President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
March 15, 2002
It does not seem like a month since we last met and it has not been! With the late Joint Board Meeting and the early meeting this month, there have been only three weeks between that meeting and this. However, we have been busy during that time.
We all mourn the death of our former colleague and community college leader, Daryl Mitchell. A number of your staff attended services for Daryl on Monday. I was speaking to the Trustees during the services, but joined the family at graveside.
As a result of a chance placement at lunch at the Ambassador’s Residence in London during the last European industry hunting trip, I got to know Dr. Gerry McKenna, the Chief Executive Officer of Ulster University, in discussions over lunch. He was very impressed with the cooperation, collaboration and articulation between community colleges and universities in North Carolina. In England that relationship between colleges of further education (our equivalent) and universities is only now beginning. Out of that conversation has grown an expected exchange of university, colleges of further education, and community college leadership. Dr. William Watts, the Coordinator of the United Kingdom half of the exchange, was here immediately after our last meeting to begin the planning for the visit of 10-12 United Kingdom higher education leaders to this state. As soon as I have raised private funds to do so, we will be taking chancellors and community college presidents to the United Kingdom to complete the exchange.
The Department of Commerce sponsored a Workforce Development Summit in Greensboro that brought together business and industry leaders, community college presidents and other leaders, and members of the state Economic Development Board to explore the role of workforce development in economic development. Out of that summit came recommendations for Economic Development Board priorities and North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry (NCCBI) initiatives. By happy coincidence, Gordon Meyers is the chairman of both NCCBI and the Economic Development Board at the same time. Many of those recommendations center around the role of community colleges in economic development.
Our System has begun working with the Department of Health and Human Services on the training component of its bio-terrorism grant that it received from Washington.
We continue to work with interested stakeholders to build opposition to the Center for Nursing initiative to eliminate Practical Nurses, downgrade Associate Degree Nurses and significantly upgrade Bachelor of Science Nurses. An excellent meeting was held in our offices to plan the next step. Wednesday, we conducted a statewide videoconference with community college leaders to update them on the threat of these proposals to their programs and to solicit their assistance. Your continued involvement in this controversy will be appreciated.
You will recall our previous involvement with leaders from Thailand in the creation of a community college system for that country. The Kenan Institute Asia has embraced this initiative with significant funding. Officials of Kenan Institute Asia were in North Carolina last week for various purposes, but we met to discuss further a visit to Thailand by North Carolina community college leaders, including myself, which will take place with their funding in May.
It was my honor to represent the System, along with a number of community college presidents, at the recent installation of Chancellor William Muse at East Carolina University. He promises to be an excellent partner in providing higher education to the people of Eastern North Carolina.
The new Planning Council met Wednesday following a very successful use of the Internet to gather input into the planning process.
I hope that you enjoyed looking at the art in our building, which has recently been installed for the new year, and yesterday’s reception honoring the artists. More than 700 pieces were submitted for our consideration this year and 115 pieces were selected.
You have received a copy of a letter from President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and Speaker Jim Black with regard to including enrollment growth for universities and community colleges in the continuation budget instead of requiring that every year we fight for enrollment growth as an expansion budget item. This is good news for our System and as soon as a concrete proposal is made, I will discuss it with you further. After implementation, it will be good to not have to exert the major portion of our efforts just to make certain that our enrollment growth is funded. We will then be able to focus our legislative energies on high priority expansion items.
You have previously given approval at this meeting for Dr. Steve Scott to become President of Lenoir Community College. Steve has served this Board and the Community College System incredibly well for the last three years. His hard work and leadership will be sorely missed at this level as he takes his great abilities to Kinston and puts them to use for the people of Lenoir, Greene, and Jones Counties.
Steve is recognized nationally as a leader in workforce and economic development. He recently represented this System at the Jobs for the Future meeting in Washington, DC.
Congressman David Price is the father of the Advance Technology Education Program of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Delores Parker and her staff are working aggressively now to educate colleges on how they might access this funding stream for technology programs on their campuses. Eighty-two staff members from twenty-eight community colleges and the System Office participated in a workshop her division organized.
The new personnel in Basic Skills participated in an orientation session at the System Office the last week of February. Twenty-four new directors/coordinators from community colleges and community-based organizations attended the sessions.
I regret to inform you that Rick Kimrey, our Senior Regional Training Director, suffered a heart attack while at work last Friday. He is doing well at the cardiac unit at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.
Chuck Barham and Peggy Graham are intensifying our efforts on behalf of fire and rescue training across the state and recently held a series of four meetings to alert college leaders about recent updates and changes in certification requirements in fire and rescue training. Chuck also participated in the meeting of the Gateway Commission, a statewide group exploring the development of a North Carolina Fire Institute.
Successful collaborative meetings were held during the last month focused on our manufacturing and information technology training efforts. The Manufacturing Certification Advisory Committee met in Greensboro to review suggestions for revision of the Level I program and the implementation schedules for the new plastics and metals programs. On March 7, the Information Technology (IT) Training Collaborative Committee met at the System Office to hear from Dr. Paul Squires of the National Skills Standards Board with regard to our participation in the development of new IT standards. Subcommittees of the Committee reported on their work thus far.
The College Information System is at a critical point, including the additional training for Phase 2 colleges that was presented to you by Chairman Watkins. Everyone involved is working very hard to complete the conversion of student data that is required for the new System this spring and summer. At the same time they are planning and providing the training required for Phase 2A colleges to implement the financial system in July. We are all focused on keeping this project on track and under budget.
Dr. Saundra Williams and others are also working hard to ensure that our distance learning initiatives are not waylaid by deletion of Information Highway funding from this year’s budget. We would solicit your help with this as well. Please contact your legislator!
We are all concerned about and focused on the budget challenges we now face, but no one more than Kennon Briggs and his staff. How fortunate we are to have Kennon in this important position at this critical time in our history. We have been working on ways to cut the System Office and college budgets, and to develop realistic negative impacts which will result from each level of cuts proposed. Alice Smith, John Malia, and Larry Morgan have been especially helpful to Kennon in this effort.
Kim Van Metre on Kennon’s staff is writing new guidelines for implementation of Governmental Accounting Standards with regard to financial reporting. Annette Dishner completed the 2000-01 version of the "Annual Financial Report."
As I told the Trustees earlier this week, there has never been a more critical time in the history of community colleges than now. The cuts we have been asked to identify at their highest levels will be absolutely devastating to our System. Your help with the Governor and legislators is more important now than ever. Please make your concerns known to them all.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.