President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
January 18, 2008
It has been a long time since you met in November and had the wonderful Day of Recognition Awards Luncheon. In some ways it seems like an eternity, but in other ways the time has flown by. I trust that each of you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends.
Kennon Briggs, Delores Parker, Judith Mann, and I met with officials at the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at Chapel Hill to finalize the details of their study of our allied health programs to evaluate their quality and to suggest ways in which we might better serve North Carolina in this critical area. The study is underway and hopefully will be completed in time to assist us in our legislative efforts on behalf of allied health programs in the short session.
State Superintendent of Public Instructions June Atkinson and I were a part of the program in Greensboro on School Readiness sponsored by the Guilford Education Alliance.
Your senior staff and the senior staff of UNC General Administration held their regular meeting to discuss how our two systems can work more closely together shortly before Thanksgiving. These meetings have proven to be of great benefit to creating a closer working relationship and to eliminating barriers to seamlessness. Speaking of which, the UNC System will host the Joint Board meeting in February and the topic will be seamlessness of education from pre-kindergarten through the Ph.D. Your participation in these discussions of how to enhance this seamlessness and remove all remaining barriers will be much appreciated.
When we returned from Thanksgiving, I spoke at the annual Focused Industry Training Conference at Sandhills Community College and that evening participated in the North Carolina Awards reception and dinner.
I met with the Central Carolina Community College Trustees to begin their search process for a new president.
The next morning I presided at the installation of Dr. Larry Keen as President of Fayetteville Technical Community College. It was a wonderful ceremony with Larry giving an eloquent speech setting forth his vision for the future of that already fine institution.
The Citizens Solider Support Advisory Committee on which I sit continues to meet with regard to programs that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was funded to provide for the families of deployed National Guard and military reserve personnel.
Of course, one of the most momentous events in the history of our System was your meeting on December 6 to choose new leadership for at least the next decade. The response from within and without our System to Dr. Scott Ralls as my successor has been incredibly positive. Your staff and I have been working with Scott since that time to smooth the transition and fully prepare him for these new responsibilities.
Dr. Saundra Williams graduated in early December from the Chief Information Officers School conducted by the Institute of Government at the School of Government at Chapel Hill. I was pleased to be able to be present for the ceremonies.
I continue to work with the Public School Forum as a member of its board which met in early December.
We recently received our plaques from the State Employees Combined Campaign in recognition of our contributions for the past two previous years. You know from previous comments how generous your staff is. In 2005, we won the Chairman’s Award of Merit for the highest Per Capita giving amount for an agency of 101-250 and the Chairman’s Achievement Award for the highest average gift, and in 2006, we won the Chairman’s Award of Merit for the highest Per Capita giving.
Fred Williams and I participated in the dedication of the new North Campus of Wake Technical Community College. As you may remember, we believe this to be the first “green campus” of any community college in the country.
There were many holiday parties in and out of our building, culminating in the Christmas Luncheon for the entire staff. The committee did a great job in organizing it and everyone had a wonderful time. Fortunately retirees are invited back for this party, as I’ll look forward to this party every year!
You have heard before about the faculty exchange between Denise Baker of Sandhills Community College and a faculty counterpart in Northern Ireland. Out of that exchange grew an incredible exhibit of postcards which crossed the Atlantic in both directions during that exchange. Denise has now organized those into an art and cultural exhibit which Chancy Kapp and I visited at Sandhills. We had the good fortune to time our visit to coincide with the Sandhills Holiday Luncheon and a good time was had by all.
Much of the time between Christmas and New Years was spent in my selecting the art for my last art exhibit. When you return for the March State Board meeting I think you will be impressed, as always, by the quality and variety of the 2008 exhibit.
During the second week of January I gave the keynote address at the Community College Council of Jamaica annual professional development conference. The focus of the conference and of my remarks was on distance education. In addition to the keynote address, I did a concurrent workshop session on that topic and met for lunch with the presidents of the seven colleges. Though there are only seven colleges, more than 350 participants attended. Presenters were there from Canada, England, Guatemala, and South Africa. There is a great desire on the part of these colleges to have a sister-college relationship with a North Carolina college. Nash Community College and Moneague Community College already have that relationship. The two colleges are working on a collaborative online program which is very exciting.
Earlier this week, the North Carolina Biotechnology Board met and in addition to regular business, it reviewed a strategies document prepared by the staff. Norris Tolson is doing a great job as Chief Executive Officer of the NC Biotechnology Center.
That night I went to Craven Community to kick off its presidential search. Their Board of Trustees is as sad to lose Scott Ralls as you are glad to have him coming here!
The meeting was held on January 8 to coordinate the creation of the North Carolina Biodiesel Association. Our BioBusiness Center spearheaded this effort.
Our Vice President Willa Dickens attended the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship Conference in San Antonio January 6-9 for me. The conference focused on ways to enhance entrepreneurial leadership, business education, and business incubation programs. Willa brought back this piece of wisdom: “What is happening in our world today related to globalization is as significant as the Industrial Revolution times ten.”
We are sorry to have lost Norman Smit, our BioNetwork Marketing and Recruitment Director, to the BioFuel Center of North Carolina in Oxford. This is a wonderful opportunity for Norman, but he will be greatly missed as he was instrumental in branding and marketing BioNetwork here and across the country.
We are approaching full staffing of our Regional Training Directors with Betty Silver joining us for the Western Region and Lynn Creech joining us for the Northeaster Region. Interviews are underway for the Southeastern position.
Dr. Delores Parker and her staff conducted the annual orientation for new chief academic officers and student development administrators November 28-29 at the System Office. Over 70 new leaders participated.
Erin Speer Smith, our new coordinator for Early Childhood and Public Service Technologies, was honored on December 13 as Johnston Community College’s 2007 Excellence in Teaching Award recipient.
Dr. Parker substituted for me at the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy Conference in Pinehurst in December. She spoke on effective alternatives to reconnect dropouts.
Kennon and his staff are busy with various studies, including the allied health study already mentioned, the Long-Range Planning and Master Facilities Planning Process, the Funding Formula Study and the challenges of funding the community college presence on the North Carolina Research Campus at Kannapolis.
Kennon has presented at the Joint Education Oversight Committee on technical and vocational funding with Gordon Burns and Scott Ralls, and to the Joint Committee on Government Operations about the establishment of CIS positions.
We are about to lose all of our parking across the street as the new building for the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources is about to be constructed on that site. Kennon has been working with the Department of Administration on parking relocation for our employees.
Kennon and Fred have worked diligently to obtain additional salary equity funding from the Office of State Budget and Management, something that they have done now for several years. This is helping our rank and file employees, but doing nothing for our professional staff. This will be one of the most significant challenges the State Board and President Ralls will have in the future. We are quickly losing some of our best people to the colleges because they are much better able to pay competitive salaries than we are.
Kennon is already hard at work on developing our budget request for the short session and seeking consensus with presidents and trustees.
We are pleased to announce that the CIS implementation has now been completed and we have moved from implementation to the operations phase of that project. Release 18 Migration will be completed by the end of the month.
Dr. Betty Adams has been hard at work with our colleges as they do their Long Range Plans as a part of the facilities master planning process.
Dr. Saundra Williams participated in the General Hugh Shelton Leadership Forum as a panel respondent to Chancellor Kenneth Peacock’s presentation. She also attended the Chief Information Officer Forum, an executive information technology summit.
Fred Williams often participates in trustee retreats, most recently at Beaufort County Community College. Fred also participated in Alamance Community College’s special program highlighting the relationship between the college and its business and health partners in the region.
As you can see, no grass is growing under our feet as we head towards the hand-off on May 1.
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