President’s Report
To the
State Board of Community Colleges
March 19, 2004
This has been an incredibly busy month for your entire System Office staff. The roll out of the BioNetwork, several legislative appearances, continuing work on budget matters, significant travel, and many meetings and appointments, kept us all busy and here many nights until very late.
The growth in enrollments and program approvals to address that enrollment growth, have pushed your System Office staff to the limit. As I told legislators last week, enrollment growth of almost a third on our campuses increased the workload of your System Office proportionately at a time when your System Office staffing went down by more than 10 percent in numbers and we suffered more than $1 million in cuts. I frankly do not know how much longer we can continue to function at this level. I once again implore you to meet one on one with any legislator whom you know and describe the weary looks that you are seeing on the faces of our staff and ask for some help for us. It has been especially difficult and frustrating for us to prepare scenarios for the State Budget Office of how we would cut an additional 1, 2, and 3 percent from our budget and from the budgets of the colleges given the workload we and they face.
Dr. Delores Parker and I participated in a luncheon and press conference at East Carolina University to announce the Wachovia Partnership East. This is another exciting program of degree completion in teacher preparation that will create regional hubs to deliver the last two years of a teacher education degree on community college campuses. Those programs are either underway or in the planning stage for Craven Community College, Edgecombe Community College, Wayne Community College, and perhaps the Manteo Campus of the College of The Albemarle, the latter being in partnership with Elizabeth City State University. At that press conference Wachovia announced a $1 million gift in support of this partnership and to assist prospective teachers in Eastern North Carolina in their educational journey.
Lynda McCulloch and I attended a conference on the role of community colleges and teacher preparation hosted by the League for Innovation in San Francisco. We brought back from that meeting many good ideas, but also came back confirmed in the belief that North Carolina is already doing some exciting things in this important endeavor that other states could emulate.
We are pleased to announce that a grant has been received from USAID to provide trustee training for the new boards of trustees of the community colleges that have been created in Thailand as a result of the East-West Community College Consortium of which we have been an important part. The grant was awarded in the name of Johnston Community College since system offices may not apply. We sincerely appreciate the cooperation, support, and participation of Dr. Don Reichard and his staff in securing this grant and look forward to their help in its implementation.
The very night we confirmed the award of this grant, Johnston Community College hosted Russian higher education leaders who were in North Carolina as the result of work of Dr. Darryl McGraw in e-learning and e-libraries in Russia.
Governor Jim Hunt and President Molly Broad co-chaired a Cluster of Innovation Task Force for the Research Triangle Partnership on which I sat. The Task Force made its report and identified particular clusters of innovation which they want to encourage in the Research Triangle Partnership, including biotechnology, information technology, automotive components, etc. Community colleges will play an important role in workforce development in this initiative.
In recognition and support of the important partnership between the Community College System and UNC-TV which you saw clearly demonstrated at our last meeting, Chancy Kapp, Audrey Bailey, and I have appeared on television in the annual fund raising Festival and members of your staff have volunteered to answer telephones. Several colleges have also volunteered for phone duty.
Larry Keen and I participated in an important grand opening of a major economic development in New Bern, the BSH Home Appliance manufacturing facility. The facility will employ more than 1500 people and has already spawned two additional industries in the region which will manufacture component parts for these home appliances. We anticipate the announcement of additional component manufacturers in the future. This main plant and the component manufacturers are from Germany and I have participated in their recruitment when I have been in Europe on industry hunting trips.
Kristine Leggett, Kennon Briggs, Fred Williams and I met to review the important work that Kennon, Kristine and Keith Brown have been doing in developing a plan to address faculty and professional salaries in an incremental fashion. I am excited about the good work they have done and hope that this will form a firm foundation for moving forward.
Last week our new director of the BioNetwork, Susan Seymour, organized with much staff and industry participation, the BioNetwork Forum at the Biotechnology Center, unveiling the details of the BioNetwork Initiative, including the Competitiveness Centers and the Grants for Innovation and Equipment. Just this past Monday as a continuation of that announcement, Susan and other staff met with resource developers from the various colleges to assist them in preparing responses to the RFPs issued on Friday. In addition to these important meetings, we are pleased that we are well on the way to having this small system office staff in place as we move forward towards a May approval of the Centers and the Grants.
You may recall that a year ago the Education Ball, hosted by and for the benefit of North Carolina Communities in Schools, focused its attention on celebrating education in K-12. This year CIS will broaden the celebration to include community colleges and universities along with K-12. The honorary co-chairs of the Ball will be Mike Ward, Molly Broad and me. I met last week with the staff of CIS to continue the planning for this Ball which will occur on June 12 at the RBC Center. I hope that some of you will be able to participate.
