| President's Report |
| to the |
| State Board of Community Colleges |
| January 21, 2000 |
It has been a long time since we last met. I trust that you and your family all had wonderful Christmases. I am happy to say that my family and I did.
Though the holidays and our colleges not being in session makes this period a bit slower, many meetings have occurred during this period; including meetings on our role with ExplorNet, our cooperation with the Department Crime Control, developing Southeastern Regional Fire Training Facility, our participation in the Governor’s Hispanic/Latino Outreach, the Service Area Boundary Study, Tech Prep Articulation, the future of the Student Leadership Institute, and other assorted individual appointments.
The Foundation work continues to quicken its pace. We are now at one-half our $5 million goal and will soon begin the public phase which will include recognition of the first major gifts to encourage additional giving and more aggressive solicitation of corporations and foundations not represented on our Board. We are now in the midst of three regional meetings with healthcare/biotechnology institutions and corporations. My own pace of calls on prospective givers has picked up dramatically during this period with visits as far afield as Charlotte and New York City.
Board meetings during this period have included the Global Transpark Authority Board in Kinston, the National Family Literacy’s Center Board meeting in New York City, two meetings of the North Carolina Rural Prosperity Task Force, the North Carolina Geographic Coordinating Council which met in our Board Room, the North Carolina Work First Business Council, and our own Planning Council here this week. I also spoke at the Pinning Ceremony of the Nursing Program at Wake Technical Community College. I have spoken to a number of civic clubs including the Waynesville Rotary Club, the Raleigh Lions Club, and the Topsail Island Board of Realtors.
I traveled to Hickory to meet with the Secretary of Corrections and leaders of the North Carolina furniture industry to discuss the future of our furniture training programs in the prisons that are conducted by the community college system.
Phil Kirk, Phil Phillips, and Leslie Bevacqua of the North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry have met with us with regard to our capital needs and how we might cooperate with them and the university system in moving that agenda forward. A meeting has been set up for later this month with President Molly Broad for further discussions of a joint approach to the facility needs of our two systems.
Your vice presidents and I have spoken at a series of workshops of school counselors across the state all sponsored by the University of North Carolina General Administration. This has been an excellent opportunity for us to make a case for community colleges as a viable option for all students to consider as they plan their higher education.
Periodically, President Broad, Superintendent Mike Ward, Hope Williams of the private colleges and universities, and I along with selected staff from our agencies meet informally to discuss problems and opportunities. Dr. Hope Williams hosted this meeting in December. Wide-ranging issues were discussed and ways to cooperate were explored.
The North Carolina Community College System and its building trades programs offered through the Department of Corrections are cooperating in an exciting housing initiative for Hurricane Floyd flood victims. The prisoners are building sections of houses in modular form which will be erected and finished off by volunteers and nonprofit groups as housing for flood victims. Your system office staff is building one of ten pilot houses in Lenoir County. If these prototypes are successful, FEMA has approved 400 such houses to be erected by volunteer groups all over the flooded area. You and I should be very proud of our System Office employees who are hard at work at completing their first house. You may want to join us for a workday soon. See me if you can help.
I traveled down East to meet with the Martin Community College Trustees to discuss your assessment of their finalists for president. You will recall that we handled that assessment informally and with a face-to-face discussion with your members who serve on the Finance Committee. From Martin Community College we traveled on to Roanoke-Chowan Community College to kick off the search process for them as they seek to replace retiring President Harold Mitchell.
Last week we had an exciting meeting with Jack Smith of the Stanley Foundation to discuss with various members of our staff opportunities that exist in our colleges becoming more involved in globalization and intra-cultural programs and how they might be funded. As more and more of our jobs are dependent on international trade, this should be a high priority for our system. We are shortchanging North Carolina’s workforce if we do not prepare them to succeed in a global environment.
The work of the North Carolina Rural Prosperity Task Force is completed in terms of study and recommendation, but much work remains to be done to implement these recommendations through the Governor and the General Assembly. As you may recall, I chaired the Human Resource Development/Education working group. There is much for us to do in training the workforce all over North Carolina and giving citizens in rural communities the tools they need for planning their future and executing their plan.
Dr. Brenda Rogers and her staff coordinated the Planning Council meeting this week. A draft update of our Strategic Plan will be ready for discussion at our April meeting.
One of the most exciting things done this month was connecting three remote sites by the Information Super Highway with the Legislative Education Oversight Committee. This was an excellent opportunity to show off this technology and to allow community college presidents and staff, university chancellors, and public school leaders to interact with the Education Oversight Committee using a distance technology. The topic was enrollment planning and the role of distance education in meeting enrollment challenges. It was a very successful demonstration of the usefulness and value of this technology. We continue to work with public schools and universities in technology planning and in educating legislators on our needs in this area.
The data warehouse project vendor proposals have been reviewed and following your approval will be implemented. We are now in the process of reviewing the technical proposals for our management information system. We are especially grateful to our presidents for allowing their staff to spend so much time in evaluating these proposals and working with us throughout this long process. Even more work will be required as we move towards implementation, so continued support and patience of our college presidents will be necessary and appreciated. We cannot be successful in getting the best management information system without having this important participation by staff in the field.
