President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
August 17, 2001
This report will be shorter than usual, but not because the last month has been less busy. Chairman Woody has requested that perhaps I should not go into so much detail with regard to what each of the divisions and I are doing each month. If this is too brief, I will try to make further adjustments next month.
When we last met, I felt confident that the General Assembly would have completed their work by now, but they appear to be no closer to a final resolution of budget and other major issues than they were a month ago. This is very frustrating to this office and to the colleges, since classes begin in most places next week without anyone knowing what tuition to charge or what permanent staff they might hire to address their enrollment growth. The General Assembly appears to be in complete gridlock. We continue to meet with the legislators and staff, but to this point do not feel that we have made significant progress.
I have met with trustees this month at Richmond Community College and at Craven Community College as they begin their search process to replace President Joe Grimsley, who died, and President Steve Redd, who has announced his retirement.
The Presidents’ Association summer meeting was held in Boone, with all of your vice presidents and me being active participants in the sessions. Rockett Burkhead and Winslow presented their proposal to the presidents, just as they had for you. The presidents had comments similar to yours. Greg Poole, Chancy Kapp and I met with the Rockett Burkhead team the week after the presidents’ meeting to further refine their efforts. They will come back to us with a proposal that is more focused on image enhancement instead of recruitment, and that is more positive, instead of edgy.
An excellent orientation session was organized by your staff for new presidents and new State Board members. I hope that everyone benefited from the information provided.
I attended the annual meeting of my counterparts from around the country in Boston, Massachusetts, last week. As always, I came away from this meeting confirmed in my belief that we are the best system in the country.
The Foundation continues its work, with Dwight Allen, the new Chairman, and me spending Wednesday of this week in Charlotte, meeting with Richard Vinroot, a new Foundation Board member, and State Board members from the Mecklenburg County area, trying to determine how we might better approach potential contributors.
The annual Basic Skills Conference was held in Winston-Salem, with over 700 people attending. Walter Anderson, editor of Parade Magazine, was the keynote speaker. Susan Phillips of Robeson Community College was named Student of the Year and Shirley Morrow of the Cape Fear Literacy Council was named Instructor/Volunteer of the Year.
At the request of Helen Newsome and George Little, who were invited to a White House Conference on Cognitive Initiatives in Early Childhood Education, Kristi Snuggs gathered significant information about our role in this area. We were honored that two North Carolinians were included in this conference and that we could support this effort.
Kennon Briggs and his staff have been very busy in the last month closing out the 2000-2001 fiscal year and putting together whatever information they could without a budget to help colleges begin the fall semester. Both were significant challenges. The last several months have been times of great uncertainty with regard to cash flow and availability. Likewise, the future is very unclear at this point, so significant crystal ball gazing was required.
Phil Albano and his staff are taking very seriously the commitment you made to improving participation by Historically Underutilized Businesses in the procurement of goods and services and in the bond construction projects. Likewise, I met with the Black Caucus a second time to review our actions thus far.
Dr. Scott Ralls reports that the Small Business Centers are humming with activity as laid off workers begin to pursue entrepreneurial alternatives to employment.
Development of the BioWork Training Program continues, with a recent decision to develop industry validated assessments of the training so that we can say to industry that this program is truly competency based and that the worker they get will be well prepared.
The transition of the Human Resources Development program into Continuing Education continues to move forward. We are pleased with the hard work of all involved in making this transition work.
Planning and Research has initiated a Cost/Benefit study of the Computer Information System. A survey to collect baseline data has been mailed to the colleges.
The presidents of the sixteen colleges that will be implementing the new College Information System (CIS) in Phase 2A met with the presidents of the eight colleges in Phase 1 during the Presidents’ Association meeting in Boone in July. In addition, the new Data Warehouse was presented to all of the presidents at the Association meeting.
Library Resources personnel assisted with the first Community College Library in North Carolina acquisitions training workshop held at Fayetteville Technical Community College on July 24. The workshop was a hands-on training session for colleges planning to implement the new acquisitions system this fiscal year. A second training session is planned for August 24 at Cleveland Community College. Fifteen colleges have indicated plans to begin using the system this year.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.