| The President’s Report |
| to the |
| State Board of Community Colleges |
| May 19, 2000 * |
I was very pleased to receive such positive reports from State Board Members and staff with regard to your meeting at Montgomery Community College while I was in Europe with the Governor. Not only did you enjoy incredible hospitality from President Mary Kirk, her staff and Board, and the people of Montgomery County, but you engaged in significant substantive discussions and made important decisions. I am sorry that I was not with you for this very good meeting. However, the Governor’s trip to Europe was a very successful one.
The Governor involved me in almost every visit he made as he sought to encourage new investment in North Carolina by companies already operating here or by companies looking to expand somewhere in the United States. A couple of our calls were to companies that already have a North Carolina presence and are considering expansion, but which were looking in other states for that expansion. We were pleased with the results of our meetings and believe significant announcements will be made in the coming months of new investments and new jobs and several of the companies which were looking elsewhere for a site, will now be looking at North Carolina sites. The Governor continues to tout the Community College System as our most significant incentive for a company to locate in North Carolina. Hearing his praise for our System always makes me feel good.
Much time has been spent since the last meeting working through the facilities needs process. The meetings convened by the North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry, which involved business leaders, leaders of the University System, and leaders of the Community College System went well and resulted in a package which has been largely adopted by the General Assembly. Though we pushed for $700 million, the $600 million that we will receive if the bond issue passes is double what was under consideration a year ago and more than we have ever received before for facilities all combined. We believe that we have made real progress in the previous year in justifying our needs and selling them to the powers that be. Your conversations with legislators at home were crucial to this educational process. This week the General Assembly has almost unanimously endorsed the bonds and next Thursday the Governor will sign the Bond Bill. Now our work is cut out for us between now and November. It will require significant effort from each of you in your communities and across the state in speaking one-on-one and in groups on behalf of our needs. I am excited about this opportunity and hope that you are, too.
I have spoken to the Rotary Clubs of Mount Airy and Asheville since our last meeting and have made our facility needs the focus of both of those speeches. While in Surry County, I met with Dr. Sells’ leadership team and several others from his faculty and staff to talk about what has happened in our System since my last visit to their campus and to respond specifically to the Facilities Needs Bond proposal. While in Asheville, Alice and I participated in the final exam dinner prepared by students in the culinary program at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. What an incredible experience that was! If you are every invited to this dinner by President Ray Bailey, by all means except. Those students really know their stuff!
I also attended the Facilities Needs Study Commission visit to Guilford County and specifically, to their visit to the Greensboro campus of Guilford Technical Community College. At each of these onsite visits, either one of your vice presidents or I have represented our System. At each of them our presidents have made outstanding presentations and we have enjoyed significant positive comments from Commission members and others.
Steve Scott and I have shared the responsibility of meeting with trustees in the final steps of their presidential selection and are happy that today you have approved three outstanding candidates for president at Randolph, Sampson and Southeastern Community Colleges.
The presidents’ and the trustees’ associations’ executive committees met in Raleigh at which staff made presentations. Alice and I entertained the Trustee Association Executive Committee at our home. A good time was had by all.
Janyth Fredrickson and I have continued our dialogue with various officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with regard to their policy of requiring community college transfer students to take the SAT as a part of the admissions process. We continue to strongly oppose that requirement as being inappropriate and believe that we are making some progress on the issue.
Our leadership team entertained their office assistants on Employee Appreciation Day. We enjoyed not only the barbecue, but an excellent program offered by Rebecca Brownlee, President of Power Steering Employee Performance Tools.
U.S. Senator John Edwards sponsored a forum on the use of telecommunications technologies in healthcare delivery and healthcare training. I spoke on the many ways that we use these technologies for training and reviewed our important role in the larger mission of preparing allied health professionals. The forum was well attended and my remarks were well received.
