President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
June 15, 2001
What a hectic four weeks it has been since we last met. Of course, that is always the situation as the Legislature reaches the end of their session. All of us, but especially Kennon Briggs, Steve Scott, Suzanne Williams, Paul Pulley and I have been in a constant tizzy responding to legislative concerns and lobbying hard for passage of substantive bills before the General Assembly and for a larger appropriation for our operations for the next biennium.
When we last met we were facing cuts of up to $40 million, a devastating sum. We are happy to report that the Senate approved an appropriation bill that cuts approximately $5 million. The progress we have made has been at the expense of a dramatic increase in tuition and smaller cuts in various programs.
We are pleased to report that in the Senate bill our enrollment growth has been fully covered and no cuts were experienced in our formula funding. If this is supported by the House, we should not experience a reduction in instructional staffing or classes offered. Our greatest disappointment is that the only salary increase proposed for our employees is $650 per employee without regard to salary. Of course, we do not know what other legislatures will do with salary increases for their community college personnel, but I am willing to bet money that this small increase will result in our falling to last place in the country, not just last place in the south in the salaries we pay our instructors and professional staff. I hope that you will exercise your good influence over members of the House and ultimately, over members of the Senate, to address this serious matter.
Practically all of our substantive legislation has been passed or is in a position to be passed soon. We do not anticipate problems with passage, though modifications have been necessary to address concerns of others or to avoid an all out war over provisions. The latter situation existed with our request to allow community colleges to provide information technology services for economic development in our communities as an exemption from the Umstead Act. A stable of lobbyists was arrayed against us by the telecommunications industry. Rather than lose the other excellent provisions in the Umstead Act exemption legislation, we have requested that the information technology section be removed.
In a related matter, Kennon Briggs, Phil Albano and I met with the Black Caucus of the General Assembly to discuss their concern about contracts with minority businesses for goods and services and contracts for bond construction. We have a poor record of contracts with minority businesses for goods and services which we will do our best to address. We hope that with regard to construction contracts, this pattern of poor performance will not be repeated. You have been requested at today’s meeting to endorse commitments which I made to the Black Caucus to address this concern.
I have also met with Admiral Paul Busick of the Global TransPark with regard to legislative interest in the Technology Center which was built at the TransPark in support of regional community college technical training. We believe that the matter has been resolved in the legislature, but we are monitoring the situation closely and working with Admiral Busick.
President Tony Zeiss of Central Piedmont Community College joined Kennon Briggs and me in a very high level meeting with Speaker Jim Black and other House leaders to express our concern with regard to the Senate budget. Kennon and I have also met with the House Appropriations Co-Chairs collectively and individually. I have also met with a large number of legislators individually to express concerns and to respond to theirs. We have been blessed to have tremendous support for our efforts by presidents, trustees, faculty members and professional staff. I hope that you have been making your contacts as well.
Our Legislative Strategy Committee continues to meet monthly and met earlier this week to review where we are and what we need to do in the concluding weeks of the session. This committee made up of representatives from the State Board, presidents, trustees, faculty, professional staff and the business community is critical to our success.
Chancy Kapp and I met with the Editorial Board of the News & Observer in an effort to help them understand the Community College System and its legislative challenges. We have also requested the designation of a reporter to cover community college stories, something that does not now exists. Following this meeting with the Editorial Board, we have had an excellent news article and an editorial in support of our budget priorities, especially increasing faculty and professional staff salaries.
I have met with representatives of the College Board, the organization that provides Advance Placement courses and testing for high school students. They are interested in pursuing with North Carolina the idea of giving AP credit to dual enrollment classes which are comparable to AP courses and for which students would be able to sit for the AP examination. They currently have a pilot program underway with Perimeter College of Atlanta, an urban system. They are looking to us for possible pilot sites in rural communities where little AP opportunity exists.
I traveled to Beaufort County Community College to meet with them with regard to selection of their new president, whom you approved earlier today.
I had an excellent meeting with Dr. Mary C. Wyatt, the new president of Roanoke-Chowan Community College. She is off to a good start, but faces the kinds of challenges that all new presidents do as they begin their administration. We will work closely with her to ensure her success.
