, our faculty. You know the tired phrase about the cobbler’s children going barefoot? That must not happen to you, the faculty of our system, as we work so hard to serve the needs of our customers.
Noted educator John Cotton Dana wrote many years ago, "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." Surely that is even more true today, when genuinely new knowledge and genuinely new skills appear by the moment!
As a system and in each college, we must meet these challenges with increased money for professional development, with increased incentive for professional development, and with absolute commitment to knock down barriers to professional development. Otherwise, we simply will not be able to keep talented folks like you, and we will not be able to attract the best of the next generation.
This summer, Dr. Delores Parker and Bob Allen of the System Office convened a group to focus on professional development needs. That group did an excellent job distilling huge issues into specific recommendations that helped us make a compelling case for new money to the State Board.
The expansion budget approved last month by the State Board specifically requests almost one million dollars in new state funds each year for professional development for faculty and staff. Notice I said NEW state funds. We have not had an increase in professional development in fifteen years, and now is the time to invest more money and attention into good ideas that work.
For example, we know that Curriculum Improvement Projects – CIPS-- are terrific tools for improving our program offerings and providing exceptional professional development. Time after time, we see how CIPs engage and excite veteran faculty by providing them the time to work with colleagues in their disciplines, to think through best practices and to explore new methods.
This past year we have had a CIP in Paralegal Technology at Durham Tech and one in Agribusiness Technology at Wayne Community College. This year, the State Board Reserve is funding one at Guilford Tech in Industrial Maintenance Technology and another at Central Carolina in Accounting Technology. The State Board is steadfast in its advocacy of CIPs and, in fact, is pushing us to find more sources of funds for them. About a half million dollars of the expansion request going to the legislature in January is for CIPs.
If approved by the legislature, the new money will also help expand the existing Faculty Upgrade Program formerly known at Tier A. Other sources of professional development funds include federal money from Carl Perkins funds, which last year added up to $760,000 for faculty improvements. Baccalaureate completion programs help dozens of instructors attain necessary credentials.
Your own colleges do an exceptional job in securing money, increasingly through sophisticated fundraising by strong local foundations. Professional development is also a focus for the statewide foundation, which has put a priority on endowing our statewide leadership institutes. Your institutions nurture the partnerships with business and industry that keep our programs current. I urge every one of you, regardless of your academic discipline, to take advantage of those partnerships as you prepare your students for the workplace. Visit major employers; spend some time in the workplace; get your hands on the cutting-edge technology that dominates today’s offices as well as factory floors.
Those of you active in the professional associations tied to your disciplines also play important roles in professional development. I applaud the many years of hard work by those associations. Indeed, that hard work is a big part of the success of conferences like this one.
I applaud as well the efforts of the North Carolina Community College Faculty Association. In just two years, the Faculty Association has become a powerful voice for community colleges in the halls of the General Assembly.
I am not naïve about all this, however. I know there are barriers that may prevent you from participating in professional development. For example, the growth so evident across the state means that many of you carry heavy loads which leave you very little time to work on your professional development.
One of the nomination criteria for the Excellence in Teaching award that you as fellow teachers use to nominate individuals is classroom innovation in technology. I applaud, challenge and encourage presidents, administrators, faculty, and staff to commit to working with each other in developing a culture that encourages and rewards professional development.
I also understand that investing personal time and energy in professional development may be a tough choice, when many of you wonder why you’re sticking with this profession anyway -- at least when you get your paychecks. You are community college instructors for many reasons…but somehow I doubt that the pay is at the top of the list. Despite the raises of recent years, the North Carolina Community College System ranks near the bottom in faculty salaries by any measure. Nationally, we’re 48th. In the Southeast, we’re last….and being last is worse this year than last year, because we’re now 16th instead of 15th. Delaware joined our region, and they pay better than we do!
Nobody is happy about this…repeat, NOBODY is happy about this. Right at the top of the expansion budget is money to help us catch up, so we have a prayer of keeping you on the job and attracting talented new folks. We are also in the midst of a comprehensive study on salaries and benefits. This study will be used to document to legislators the need to bring our salaries and benefits up to the national average. Will we succeed? I can tell you that we…and you…are being heard. At recent legislative meetings, more than one legislative leader has hinted strongly at a commitment to make a big investment in moving your pay up the scale. This is the kind of energy it took to boost public school salaries during the past several years, and now we are beginning to capture it as well.
I am optimistic about our changes for more progress because the community college family is now tackling our challenges together. The State Board, System Office staff, local trustees, presidents, administrators, faculty, staff and students now understand the wisdom and the effectiveness of a united front. No, we don’t and won’t agree on everything. Yes, we will always face tough challenges in sorting out what to ask for when. And yes, we will always have a complex financial system, difficult for those of us on the inside to comprehend and even more difficult for us to explain to legislators, county commissioners and voters. Funding formulas, FTEs, space allocations and categorical programs make for a dense thicket of information.
North Carolina’s community college system is a powerful partnership built on loose state oversight and strong local authority. Your local presidents and trustees have tremendous flexibility in deciding how to use the state money that comes to the colleges. This local control is a great strength to institutions charged first and foremost with service to local communities. It does, however, mean that you need to understand how decisions are made on your home campus as well as in the legislature. I urge you to include learning about those decisions in your personal professional development plan.
I leave you today with a thought from one of the great thinkers of the past century, Margaret Mead. Reflecting on education, the anthropologist said: "We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet."
I am privileged to be your partner and supporter as you prepare our students for a future that promises to be even better than the present we know so well. Thank you…
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