I met with Craig Souza who represents the nursing homes of North Carolina to discuss the crises that industry faces in recruiting and retaining certified nursing assistants. Since that time, we have continued our dialogue and have received very helpful information from presidents across the System which sheds light on the causes of this crisis. We will continue to work with Mr. Souza to address these issues.
Dr. Delores Parker and I met with Dr. Gretchen Bataille, the new Vice President for Academic Affairs at UNC-GA. We had a very productive meeting and have laid the ground work for a very positive relationship.
I enjoyed the visit of a long-time friend from the German Parliament, Dr. Eberhard Brecht, who was in North Carolina looking at workforce development issues, particularly as they relate to retraining traditional industrial workers for high tech jobs. He represents a district in the former East Germany that has seen most of its traditional industrial jobs disappear. They are eager to replace those jobs with higher paying jobs in high technology.
I met with the Executive Committee of the Sheriff’s Association to allay their continuing fears that we would again propose to charge law enforcement for their training. I have assured them that should that ever occur in the future, it will not be at our suggestion.
Steve Zelnak, the new Chairman of the Foundation, Greg Poole and I met to access where we are in our fund drive and to plan for the future. We are now over $3 million and with the requests outstanding, feel good about reaching our goal by the fall. In the furtherance of our campaign objectives, I met with Luther Hodges, Jr. with regard to a gift in honor of his father. An announcement will be made with regard to that gift in the not-to-distant future.
I participated in the North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry Legislative Day and was very pleased by the response of community college presidents. All of us were working the crowd aggressively on behalf of our facilities needs.
This is a happy time of the year for me, since I enjoy so much speaking at graduations and seeing the excitement on the face of every graduate and their family members. I have spoken at Southeastern, Wayne, Isothermal, South Piedmont, and Blue Ridge community colleges. All had impressive ceremonies. I am always struck by the varied programs each college offers and the obvious quality and pride of the graduating students.
At the South Piedmont graduation, I was honored to receive an honorary Associate’s Degree given expressly for my role in bringing the merger of Anson Community College and U-Tech to fruition. Of course, I was honored by this recognition, but clearly, this is an issue which involved incredible work and support on your part, plus the work of our staff and that legislative delegation. At a dinner following graduation, Senator Aaron Plyler was recognized for his contributions in making this happen. This is the first time I had met with the new trustees since the college was created. I had been impressed by their work from afar and was certainly impressed by my meeting with them.
While in Western North Carolina, I met with resource development officers from colleges in the west, one of several regional meetings of those officers. It is clear that we will never get from traditional funding sources all that we need, which makes the development of resources from other sources more and more important.
Earlier in the month, Alice and I participated in the Rodin Gala at the North Carolina Museum of Art. I commend this show to each of you and know that you will take pride, as I do, in the on-line course which was created by Sandhills Community College in support of this groundbreaking exhibit. We will continue to look for ways to cooperate with the Museum of Art.
This week I returned to McDowell Community College for the installation of Dr. Virginia Mitchell as their new president. It was an impressive ceremony and we all wish her well.
I have met with Mr. Farzam Kamalabadi and Chinese education officials to discuss their interest in our providing the expertise they need to create a community college-like program in two of their economic development zones which are growing so rapidly. They recognize the need for a level of higher education below the university level to train and retrain their workforce. I had met Mr. Kamalabadi when I was in China with the Governor last year. They are interested in exploring with us our development of a program for them and possibly providing rotating instructors from our programs and even contracting with us to provide administration of the program in China. I have explained to them that all of this would require full funding from non-North Carolina sources. They are confident that those funds will be made available. Since I will be with the Governor in Asia again in August and September, we will be discussing between now and then the possibility of my visiting one of these economic development zones for further discussions. This is an exciting opportunity that comes our way because of our national and international reputation.
Earlier this week I spoke at yet another retirement for Governor Bob Scott, this time from North Carolina State University. Your Chairman, Carolyn Harmon, and various System staff joined me in this tribute to a great leader.