This past Monday, Senator Elizabeth Dole appeared at a community college event at Catawba Valley Community College to which Audrey Bailey and I went. Community college leaders from around the region participated. We are pleased by the enthusiastic support of community colleges by Senator Dole and we look forward to working with her on community college issues in the future.
On Tuesday I spoke to more than 800 participants at the Tech Prep Conference in Greensboro. As you know Tech Prep is a collaborative program between community colleges and public high schools, which encourages students to begin their technical and vocational education in high school in ways that lead to a technical degree at a community college following their graduation.
The annual meeting of North Carolina Citizens for Business & Industry was earlier this week and as always, was well attended. We had a booth at the meeting that made it possible for us to do significant networking with our business partners from across the state.
Chancy Kapp, Peggy Beach, Audrey Bailey, and I have been working for several weeks in choosing, receiving, and hanging this year’s art which you saw for the first time at yesterday’s reception. We had a record number of submissions this year (more than a thousand) and about 140 pieces were chosen. I think you will agree with me that some of the best work we have had is in this year’s show and these pieces certainly enliven our work environment.
Among the meetings that I have attended this month are the E-Government Committee of IRMC, the Massage Therapy Board Meeting at which I testified against the proposed new fees, with Linda Hayes and the Governor’s Crime Commission on our role in Homeland Security training, with Johnston Community College leadership and its lobbyist on the Biotechnology Initiative, the Economic Development Board meeting in Charlotte, the Centennial Planning Committee for the centennial of Duke Power, the leadership of the North Carolina Bankers Association to discuss creative ways to finance college facilities and training opportunities, the North Carolina Community College Trustees Law Seminar, and a regional economic development session hosted by the NC Department of Commerce. I have also met with Representative Alice Bordsen in her ongoing effort to become educated in our issues, with Representative Wilma Sherrill on the Business Licensing Information Office transfer, with Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue on the CIS implementation, and with Senator A.B. Swindell on general community college issues given his new role as Senate Education Appropriations Committee Chair and Education Oversight Committee Chair.
Herb Watkins, Saundra Williams and Kennon Briggs have worked extremely hard and effectively with our stakeholders and vendor partners on the CIS contract extension and we anticipate the conclusion of that extension at your April meeting. Though these negotiations have been difficult, we believe that what has been tentatively agreed to will position us to successfully complete implementation on time and on budget. The cash reporting fix continues to be on schedule for a July implementation at the Phase 1 colleges. Additional training and implementation continues with the other phases.
Dr. Bill Randall and Dr. Saundra Williams attended the Distance Learning Alliance Conference this week at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
Keith Brown and others of his staff attended the Community College Planning and Research Organization Conference at Sea Trail.
Alice Smith continues to provide excellent assistance to our entire office on external grants such as the Latino Initiative, the BioNetwork Initiative, CAREER Start, and Homeland Security.
Larry Morgan has conducted two regional finance workshops in the east and central regions of the state for Business Officers and has finalized the planning for the Spring Finance Conference.
Phil Albano made the quarterly report to the Higher Education Bond Oversight Committee on our bond expenditures, HUB reporting, and cash management.
In addition to the incredible demands on the personal time of Kennon Briggs in working with the Budget Office, the Governor’s Office and the legislature on budget adjustments, he presented a leadership program at Forsyth Technical Community College.
You know how proud I have been of the System Office staff for its generous contribution to the State Employees Combined Campaign. I am pleased to announce that in the coming campaign state employees will be able to designate their gifts to four community college foundations.
The Latino Initiative is well underway with the second meeting of the Advisory Board having been held. Members of Dr. Parker’s staff facilitated an orientation session for the Advisory Board and Audrey Bailey facilitated a strategic planning process. The group choose to focus on three areas: polices, curriculum, and marketing.
Sillar Smith will present at Florida’s 2004 Adults with Disabilities Symposium with representatives from Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, Wilkes Community College and Randolph Community College assisting in the presentation. The presentation will focus on the Compensatory Education Program Special Projects funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Economic and Workforce Development Division held its orientation during the week of February 16 at which over 50 new employees from across the state attended a 3-day training session.
That division continues to work an unusually large number of New and Expanding Industry projects across the state. These efforts to create new jobs could not come at better time for our state.
Please commit yourself to talk to at least three legislators before our next meeting. This is a crucial time for your System. I’ll be out there with you in this effort.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.