We have just learned that Dr. Karen Pettit has accepted the position of President of the Corporate College of Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. We wish Dr. Pettit well in this new and exciting challenge. Earlier this week I met with the Trustees of Lenoir Community College to begin the presidential selection process.
With funding from the Kellogg Foundation, your senior staff through the director level, has been engaged in a visioning process to help us look to the future with a clear focus. We will be sharing that vision with you as it is further developed.
We continue to have significant international interest in our Community College System. This month we have hosted Dr. Russell Bullard from New Zealand who visited us with regard to E-procurement and the use of technology in instruction and administration in our System. We also hosted a high-level delegation from Senegal, a county without a community college system, but in the process of developing and opening ten community colleges in the near future. That delegation met here in the System Office and visited Wake and Durham Technical Community Colleges. They left with an excellent impression of our System and learned much that will benefit them in their work.
I continue to serve on the North Carolina Global Center Board. In a meeting this week, Dr. Bob Waddell, Executive Vice President of Pitt Community College, reported on some of the exciting things that that college is doing in global education, especially in the use of the Internet and other distance technologies. I contributed a general overview of our globalization effort across the System.
Nash Community College hosted an announcement meeting to discuss a new initiative to educate prospective first-time homebuyers. Partners in this endeavor include Fannie Mae, Carolinas Mortgage Bankers Association, Wachovia, the NC Affordable Housing Group, NC Association of Housing Counselors and our System. This is an exciting program that will be offered statewide after rolling out at Nash Community College.
In anticipation that the General Assembly will pass a reorganization of regional law enforcement training, meetings have begun to redesign the administration and delivery of those programs.
I have taped a public service announcement to support the efforts of the Pathways/NC Mentor program and the College Foundation of NC to encourage more students to go to college and take advantage of financial aid opportunities. The Pathways/NC Mentor Web site is an important part of this initiative and we believe will ultimately lead to a higher college going rate and greater utilization of scholarship funds available.
I had the good fortune of hosting Dr. William Muse, the Chancellor-elect of East Carolina University, as he visited Raleigh last week. Dr. Muse has an excellent reputation of collaborating with community colleges in his previous posts and his brother is a community college president in Mississippi.
Dr. Larry Wheeler, Director to the NC Museum of Art, met with Chancy Kapp and me following a tour of our building to look at our art. We will be making a public announcement soon of a major collaboration between the Museum of Art and this program, which will give even greater recognition to faculty and student artists in our System.
Our collaboration with the NC Biotechnology Center continues to be a source of great pride and to be a great success. Our BioWork curriculum being piloted at Vance-Granville Community College and strongly supported by Joanne Steiner is truly exciting. Earlier this week I went to Asheville with the leadership of the Biotechnology Center to attend a Steering Committee meeting of persons in Western North Carolina interested in a Biotechnology Initiative centered around the BASF campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. This initiative promises to be equally exciting to what is happening elsewhere in North Carolina.
On Wednesday of this week I spoke to the Student Leadership Institute at Peace College. Other members of your staff have participated in this weeklong training program for student leaders from across our System.
We are very proud that Dr. Steve Scott represented not just North Carolina, but the entire United States, at the International Congress on Vocational Training Centers in the European Union at its meeting in late May in San Sebastian, Spain. More than 600 international delegates registered for this meeting heard Steve describe our internationally recognized workforce training and technical education programs. The Europeans were very impressed with what they learned about how we educate the workforce in North Carolina.
Steve also met with Marilyn Anselmi of the Department of Labor to learn about a Teacher Certification Course that that department would like to initiate.
In addition to the hard work of the Division of Business and Finance and its Vice President, Kennon Briggs, in responding to legislative demands, they have also been working on the carry forward of funds unspent in this fiscal year so that we might use them in the next. They have also been providing technical assistance to other divisions in arranging for various contract approvals that were considered by this meeting. They are now hard at work in closing out the year from a budget standpoint.
