President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
March 14, 2008
With no regular meeting in February except for the Joint Board Meeting, it has been a long time since you met and since I reported to you.
Following the January State Board meeting, hundreds of state employees in the Capitol area complex met at First Baptist Church for the Martin Luther King Jr. services. Several of the System Office staff sang in the State Employees Choir. It was a very fine event.
The following week, the System Office had its regular American Red Cross blood drive which was coordinated by Richard Sullins and Mary Gardner.
Johnston Community College held their Business and Industry Awards breakfast in late January at which I spoke. They honored their hospital for the rich ways in which they collaborate in meeting the allied health workforce needs of the county.
Later that week, the NC Association of Community College Presidents had its spring meeting at Robeson Community College. A number of your System Office staff made presentations to the full association and to committees.
Monty Hickman organized an orientation for new Minority Male Mentoring coordinators here in the System Office at which I spoke.
Later that day, Willa Dickens, Scott Ralls and I went to Asheville for an Aerospace Forum organized by the Department of Commerce. This initiative is designed to increase the capacity of and interest in aviation related businesses in North Carolina.
On January 31 we celebrated the successful completion of the rollout of Release 18, the new software for CIS.
Later that day, Dr. Kay Albertson was installed as the new President of Wayne Community College. It was an impressive ceremony and reception.
As you know, we lost our BioNetwork public information officer, Norman Smit, to the new BioFuels Center of the NC Biotechnology Center. I met with him to say goodbye and with the new director of the Center, Dr. John Gangi.
The Barbecue Club (eastern community college presidents) held it regular meeting at Parkers in Wilson, NC, with significant attendance by retired presidents. It was good to see so many of them.
A number of you participated in the Joint Board Meeting at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill. All reports of this meeting indicated that it was a good meeting and that Scott Ralls did a magnificent job, as we all knew he would, in representing the System at this meeting. Before I knew the date of the Joint Board Meeting, I had already agreed to host an international dinner that night held in conjunction with the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. The National Prayer Breakfast was inspiring as always.
From Washington I flew to Hilton Head for a meeting of the Southern Region of the College Board where I gave the keynote speech the following morning. I was very pleased to receive the LeRoy W. Falls Award for my work with the College Board during my tenure as President. As you know, the College Board is the agency which does educational assessment testing (SAT, Accuplacer, CLEP, Advance Placement, etc.).
From Hilton Head, Alice and I drove back to Washington, DC, for the American Association of Community Colleges / American Association of Community College Trustees Legislative Summit.
Having to be in Washington for the Summit, I missed the Emerging Issues Forum where again, Scott Ralls acquitted himself magnificently from all reports. Twenty Small Business Center Directors participated along with presidents and System Office staff.
I returned from Washington to attend the farewell luncheon for David Sullivan. David is doing a great job at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Though we will miss David, we are very pleased to welcome Shanté Martin as the new General Counsel. She has hit the ground running.
I met with Beth Briggs and Betty Craver of the Warner Foundation to explore ways that that Foundation might become involved with community colleges in meeting the educational needs of the economically disadvantage population of North Carolina.
That afternoon I met with Denise Baker of Sandhills Community College and Tammy Fullerton of Northern Ireland to discuss the ongoing relationship between our System and theirs, and to discuss the art exhibit which resulted from Denise Baker’s faculty exchange in Northern Ireland. The art exhibit was on display for several months at Sandhills Community College and this fall will cross the Atlantic for a several-month period in Northern Ireland. There is interest in the exhibit traveling to the Continent of Europe.
That Saturday Delores Parker and I were on interview teams for the Teaching Fellows Scholarship Program.
I met with the BioNetwork Advisory Board to thank them for their hard work in the implementation of this initiative. As you know, our response to the workforce needs of the biotechnology industry is an international model of university, industry and community college collaboration.
From that meeting, I went to the Duke Energy Foundation Board meeting, which has funded a number of economic development initiatives at colleges in the Duke Energy service area.
That night I was a guest lecturer at a leadership class at East Carolina University (ECU) taught by Dr. David Batts. David is the professor at East Carolina responsible for the excellent program of collaboration and cooperation between our colleges and East Carolina in giving full college credit to applied science degree holders who wish to receive a technology degree from ECU.
I spoke at the academic forum at North Carolina State University on the education of undocumented immigrant students in the Community College System.
One of our largest NEIT projects for the financial services sector was Fidelity Investments. I represented the System at the reception welcoming the new executive of Fidelity assigned to the Triangle area.
The next day I participated in the installation of Chancellor Charlie Nelms at North Carolina Central University, speaking on behalf of the State Board and our System.
From Durham I drove directly to Wake Forest to attend the memorial services for Bill Steiner.
Renee Batts and I met with Dr. Greg Chadwick, the dean of the new dental school under development at East Carolina University (ECU). We are looking at ways that our dental hygiene programs can cooperate and collaborate with the clinical portion of the dental training at ECU.
The next morning I spoke at the entrepreneurialship conference in Greensboro organized by the NC Rural Center. Forty of our Small Business Center Directors participated in the event.
