President’s Report
To the
State Board of Community Colleges
July 21, 2006
Since my last report to you at your May meeting, much has happened, including the completion of budget adjustments to the biennial budget at the beginning of this month. Kennon has given you a complete report of those adjustments, but suffice it to say, this was a good budget year. In addition to full funding for enrollment growth and an almost complete addressing of our receipts problem, several new initiatives were funded and existing initiatives were recipients of more funds. We were especially pleased that $1 million in continuing funds and $5 million in nonrecurring funds were appropriated for our nursing programs. You will recall that we requested $29 million for all of our allied health programs, so this was a small beginning on a very large need. We also received almost all that we asked for to fund, for the first time, our distance education initiatives. We dodged the bullet on significant reduction in our economic development programs, and in the end, received an additional position and other funding for BioNetwork. We were pleased to receive a position to coordinate our efforts in the New Schools projects, a System Office position for financial aid, and one financial aid staff position for each of our colleges. Our faculty and professional staff received a 6 percent increase, plus a 2 percent bonus; all other state employees, including your System Office staff, received 5.5 percent increases. We were disappointed that we were unsuccessful in obtaining more substantial assistance for System Office staff salaries. That must continue to be a high priority for you to work on for the long session. Likewise, making much needed changes in the presidential salary schedule must be a high priority for the Trustees Association in the long session.
I will not try to recount for you all of the individual meetings that Suzanne Williams, Kennon Briggs, and I had with legislators. Other staff members have been called on frequently to respond to questions or concerns. Your Legislative Strategy Group has met periodically throughout the short session to receive reports and to strategize.
Several colleges did demonstrations of their curricula in the Legislative Building during the short session. I am convinced that these demonstrations and the goodwill that our students and faculty build with legislators are keys to our success. Among the colleges doing demonstrations have been Bladen, Catawba Valley, Central Piedmont, Gaston, Forsyth Tech, Roanoke Chowan, and Wake Tech. The Faculty Association held a legislative rally which was well attended by legislators and faculty. UNC President Erskine Bowles, State Superintendent June Atkinson, State School Board Chairman Howard Lee, and I participated in the Appropriations Bill signing in the Old House Chamber.
There have been many meetings since the middle of May, so I will not try to cover all of them. We began this period with a meeting with Dr. Jim Zuiches, Vice Chancellor for Economic Development, and Ted Morris, both from North Carolina State University, to discuss how we might work together to enhance economic development across the state, especially using the rich resources of Cooperative Extension.
A meeting with senior officials from Datatel discussed various issues, but focused on implementation of Release 18, a significantly upgraded software. You have taken action today to approve the contract with Datatel to assist in migrating to this next version of the Colleagues software.
All partners involved in the New Schools initiative met with the Governor and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation staff with regard to another significant grant from that Foundation.
During this two-month period, I met with Catawba Valley Community College’s Trustees with regard to their new president and today you approved that person, Dr. Garrett Hinshaw. Just this week, I attended the retirement reception for President Cuyler Dunbar. In addition to that retirement, I met with the Trustees at Isothermal Community College where Dr. Bill Lewis is retiring and their presidential search process has begun.
The Executive Committee of the North Carolina Workforce Development Commission has been having agency heads come in when they meet to hear of priorities and challenges. I was pleased to make that presentation at their meeting near the end of May. Following my report to the Executive Committee, the full Commission met.
We continue to meet with Paul Gregg, the director of the Troops to Teachers and Spouses to Teachers programs funded by the federal government and housed at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). We are eager to make minor adjustments in our lateral entry program so that we can better serve our military personnel and their dependents who wish to become teachers in North Carolina.
We are pleased that Leslie Boney has been named Vice President of the University System, specifically focusing on economic development. Leslie, having staffed the Rural Prosperity Task Force which President Bowles chaired and on which I served, is well aware of the economic development challenges across the state and the important role community colleges play in addressing those challenges. I am especially looking forward to resuming my work and close relationship with Leslie.
The North Carolina Rural Center Workforce Development Program Committee and that Center’s Entrepreneurialship Initiative have met (June Atkinson and I chair that initiative) and are doing important work.
The North Carolina Public School Forum, on which Board I sit, presented its Jay Robinson Award to Superintendent Ann Denlinger who recently retired from the Durham County System at a luncheon which I attended.
I met individually with the leaders of the Citizens Soldier Support Group being run by UNC-Chapel Hill and then met with the full group in Chapel Hill. We are eager to be an important player in this support initiative.
Chancy Kapp does an outstanding job representing me on the UNC-TV Board, but in June 1 was able to attend that Board meeting myself and to learn of the significant challenges public television has right now in continuing the level of services that we have grown to expect while fundraising goes down and National Public Television dues go up.