Kennon Briggs and I have been in almost constant communication with Legislators, legislative staff and State Budget staff in recent weeks as the Legislature prepared to return and did return to town. We expect the pace of these meetings to accelerate and to involve many members of the System Office staff in the coming weeks.
Kennon’s staff has also been involved with year-end close-out preparations, HB 275 disbursements and data collection, filling vacant positions, financial aid planning, and numerous reports. Work continues on the evolution of the fifth floor conference room which will ultimately be a state-of-the-art conference room for the entire System. Speaking of state-of-the-art, we have just received our high-speed, digital Xerox copier that will take the place of an outdated printing press and will enable us to deliver quality documents in an environmentally safe manner.
The division held its annual Finance Conference in Greensboro at which 200 college business officials spent three days exchanging important information on the full range of our finances. Staff also participated in a regional business officers meeting at Carteret Community College.
Dr. Brenda Rogers and her staff continue to work to secure the remaining wireless communication licenses for our colleges in advance of the July deadline after which these licenses will be auctioned and out of the financial reach of our colleges. A new Wireless Communications Consortium Steering Committee has been set up and met this week.
The data warehouse project received high marks from an independent quality assurance review conducted by EDS, Inc., on behalf of the NC Information Resource Management Commission.
Of course, we are all excited that you approved today the contract for our new management information system. This may be the most important thing accomplished thus far in my tenure as your President.
The Library Resources section continues to implement the automated library system. Though there is some lag in the schedule, we believe that it will be fully functional by July 31. Six weeks of training on the new system began this week at three sites across the state.
The Planning and Research staff has produced its most recent edition of A Matter of Facts which you should have received in the mail.
We continue to experience difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified employees. To address that problem, our Personnel Services Director, Rosalyn Comfort, has recently participated in two job fairs. She reports that we had one of the busiest booths because of high interest in working for the Community College System. Now if we can just recruit some of those people to come to work for us at our ridiculously low salaries!
Congratulations are due to Dr. Scott Ralls on his recent election as Secretary/Treasurer of the National Association of Industry Specific Training Directors at their annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. He is now in line to assume the Presidency of the Association in 2002 at which time North Carolina will serve as host state for the annual conference.
Scott made presentations to Rocky Mount and Pitt County employers and participated with Governor Hunt in a presentation on North Carolina to business and site selection consultants in New York.
The Small Business Advisory Committee continued its practice of meeting over the Information Highway with this meeting being chaired by our new chairman, Scott Bauer. They adopted procedures for annually recognizing outstanding Small Business Centers.
The new Global TransPark Training and Education Center opened in May to which our Eastern Regional Customized Training Director, Tim Rhodes, relocated his office. He has already hosted a meeting of several eastern colleges at that facility to plan further development of the boat building component of the Manufacturing Certification Program.
Speaking of the Manufacturing Certification Program, the train-the-trainer session was presented at Catawba Valley Community College and enthusiastically received.
In the western area of the state, Scott’s division initiated the Economic Literacy training program being spearheaded by Haywood Community College and our Western Regional Training Director, Pat Freeman.
The HRD Institute was hosted here in Raleigh and attended by fifty-five individuals representing fifty colleges. The focus of this meeting was on the new HRD computer information system, the strategic plan, and course development. Barbara Boyce, our HRD Director, also made a presentation on the program this month to the Incumbent Worker Training Project.
The Continuing Education Peer Review Team is wrapping up its annual retreat today on the fifth floor.
Peggy Graham and Chuck Barham have worked with several industry groups lately, including Diamler Chrysler and the North Carolina Soft Drink Distributors, to coordinate training efforts involving multiple colleges.
Dr. Delores Parker has continued her team building efforts within her division with a follow-up to her very successful division retreat.
Dr. Randy Whitfield participated in the National Governors’ Association Roundtable on Expanding Postsecondary Opportunities for TANF Recipients and Low-Income Workers in Seattle, Washington.
