President’s Report
to the
State Board of Community Colleges
March 19, 1999
The time between the February meeting and the March meeting is always short, several out-of-state meetings shortened the time even more this year.
Immediately following our Board meeting in February, I left for the Legislative Conference in Washington co-sponsored by AACC and ACCT, accompanied by several State Board members. The conference was a good one. I had an opportunity to visit personally with members of our delegation either at breakfast or in their offices, if they were unable to join us. It was an especially good opportunity to meet with Senator Edwards, since I do not know him well. Though federal issues are not as important to us as what happens in the General Assembly, I was pleased by the very positive reaction I received from each of the members of our delegation.
While in Washington, I received word from the office that my continuation budget presentation before the Joint Appropriations Committee of the House and Senate had been moved up and would occur within minutes of my arrival back in North Carolina from Washington. A draft of my remarks was faxed to me in Washington which I worked on in route back to North Carolina. From all reports the presentation went well and laid the groundwork for a very productive series of briefings of the Education Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee over the next several days. Ultimately, we were unable to complete our series because of the need for the legislature to turn its attention to the tobacco settlement legislation. We will be back on the agenda soon to complete our presentation. Everyone has been very pleased by the tone of these sessions and the very positive questions and comments which have followed our presentations. Our staff and presidents from across the state have done an exceptional job in making the case for our continuation budget and in explaining our various programs in a way that makes clear how underfunded we have been for years.
Following the legislative presentation, I left for Florida and the Futures Conference sponsored by the University of Florida at which North Carolina had three (3) programs nominated for the Bellwether Award. I was to have participated in our presentation on the Institute for Future Presidents and Fayetteville Technical Community College’s presentation on their Internet based courses. However, those two presentations were scheduled at exactly the same time, so Fayetteville went on their own. Beth Johns, Bob Allen, Helen Dowdy and I presented our Institute for Future Presidents which was well received. Also nominated was the Working Smart program at Forsyth Technical Community College. Five members of Forsyth’s Board of Trustees, along with Desna, attended this conference and made their presentation. We went down with high hopes of bringing home at least one award and were very disappointed when none of us won, but we were proud that North Carolina had three finalists.
Since returning, I have met with a number of legislators individually, including leaders in the House and Senate of the appropriations process. In addition to that, Alice and I have entertained on separate evenings the House and Senate leadership and Appropriations leadership. All of these sessions have gone incredibly well and have resulted in a better understanding among these persons of our needs and the manner in which we are funded.
I have gone to Montgomery Community College to meet with them and to give them your assessment of their candidates for president. Of course, they have chosen Dr. Mary Kirk and you have approved her earlier today. I am happy to report that we have now doubled the number of women serving as presidents of our colleges, plus Dr. Mary Wood is the interim president at James Sprunt. We have had a 50 percent increase in African-American presidents. I believe that trustees are increasingly looking for well-qualified candidates for president who are women and minorities. This pleases me very much and I believe meets with your approval as well.
I have met with several licensing boards and trade associations with regard to our concern about the passing rates on licensing exams which are now significantly below the 70 percent cutoff mandated by our recently adopted accountability policy in a handful of professions. I hope that we can address this problem in a positive way. All who have met with us are eager to work with us to address this challenge.
One Friday during the month, I headed to the mountains in anticipation of meeting with Appalachian State University Chancellor Frank Borkowski, the chancellor who has been most proactive in involving the community colleges in his service area in meeting the full range of higher education needs of the citizens in the area. Unfortunately, it started snowing in Winston-Salem and the conditions worsened appreciably as I headed west. Having intended to attend a Doc Watson concert at Wilkes Community College that same evening, I stopped short of my meeting with Chancellor Borkowski and stayed in Wilkes County out of fear I would not be able to get back over the mountain, but will meet with him soon to thank him for the manner in which he is involving our community college presidents in planning for the future. I hope that I can learn from him secrets to involving other chancellors in a similar manner.
I appeared on Carolina Business Review taped by WTVI, the public television station in Charlotte, which is normally broadcast on the North Carolina and South Carolina Public Television networks. Unfortunately, this happened to be during the UNC-TV Fund-raising Festival and this excellent program was pre-empted by Festival and ran only in Charlotte and South Carolina. However, the special guest on that program was the head of the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond who when asked by me about the comment his Chairman, Alan Greenspan, had made last year about community colleges being the single greatest factor in the current economic boom across the nation, concurred and went on at some length about the important role we play. I have talked with Tom Howe, UNC-TV general manager, about airing this program out of sequence.