The Danish Board of Directors of Novozymes met at its plant in Franklin County in early June. I worked with Joanne Steiner to arrange for a reception at the Governor’s Mansion hosted by Mary Easley at which I spoke about that company and Joanne’s roles in the success of BioNetwork. From all reports, our Danish friends were very impressed with what they saw and heard in North Carolina.
As I have done for several years, I spoke to the Hispanic leadership Fellows program run by Dr. Leila Gonzalez Sullivan at North Carolina State University. My topic has generally been how community college leaders could work effectively with elected officials.
A number of your staff participated in the annual convention of the Trustees Association.
One of the highlights of this two-month period was a meeting of the Barbeque Club (the eastern presidents who meet periodically at Parker’s Barbeque in Wilson, NC) which hosted Dr. Dallas Herring. Dr. Herring reminisced for almost an hour about the history of our System, but as always, challenged us to think about the future.
To allay what we kept hearing about the North Carolina Association of Education’s concerns about the role of community colleges in lateral entry, we scheduled a meeting with its leadership. The concerns had been overblown and we believe satisfactorily dealt with in this meeting.
Several of your staff spoke to the Student Leadership Institute at Peace College. This gathering of student leaders from community colleges all across the state is a highlight of every summer for me and I am sure it is important to our students.
A truly historic event took place in mid-June when our Faculty Association met with the UNC System Faculty Council at its invitation in Chapel Hill. As far as anyone knows, this is the first time these groups have met to discuss issues of mutual concern. A number of issues were taken for further work, with work groups appointed to deal with them.
Our BioNetwork initiative continues to grow like mushrooms. The highlight of this two-month period was the dedication of our new mobile laboratory which occurred towards the end of June across the street from the legislature. This was a wonderful opportunity for legislators and their staff to visit this incredible asset to our biotechnology initiative.
In our continuing efforts to encourage a global perspective in all of our programs, I attended the North Carolina in the World View Advisory Board meeting.
I attended the impressive installation service of Dr. Suzanne Owens, the new president at Mayland Community College. These installations are wonderful times of celebration of the individual and of the college.
In a conference call with Dr. Alan Sharp, Provost of the University of Ulster, I learned that that University has approved the granting of two baccalaureate degrees in collaboration with our System. These degree programs will be degree completion on our campuses and on-line. On my next visit to Northern Ireland, Provost Sharp and I will continue discussing the details of this exciting opportunity for our graduates.
I was happy to meet with Denise Baker, an art instructor at Sandhills Community College, who recently completed a faculty exchange with Jasper McKinney, an art instructor at Newry Institute in Northern Ireland. Two additional faculty exchanges will take place beginning in late August.
You have heard much about our collaboration with Michael Gould, the representative of the government of Northern Ireland in Washington, as we have worked together on postsecondary education issues in Northern Ireland. Michael has completed his term of service in Washington and will return to Belfast to head up their efforts in this postsecondary education redesign. I was honored to be one of eight people invited to a retirement luncheon for Michael that was hosted by the British Ambassador at his Residence. I am looking forward to continuing to work with Michael in his new position.
President Ron Lingle of Coastal Carolina Community College and Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo of UNC-Wilmington hosted a visit on board Camp Lejeune for President Erskine Bowles and me to see the many ways in which those institutions have cooperated and collaborated in serving the needs of the US Marine Corps and the Onslow County area. We were all impressed with what we saw on the base and with what we heard with regard to this wonderful cooperation and collaboration. Erskine has commented in several venues since that day on that cooperation and Ron’s role in it.
One of the most exciting and far-reaching undertakings since the reengineering effort in the late 1990s was kicked off at Alamance Community College under the leadership of Dr. Sharon Morrissey and the Instructional Administrators Association. I was pleased that that important group has embraced my idea of modularizing our various curricula so that students can receive certificates at various milestones along their educational pathway, rather than having to wait until graduation to celebrate success. It is my belief that small successes along the way will build to greater successes at the end and modularization will give credentials to our students which they can use in the workforce. This idea was enthusiastically discussed at this meeting and work will continue in the future. We will be back to you with regard to the possibility of using State Board Reserve Funds to begin this important initiative.
We continue to move towards full implementation of CIS, with 18 colleges in Phase 2B beginning to register students and collect tuition and fees using the system, and with training the Phase 2C colleges continuing.
The 2006 Critical Success Factors Report has been completed and released. We are pleased that so many of our colleges achieved superior ratings this year.
Keith Brown continues to be a national leader in institutional research and in the use and improvement of the IPEDS. He was recently selected as one of the 32 leaders to attend a three-day Teaching Institute.