It appears that Dr. Brenda Rogers will continue her conscientious and hard work right up to the last minute of her tenure as Vice President for Administration. We do not know what we will do in the System with her departure, though we are excited to have her replacement, Dr. Saundra Wall Williams, coming on board soon.
The Information Services staff is working hard in the implementation of the Data Warehouse Project. Regional training sessions began May 16 and will continue through June 22 at six community colleges and at the System Office. Approximately 150 people will be trained to generate reports from the new data warehouse.
We are down to the wire on implementing the financial system of the College Information System (CIS) at the eight Phase I colleges. The new financial system will be implemented July 1 and work is already underway to test the human resources system to be implemented in January. The student services system will be implemented in March. Keith Brown and Dr. So-Young Yim have been working on the Cost-Benefit Analysis for the CIS project.
The Library Resources staff is preparing to transfer the responsibility for purchasing and handling library books and materials acquisition beginning July 1 in anticipation of a legislative mandate to that effect. Three regional workshops have been conducted for over 100 college personnel across the System.
It appears that the national education community following a clarion call from Parks Todd and this System, has successfully defended attempts to divert the wireless frequencies which we fought so hard to obtain for our colleges. The first implementation of a wireless Internet system will begin in Fayetteville, with other areas to follow thereafter.
Dr. Larry Gracie attended a meeting of the Rural Community College Initiative Advisory Panel in Polson, Montana, earlier this month. We are pleased that Larry was selected by the AACC to serve in this capacity.
Our resource development team has completed proposals for Congressman David Price to obtain federal funding for the Virtual Learning Community and for greater utilization of the North Carolina Information Highway.
Ray Harrington has attended meetings of the NC Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission and the NC Sheriffs’ Training and Standards Commission. Dealing with school violence was a subject at both meetings.
Daryl Mitchell may wish to report to you on the NC Comprehensive Community College Student Government Association retreat conducted this month at Ocean Isle, which brought together outgoing and incoming officers to plan for the coming year.
With the coming of new GED tests beginning January 1, 2001, a major effort is underway to train instructors and other Basic Skills staff. Dr. De Boyer and Dianne Barber of Appalachian State University are leading this effort.
The North Carolina Family Literacy Consortium, along with our staff, met at UNC-TV to plan how the partnership and UNC-TV can work more closely in providing family literacy programs.
At a meeting of the Women Administrators in North Carolina Higher Education at Alamance Community College, Dr. Delores Parker was appointed to that Board, succeeding Dr. Brenda Rogers.
Ken Farmer and Dr. Parker attended the second annual "Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference" hosted by UNC-Wilmington.
Barbara Boyce and her hard working HRD Advisory Committee have developed policies and procedures in anticipation of program changes in human resource development. Though there was significant anxiety generated by this legislative change, effective work has now convinced most that this is actually an improvement for our System.
Dr. Scott Ralls and Susan Seymour continue to work with the exciting Biotechnology Workforce Training initiative on a variety of programs including BioWork, BioBusiness and BioQuailty. The entire biotech industry is very complimentary of the work that Scott, Susan and the Biotechnology Center have done in this important area.
Dr. Ralls and Peggy Graham continue to work with Joan Meyers and the NC Electronics and Information Technology Association in building similar innovative approaches to meeting information technology training needs across the state. President Mike Taylor of Stanly Community College will chair the committee that will lead this initiative.
Dr. Ralls and Rick Kimrey met with representatives of Guilford Technical Community College to discuss their successful launch of the Manufacturing Certification Program and to entertain instructor ideas for future enhancement.
Gayle Harvey has been part of planning sessions with the Department of Agriculture and the NC Technological Development Authority in developing a $5 million grant to provide entrepreneurial assistance to North Carolina farmers.
Dr. Ralls and Tim Rhodes have had discussions with Cisco Systems and other experts and content providers regarding a concept for providing customized Internet-based training for New and Expanding Industry clients. New and Expanding Industry projects continue at a fast clip.
This month will complete my fourth year of service as your president. My how time has flown! Thank you for your strong and consistent support throughout that time.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.