In late April, representatives from twenty colleges met at Appalachian State University to share the latest information on Fast-Track Developmental Education activities. The Fast-Track conference a year ago led to North Carolina being recognized nationally and the results of this year’s meeting will be presented by Bob Allen and Edith Lang at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development meeting in Austin, Texas at the end of this month. This project was funded last year with State Board Reserve Funds to accelerate the progression of students through remedial courses.
Dr. Parker’s division was responsible for this year’s wonderful Academic Excellence Awards program. Once again, all fifty-nine colleges participated as we recognize two outstanding students from each institution. We regret that scheduling problems prevented many of you and many of our Legislators from participating.
In cooperation with the University of North Carolina, we have completed work on the revision to the student medical form which will be used by the two systems.
Bill Muench is providing leadership for the JobReady Leadership Summit which will be held in June in Pinehurst. This summit will be for key JobReady leaders throughout the state.
Meetings continue with the U.S. Navy on our articulation with them on five programs: Electronic Engineering, Electrician, Machinist, Information Technology, and Manufacturing/Industrial Maintenance. This is an exciting collaboration with the Navy which will give North Carolina enlistees a real boost.
Lenoir Community College is doing an excellent job with the North Carolina Motorcycle Safety Education Program, increasing the number of training sites and trained students over last year. They have proposed even more sites for next year.
Mike Pittman spoke at the Carolinas Associated General Contractors Building Division meeting on the accomplishments of the Construction Occupations Program. At that meeting, Mike received the CAGC Pinnacle Award for Service to the Construction Industry, the highest awards given to one outside the industry. You might also want to know that Mike has recently had a hip replacement, but is doing well. I know that he would appreciate your prayers for his speedy and successful recovery.
Dr. Parker’s division hosted with the Department of Public Instruction the Southern Methods of Administration Coordinators Workshop in Greensboro. This workshop is conducted by the Office of Civil rights of the U.S. Department of Education, and drew participants from thirteen southern states.
North Carolina has been selected to participate in an assessment of its vocational programs by the National Assessment of Vocational Education. Elizabeth Brown is representing our System in this effort. The other states involved are Florida and Texas.
Dr. Carolyn Girardeau attended the annual meeting of Proprietary School Regulators in Portland, Oregon. We are disturbed to learn that we are one of only six states not licensing short-term computer training firms, something we are incapable of doing with our meager resources. We live in constant fear that the public will be taken advantage of in this ever growing area and that we will not have protected their interest. However, receiving no funds whatsoever from the General Assembly to run our proprietary program, it is all we can do to simply respond to licensing requests and to deal with problems as they arise.
Dr. Parker, Dr. Girardeau, and Lin Frye have just completed three regional resource development workshops which were enthusiastically received. As I said, I attended the one at McDowell Technical Community College. These meetings were made possible with funds provided by a grant obtained by Dr. Parker from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
Dr. Parker represented our System at the 16th Annual Sprint Scholarship Program Luncheon hosted by Vance-Granville Community College. We are very appreciative of the $48,500 contribution to our scholarships by Sprint.
Dr. Steve Scott met with the new Vice Chancellor at UNC-Wilmington to discuss regional cooperation and joint efforts between community colleges in the UNC-Wilmington service area with regard to passage of the bond referendum.
In addition to graduation speeches at Cleveland and Piedmont Community Colleges, Dr. Scott represented our System at the Roundtable discussion with President Clinton when he was in Columbus County to advocate closing the digital divide between rural and urban communities. President Clinton visited Remote Data Systems, a company formed by a former Southeastern Community College instructor and which employs many community college engineering technology graduates. We are very pleased that the proposal for the President's visit at Southeastern was drafted by two community college employees and much of the local logistics were handled by our people.
As we gear up for one of the greatest efforts in the community college history, I thank you again for this opportunity and earnestly solicit your full and enthusiastic support for and participation in our efforts.
* The verbal report presented was a synopsis of the above. The Board also received the entire report as a written document.
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