President’s Report
To the
State Board of Community Colleges
October 17, 2003
You will recall that I left a few minutes early at the end of last month’s meeting to catch my plane to Colorado for the Association of Community College Trustees annual meeting and to take a few days vacation with my daughter and her husband in that beautiful state. Both were great! As always, I came away from the meeting reconfirmed in my thinking that our System is the best in the country. I attended presentations on "innovative and creative" programs at colleges all over the country. In every single case, North Carolina had something equal or superior to every presentation I attended. And to think we do it on a shoestring! The reason we are able to do all that we do with so little is because of the incredible staff that we have here at the System Office and the faculty and staff on our college campuses.
On September 23 we held our annual Employee Appreciation Day with a wonderful program in the Greg Poole Conference Center, followed by a pig picking at Pullen Park. Service awards were presented to persons who had reached milestones in their state government service and awards were presented for excellence. Susan Seymour received the Professional Staff Award and Carol Bowers received the Support Staff Award. We are truly blessed to have these two award winners and all of the others on your staff working so hard everyday.
We have begun the process of transitioning the Business Licensure Information Office from the Secretary of State’s Office to the System Office. This is a transfer that came to us by legislative mandate and not at our request. This transfer anticipates that our Small Business Center Network can provide the counseling services to small businesses on their licensure requirements. This is yet another unfunded mandate for an already overburdened Small Business Network. We are gathering data from the presidents on what they are actually spending on their Small Business Centers, which we believe will be a fraction of the amount of state funding received. To expect us to take on this additional burden without additional resources is very difficult for us to understand or absorb.
I represented the system at a College Summit on Alcohol Use and Abuse hosted by First Lady Mary Easley. Information has been provided to all of the colleges on how they might participate in this effort.
This has been a busy month for road trips. I attended the NC Citizens for Business and Industry Membership Reception in Goldsboro, spoke at the Small Business Center Network meeting at Forsyth Technical Community College, spoke at a reception honoring Senator Tony Rand at Fayetteville Technical Community College, went to SAS Institute to be briefed on their technology resources available to our colleges, participated on a panel at the Friday Center at the Atlantic Bridge Biotechnology Conference, spoke at the Angier Rotary Club and the Swift Creek Exchange Club, participated in Elizabeth Isler’s retirement reception, spoke at the Faculty Association annual meeting in Greensboro, presented the awards at the North Carolina Association of Developmental Educators in Burlington, and had dinner with Chancellor John Bardo of Western Carolina University in route to this meeting.
Fred Williams represented our System at Piedmont Community College when the Petroleum Marketers Association presented seventeen of our colleges new Thermo Pride HVAC units to be used in training. Later today a simlar presentation will be made to 12 additional colleges in Western North Carolina. We are grateful for this equipment donation. With last year’s donations, each of our HVAC programs now has this state of the art equipment to be used in their program.
Fred also represented us at the dedication of the Edward Crutchfield Center of Stanly Community College in the community of Locust.
Dr. Delores Parker’s division has completed the distribution of Golden L.E.A.F scholarships in tobacco dependent communities. Twenty-five colleges disbursed $289,334 to 698 eligible students between March 2001 and June 30, 2003. We have been allowed to carry forward the small unexpended balance for scholarships this year.
Ken Whitehurst participated in the High School Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, as a part of a delegation from the Department of Public Instruction and the Governor’s Office. The summit was designed to raise awareness of the state of American high schools and to promote promising initiatives to improve the situation.
Dr. Parker has once again obtained a $5,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for professional development. The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute has also been awarded a grant by the US Department of Education for over $1 million for a two-year period. We are a partner with Frank Porter Graham in this initiative as we work to enhance the use of distance learning for our early childhood programs. This grant will include funding for a Curriculum Improvement Project for this program.
Dr. Saundra Williams and her staff, Kennon Briggs and his staff, and hundreds of others across the System continue to work on CIS implementation. I know this sounds like a broken record, but it keeps going around and around! Progress is being made, but not without challenges.
Dr. Williams participated in the First Friday Forum hosted by the Friday Institute in Chapel Hill. She was one of three respondents to Dr. Diana Oblinger’s session on the "Next Generation Learner."
Phil Albano, Kennon Briggs, Dr. Gary Green and Dr. Charles Chrestman made presentations to the Bond Oversight Committee when it met in Chapel Hill in September.
We are happy to report that the effective work of Ricky Tart and Kennon Briggs resulted in our obtaining funding from the General Assembly to replace our 20 year-old telephone system. Significant challenges will be faced during this implementation, but great benefit will come to all of the staff who must now use an incredibly antiquated system.
Alice Smith and Annette Dishner have been working with the State Auditor’s Office to ameliorate very onerous reporting requirements being mandated for nonprofit agencies which receive state funds. This will greatly impact our local community college foundations and their use of the matching funds approved in the recent General Assembly.
You will recall that Dr. Larry Keen was not present for our last meeting because he was participating in the Bilateral Commission’s mission to Moldova. The work centered on economic development, potential collaboration in small business and entrepreneurial activities, and other ways to collaborate between North Carolina and Moldova.
At the invitation of Senator Joe Sam Queen, Dr. Keen participated in a series of meetings on community college campuses in Western North Carolina, focusing on biotechnology. He also participated in a similar meeting at Davidson County Community College hosted by Senator Stan W. Bingham.
A sign that the economy is turning around must be the recent or imminent announcements of small, medium and large companies coming to North Carolina and creating more than a thousand new jobs.
I know we all join in thanking your colleague, Sandra Hayes, and President Nathan Hodges and his staff for their wonderful hospitality in hosting our Fall Retreat and October Board meeting. Their hard work resulted in a productive and fun time in beautiful Western North Carolina.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.