President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
February 16, 2007
The legislature has convened and the pace at the System Office has picked up appreciably! I delayed my participation in the winter meeting of the NC Association of Community College Presidents so that I could attend the opening night reception for the General Assembly hosted by Senator Marc Basnight. It was good to see old friends return and to begin the process of meeting new members.
We have obtained an opinion from the Ethics Commission that Alice and I can continue to host small dinners for freshman Members. Those dinners will occur in early March.
As you know, we have pending with the Governor, and ultimately with the General Assembly, our most ambitious budget request ever. Your personal contacts with legislators will be critical to our success. Arm yourselves with information on our budget priorities and make it a personal commitment to call on at least five or six legislators about our needs.
Kennon Briggs, Suzanne Williams and I have already begun our meetings with legislators, starting with the Senate Appropriations leadership. Our presidents have done a good job of educating legislators in their home communities, which enables us to have very substantive discussions with Members having a base knowledge of our request from those local meetings.
Our BioNetwork continues to be a source of great pride to us, but more importantly, a significant factor in economic development and job creation in North Carolina. The week following the last State Board meeting, the BioNetwork team had a planning session at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill to evaluate what we are doing and to dream for the future. I helped to kickoff this effort.
In the past month I have personally been involved with several industry recruitments, something that Dr. Larry Keen and his staff do almost daily. It is heartening to know the importance that is attached to what we bring to the table in economic development by prospects and by the Department of Commerce.
Presidential retirements continue at a significant pace. Since your last meeting I have met with the trustees at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Surry Community College. In both cases we are losing excellent presidents who will be hard to replace with presidents of comparable quality.
Dr. Steve Thornburg and Cleveland Community College hosted an excellent Presidents Association winter meeting. In addition to excellent professional development sessions on a broad range of topics, your senior staff and I had significant roles at the meeting.
In late January, we hosted a meeting for allied health related associations to discuss our ambitious allied health budget request. We were very pleased that almost 75 associations were represented. We believe that there were significant commitments from those who attended to assist us in this effort.
Also at the end of January, the System Office hosted another American Red Cross blood drive which was very successful.
Ethics training has been delivered to many of our colleges using the Information Highway classrooms. Your senior staff and I have participated in these presentations which many of you received at our last State Board meeting.
This year the Emerging Issues Forum, a creation of Governor Jim Hunt hosted by North Carolina State University, focused on higher education. Phail Wynn, Scott Ralls, Erskine Bowles, and I had roles to play in the program. Very positive attention was focused on the role of community colleges in higher education for the future. Fred Williams, Larry Keen, Delores Parker, other staff members and a significant number of community college presidents participated in the Forum.
I met with representatives from the industry that provides care for persons with multiple disabilities, including developmental and physical disabilities, to discuss how community colleges might assist in preparing the workforce for that industry. Unfortunately, because of the challenges of working day in and day out with persons with multiple disabilities, turnover is high and training needs are great.
Karen Yerby, Sillar Smith, and I met with representatives of the North Carolina Youth Leadership Network with regard to their interest in declaring October as “Disability History and Awareness Month.” This organization is made up of young people with disabilities and their advocates.
Earlier this week, I traveled to Washington, DC, to participate in the Association of Community College Trustees and the American Association of Community Colleges Legislative Seminar. We were able to visit with a number of Members of our Congressional Delegation and their staff to talk about federal legislative priorities. I talked personally with Senator Richard Burr, Members of Congress (David Price, Brad Miller, Bob Etheridge, Mike McIntyre, Howard Coble, G.K. Butterfield, and Heath Shuler), staff members of other Members, and Members of Congress from other states with whom I served, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As she and I greeted, I kissed her on the cheek. I told her that that was the first time I had ever kissed the Speaker. Of course, at the top of the list of priorities discussed is a significant increase in Pell Grants to help stem the growing tide of debt that our students must incur to complete their education.
Kennon Briggs and his staff have been working with Jane Phillips and her staff in Personnel on the new payroll and personnel management system called BEACON. We will begin implementation in early 2008.
You have already received a report on the work of the Chief Financial Officer at Blue Ridge Community College and Kennon Briggs on the refund of state funds inappropriately spent on athletics.
Kennon has been asked to serve on the Health Benefits Collaboration Team which will include the State Health Plan Director, the State Medical Director, the State Personnel Director, and his peers from universities and public schools to look at ways to facilitate employees in the State Health Plan making healthier choices for their lives, and thus, reducing the expense to the State Health Plan.
We all celebrate with and congratulate Kennon and his staff for the spotless audit they received in the first “Fiscal Control Audit” our System Office has ever undergone. This audit examines not only internal controls and policies, but also fiscal relationships between the System Office and the 58 colleges. The entire staff is to be complimented.
Kennon’s division has lost two wonderful 30-year employees, Kim Pendergraft and Joy Wright.
After years of submitting grant proposals, Larry Keen’s division has finally obtained a $1.3 million grant from Homeland Security. Eighty percent of these funds will be spent for training and twenty percent will be spent for equipment to deliver the training.
Larry and his team continue to work closely with the Department of Public Instruction and the University System on a Golden L.E.A.F Entrepreneurialship grant that will enable a seamless educational pathway to entrepreneurialship beginning in the public schools and continuing into college and university programs.
Dr. George Millsaps attended the NC Motorsports Association Banquet at which Rowan-Cabarrus Community College’s Motorsports Management Technology program was honored as the top two-year motorsports education program in the state.
Larry’s division is leading the effort to develop a Continuity of Operations Plan that will direct how we do things in the case of a significant natural disaster or health pandemic.
Dr. Peggy Teague has led a group of our culinary faculty members in meetings with Johnson and Wales University to develop an articulation agreement which will allow our culinary graduates to obtain a bachelor’s degree at Johnson and Wales.
Work continues on our Curriculum Improvement Projects (CIP) in Nursing and Early Childhood Development. Charlotte Blackwell from Wake Technical Community College is directing the Nursing CIP and Sharon Davis from Forsyth Technical Community College is directing the Early Childhood Education CIP.
An Independent Colleges and Universities Transfer Advisory Committee has been created to allow closer cooperation and more effective communication between independent colleges and universities and our institutions with regard to the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, hosted a group of nineteen basic skills staff and instructors at a workshop designed to help these instructors incorporate Holocaust history and experiences into our Adult High School/GED/Adult Basic Skills curriculums. In a System which regrettably has so little professional development funding, this was a rich opportunity.
Dr. Delores Parker, Audrey Bailey, Keith Brown, Dr. John Pettitt, and Vonna Viglione represented our System at the Achieving the Dream Strategy Institute and State Policy Meeting in late January in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Phase 2C colleges continue to make good progress with the work required for them to go live with admissions and financial aid in late February through March. All are on schedule to complete their testing and data conversion in time to register students for the fall 2007 term during this spring and summer.
The CIS Release 18 migration project is moving from the “plan and design” phase to the “build and execute.” This custom software release system is being tested with considerable vendor and System Office staff resources.
The IT Project Office continues to provide excellent management for the overall CIS Project and for three other important System projects: the Learning Objects Repository, the Small Business Center Network, and Literacy programs.
Dr. Saundra Williams has been selected to participate in the first session of the Chief Information Officer Certification Program. Graduates of this program will receive the International Government Management Information Sciences Association’s newly created designation, Certified Government Chief Information Officer. We commend Dr. Williams for being selected and for seeking this certification.
Don’t forget to call your five or six legislators in support of our legislative agenda.
Last modified:
Friday, March 16, 2007 03:39:23 PM
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.