Dr. Betty Adams is developing the implementation procedures for the Strategic Plan. She has done an outstanding job and will continue to do so in the implementation phase.
Our System and SAS have signed a contract to provide SAS inSchool Curriculum Pathways for all of our 58 colleges. This robust online resource provides an array of online learning modules in a number of academic disciplines. We are also working with SAS on a data warehouse project which will combine student data from DPI, UNC-General Administration, and our System from birth through graduate and professional school that will be searchable and manipulative.
Our distance learning efforts will be greatly enhanced by the North Carolina Learning Object Repository project, which is another collaboration between the North Carolina Virtual Higher School, our System and the University. Bill Randall is giving leadership to this initiative.
Another collaboration with the University and the College Foundation of North Carolina will develop a statewide Transfer Articulation Module that will allow our transfer students to compare their options for transfer of credits to all of the four-year institutions.
We have been working with Blackboard officials to enhance and reduce the cost of our e-learning infrastructure through that company. This is also being done in collaboration with the University System.
The second meeting of senior staff from the University System and our System took place in Chapel Hill. The focus of this meeting was on economic and workforce development programs offered by each system. This is another exciting collaborative effort between our two systems which should yield significant dividends.
Major economic development announcements have been made since we last met, some of which are quite large and have involved weeks of work by Dr. Larry Keen and his staff. You may have read of some of them in the newspaper.
Our North Carolina Readiness Certificate has been deployed and approximately 500 certificates have already been issued. Dr. Stephanie Deese has done a wonderful job in the development and implementation of this new program.
Scott Bullard, the new Director of Fire, Rescue, and Emergency Services, is doing good work with our regional fire coordinators. The value of having once again a System level director of this program is already evident. Scott joins Robin Coates, Director of Human Resources Development, and Pamela Gobel as new employees of Dr. Keen’s division.
This is the busiest time of the year for Kennon Brigg’s shop as many of his team are working on closing out the books from the last fiscal year and other year-end activities, while others begin to work on the allocation of the next fiscal year’s appropriation. Of course, the end of the legislative budget process comes on top of those two important efforts, and before they can turn around, the work will begin on the next biennial budget.
Work continues on the professional development program being put together for business office personnel. We hope that that program will be offered in the late fall.
Sharon Rosado and her team are already working on the next Bond Oversight Committee which we will host here in August.
Dr. Delores Parker’s division has received a planning grant from the Lumina Foundation for the College Goal Sunday. This national program helps first generation, low-income families complete their application for financial aid to attend community colleges on a single Sunday. Wanda White will serve as statewide coordinator.
Jennifer Frazelle has attended a national forum sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation on Expanding Access for Low-Income Community College Transfers at selective colleges and universities.
Dr. Edith Lang represented our System at the National Institute of Organizational and State Development in Austin, Texas, where she did a presentation on our common course library.
Dr. Peggy Teague attended the Professional Development Institute sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children in San Antonio, Texas. It was announced at this meeting that Davidson County Community College, Mitchell Community College, and Sandhills Community College are among the first five colleges to be accredited using the Early Childhood Associate Degree Program standards by that Association.
Vonna Viglione, Chancy Kapp, and Larry Keen participated in a very successful Duke Energy Grants Technical Assistance Workshop hosted by Gaston College. These grants funded by Duke Energy have been a godsend for economic development in the Duke service area.
Dr. Parker, Vonna Viglione, John Pettitt and Keith Brown represented our System at the Achieving the Dream Policy Meeting in Denver, CO, where plans were laid for next year’s efforts in improving college readiness of our students by more closely aligning our programs with the K-12 curriculum.
The final Pappas Report has been released with a long list of recommendations, many of which support perennial requests from us which have not been funded by the legislature, including the funding of summer school, the role of community colleges in teacher education, the role of our two systems in cultural opportunities in our communities, etc.
As to cultural opportunities, Mary Regan, Executive Director of the North Carolina Arts Council, and Fred Williams have been working on various ideas for reviving the Visiting Artist Program which ended in the 1990s, this time in a new format specifically focused on enhancing cultural opportunities in low-wealth counties. I hope that they will develop a proposal which we might consider including in our next biennial budget request. These recommendations will be the focus of our next meeting with senior staff of the UNC-General Administration.
A Marine Science Task Force has been convened by President Bowles which anticipates a significant role for community colleges in our coastal communities. We believe that this collaborative effort between educational and research institutions along the coast will have significant economic impact on that region. Fred represented the System Office at this meeting.
This has been an incredibly busy two months, but with colleges resuming their fall semester in the next month and with work already beginning on our next biennial budget, things will only get busier. You are fortunate to have the System Office staff which works so hard year-round with burst of even harder works throughout the year.
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Friday, July 21, 2006 05:52:02 PM
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.