The System Office hosted the second annual meeting of proprietary school directors at which I spoke and other staff presented. It was an excellent opportunity for those directors to meet, to learn more about our role in their work, and for us all to become better acquainted.
Dr. Ed Boone, Dr. David Buonora and Dr. Richard Ernst are hard at work as the consulting team examining the situation at Union/Anson counties. I believe that they will come back with excellent recommendations for your consideration at the April meeting.
A number of your staff and I spoke at the Adult Educators Conference in Asheville last week. It was an excellent meeting. Similarly, your staff and I spoke to the Learning Resource Association meeting in Raleigh later in the week.
I have taped interviews for a video being produced to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the North Carolina Community College Leadership program and the NC Now program which aired on UNC-TV Tuesday night.
A legislative strategy group has been formed made up of State Board, president, trustee, and faculty representation and System Office staff. We meet monthly and I believe this group will add immeasurably to the effectiveness of our legislative effort.
Scott Ralls and I have met individually with Guido Gabbrielli of the NC Department of Commerce who is the new Director of International Trade. We are working on various initiatives to involve community colleges in boosting international trade for North Carolina businesses, with several of those initiatives being pursued by Small Business Centers across the state.
We have met again with Cisco to refine our training programs in Cisco networking across the state. The tobacco settlement legislation has been a hot topic in the General Assembly with farmers across the state insisting that they get half of the money from the settlement in a check which would be based on their allotments. This has called into question our developing programs to assist tobacco farmers and their communities. However, an excellent meeting was held earlier this week at Wayne Community College to pursue how community colleges might use community-based programming to determine community by community how to best meet the needs created by the decline of the tobacco economy.
The annual NCCBI meeting was earlier this week which gave me an opportunity to appear on a panel with President Broad, Superintendent Ward and Hope Williams. We continue to have excellent support from NCCBI and industry across the state, but we need to do more to involve them as our advocates. Phil Phillips, the new Chairman of NCCBI, announced in his acceptance speech that community colleges would be his priority for the coming year. This gives us an excellent opportunity to involved them more extensively in our advocacy efforts.
The Division of Academic and Student Services is working with Appalachian State University on a fast-track developmental education interactive workshop which will be held in April. This is one of several initiatives to boost student retention and program completion.
The Technology Users Task Force II is working collaboratively with the other two educational systems in the state in conducting a gap analysis on technology needs and directions for the future. They will be an important follow-on to yesterday’s Joint Board sessions on distance Learning.
Dr. Johns and her staff have met in the last month in their continuing collaborative effort with North Carolina State, UNC-Charlotte and A&T State University on the 2+2 Engineering program at Lenoir Community College. Additional meetings have been held at North Carolina State on the Animal and Food Science program being developed at Bladen Community College.
Dr. Johns and her staff continue to work with the Economic Development Board staff on the Teaching Firm project and with representatives from the Admissions and Registrar’s Office at North Carolina State University to discuss transfer and student advisement problems.
Kennon Briggs and his staff spend an incredibly number of hours each week working with the General Assembly, members of their staff, appearing before committees, producing responses to information requests, etc. One of the issues we are likely to confront this session is a restriction on flexibility which now allows presidents and their Boards to transfer funds without restriction between various lines of their budgets. The low salaries have focused attention on this flexibility and the transfers from the instructional allocation to other lines. Kennon is in the midst of developing a comprehensive survey of the impacts of eliminating or restricting flexibility. I have spent much of my time in my meetings with members of the Legislature on the critical importance of continuing this flexibility. The Business & Fianance Division is hard at work on the spring Finance Conference which will be held in Greensboro later this month involving business officers, comptrollers, bookkeepers, purchasing staff, etc. Kennon has been personally involved in retreats and other meetings of Boards of Trustees of Davidson County, Lenoir, and Rowan-Cabarras Community Colleges.
This has been a month for conferences in the Division of Administration. The North Carolina Association of Institutional Research met jointly with its South Carolina counterpart. Keith Brown and Xiaoyun Yang presented their research on using North Carolina Common Follow-up System for tracking community college students after they leave our colleges. Dr. Rogers, Dr. Johns and others made presentations at the North Carolina State Chapter of the Southern Regional Council on Black American Affairs. The annual edition of A Matter of Facts has been completed and you should be receiving your copy soon. This is a prodigious effort that involves Dr. Roger’s entire staff and is a great tool for telling our story. Work continues on the library automation system and information system modifications so that bids can be solicited in April.
All in all, it has been another busy month for your entire staff. However, we all enjoy working together and working for you.
This page maintained by Chancy Kapp.