The next day I spoke at the Wake Education Partnership on global education issues and the role of community colleges in preparing a culturally diverse workforce for the global economy.
Later that day I departed for Australia at the invitation of the Australian State of Victoria. My equivalent in that state and the chief executive officer of Gordon Institute in Geelong heard me speak in Scotland several months ago and invited me to come to Australia to talk about economic and workforce development issues in general, but in particular about the biotechnology initiative which was developed in North Carolina in collaboration with universities and industry. I left on Wednesday afternoon, but did not arrive in Australia until Friday thanks to crossing the International Date Line and the many hours of travel required to get half way around the world. I was two days in Sidney, two days in Melbourne, and two days in Geelong. Except for the weekend in Sidney, which was personal time, every minute of every day was taken with presentations and meetings on those topics. One of the interesting visits was to a research laboratory in Geelong that is very similar to the laboratory being considered for construction in Granville County on a large site at Camp Butner. I stopped for 24 hours in Hong Kong in route home.
I returned directly from Hong Kong to Washington where 50 North Carolinians involved in the implementation of CIS met at the Datatel Users Conference. I am happy to report that Datatel presented our System the Partners in Excellence Award for the successful implementation of CIS and the rollout of Release 18. At the conference, Dr. Saundra Williams presented on critical lessons learned from our CIS implementation.
When I returned from Washington this week, I testified to the Education Oversight Committee on the “State of the System.” Erskine Bowles, Howard Lee, and Hope Williams made similar reports on their sectors.
In February, Antonio Jordan and counterparts from the University System, the New Schools Project, and the Department of Public Instruction presented to the Legislative Education Oversight Committee on “Learn and Earn Online.”
Dr. Delores Parker has been busy speaking since your last meeting, with a presentation at the Wake Education Partnership, the East Carolina University’s Board of Visitors Executive Committee, the Student Leadership Institute, and the Hunt Institute’s State Leaders Legislative Education Symposium.
The NC Association of Community College Instructional Administrators and the Student Development Administrators Association held their annual joint meeting in Asheville in early March with more than 175 participants. Dr. Judith Mann, Karen Yerby, Bob Witchger and Dr. Parker made presentations at the conference.
The annual College Tech Prep Conference was held in Greensboro with more than 600 in attendance. The conference brought together both secondary and community college personnel who work with Tech Prep programs. Thirty-five employers also participated in the conference. Receiving awards at the conference were Fayetteville Technical Community College, Brunswick Community College, Davidson County Community College, Central Piedmont Community College, Guilford Technical Community College, Catawba Valley Community College, Pitt Community College, and the College of The Albemarle.
Alice Smith, Bobbie Jo Moore, Helen McCrimmon, and Jane Phillips have worked diligently to implement the new statewide human resource and payroll system called Beacon. This system will go into effect in April.
Kennon Briggs and his staff put the final touches on the 2008-2009 Budget Request and submitted it to the Office of State Budget and Management. The presentation is now available on our Webpage. Budget meetings and hearings have already begun and will continue through April in preparation for the May legislative session.
Kim Van Metre has been designated as the Internal Control Officer for the System Office and sits on the State Controller’s Advisory Committee for Internal Controls.
Sharon Rosado was pleased to host with Vance Granville Community College the Higher Education Bond Oversight Committee on February 4.
The State Auditor’s Office has selected NCCCS, the Department of Human Resources and the Department of Revenue as sites for the first-ever Performance Management Audits.
Kennon and his staff participated in regional ACCBO meetings at Carteret, Catawba Valley and Wake Technical Community Colleges in February.
Dr. Saundra Williams, Keith Brown and his staff participated in the Community College Planning and Research Organization Conference in Carthage, NC.
Dr. Williams also spoke at the North Carolina American Association of Women in Community Colleges Annual Conference on “Collaboration: The Power of Two.”
Arthur Hohnsbehn has been selected to participate in the Chief Information Officer Certification Program which Dr. Williams completed last year.
Willa Dickens hosted 67 new college personnel working in the areas of economic and workforce development on their campuses.
Phil Sheridan was featured on a special report on the BioNetwork which appeared on NBC 17 focusing on the collaboration between Holly Springs High School, Wake Technical Community College and Novartis.
Thanks to the good work of Fred Williams, Dr. Judith Mann, Renee Batts and several of our presidents, the issue of faculty credentials for clinical faculty in our nursing programs has been resolved satisfactorily. Instead of going beyond the requirements of the National League of Nursing Accreditation Standards for Faculty, the State Board of Nursing has agreed to accept their standard as the standard for North Carolina. This allows case by case exceptions for clinical faculty based on their professional experience and other factors and does not require a master’s degree for all clinical faculty.
Fred Williams has been working with me to select two up-and-coming community college leaders as Dallas Herring Fellows to participate in the Future Presidents Institute which will be led by Dr. Donny Hunter this fall. I am happy to announce that every single one of the original two classes of Herring Fellows is now serving as a president somewhere, all but one of which are in North Carolina.
As we approach my last month in office, I am grateful for the support I have received from you, our System Office staff, and the colleges across the state. You have made this the happiest and most rewarding 11 years of my life!
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008 03:54:04 PM
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