Y2K was the same paper tiger here as in the rest of the world. There were no problems, but our wonderful staff was prepared for anything and several of them spent New Year’s Eve at the System Office instead partying with their friends.
The library automation initiative continues to unfold with a recent videoconference. We hope that within the next six months this will be fully implemented.
We are pleased that thirty positions in our System Office were among 225 positions statewide recently identified by the Office of State Personnel as having experienced critical recruitment and retention difficulties and thus received a two grade classification upgrade. Unfortunately, no salary dollars are available to implement these increases. However, as funds are available, these important personnel will receive the increases to which they are entitled.
Vice President Kennon Briggs and his staff continue to work on various legislative issues, with a meeting of the Legislative Issues Group being held on December 2nd and with another scheduled for next week. They also met with the Presidents’ Association Finance Committee in December and conducted a special meeting of the Finance and Capital Needs Committee in December to take action on transfers in excess of two percent.
The Business and Finance Division is the first division to undergo a management review by the Office of State Budget and Management to examine the allocation of resources and the delivery of services by the division. The other divisions will undergo similar review over the next year. This involves gathering much operations data, conducting onsite interviews and surveying customers of this and other divisions, including all of our colleges and other offices within the System Office. These studies should make all of our divisions more effective and more efficient.
Preparation is underway for the spring meeting of the Business Officers Association which will focus on the State Aid Formula Simplification Study and changes in financial reporting.
The Division of Business and Finance coordinated a major shift of personnel within the building so that each of our divisions have all of their personnel located together, with minor exception, on one floor each.
Work continues on preparing our budget request for the short session and in coordinating that effort with presidents, faculty, trustees, and other constituent groups of our community college family.
Dr. Delores Parker is bringing great new vision to the Division of Academic and Student Services, refining each of the service areas of that division, and placing special emphasis on grant writing.
We are very proud that Dr. Randy Whitfield, Director of Basic Skills, has been appointed by the U.S. Department of Labor to serve on the Workforce Excellence Board, the governing board of the newly created Workforce Excellence Network. The Network will promote continuous improvement and recognize excellence throughout the One-Stop Delivery System, known in North Carolina as Job Link. The Basic Skills Department has also received an Even Start Family Literacy Statewide Initiative Grant from the U.S. Department of Education in the amount of $450,000.
The Literacy Resource Center is introducing a learning disabilities curriculum called Bridges to Practice into our basic skills programs across the System. Workshops have been conducted at five sites to kick this off. They have also received a grant from Laubach Literacy and Literacy Volunteers of America for this program.
Distance learning of all kinds continues to grow dramatically with more than 33,000 students taking courses using various distance technologies. The Virtual Learning Community (VLC) will accelerate the use of distance technologies in instruction. One hundred faculty members from across the System recently met at Wake Technical Community College to begin developing the first ten on-line courses to be made available through the VLC.
You will recall having approved the statewide Articulation Agreement for Tech Prep in September. Forty-six of our colleges have signed this agreement, eight colleges have chosen to continue to work individually with their schools, and unfortunately, five colleges have not indicated to us whether they will adopt the statewide Articulation Agreement or continue previous practices.
The United States Navy has developed a program to encourage enlistees to obtain community college course work before going on active duty. We have begun working with the Navy on this initiative with a pilot project at Guilford Technical Community College in electrical engineering. I will be meeting with an Assistant Secretary of the Army in February to discuss an Army initiative that will provide community college course work to Army personnel on active duty using distance technologies.
The Economic and Workforce Development Division, now all located on the fifth floor, is off and running. Week before last they hosted an economic and workforce development orientation program for new and interested college staff from across the System. Sixty-four individuals, plus System Office staff participated in an excellent four-day program.
A memorandum of agreement has created a partnership with Development Dimensions International (DDI), a leading provider of leadership, teamwork and workforce development training programs. It is the first time that DDI has entered into such an agreement with a community college system. It will provide community college instructors with excellent training programs and instructional materials at significant discounts and because of its national reputation will provide a significant economic development advantage to North Carolina.
The Small Business Center Advisory Committee met using the Information Highway in December. It was an excellent meeting that marked the end of Rachel Smith’s term as chairperson. Rachel’s leadership will be missed, but we are pleased that she will continue to serve as a member of the committee. This Advisory Committee continues to provide excellent leadership to our centers across the state.
We are now working on a major initiative with the Department of Commerce to revitalize the export outreach program that will be one of five priority areas for the SBC’s over the next two years.
At the request of the trucking industry, we have established a working group to focus on training efforts for truck drivers and technicians which serve that industry.
Barbara Boyce led a meeting of the State Human Resources Development Advisory Committee in Southern Pines which developed strong ideas to strengthen this program.
This is an historic day. With the swearing in of Hilda Pinnix-Ragland as a new member of this Board, we now have nine women members, probably the State Board closest to gender parity of any in state government, and with the approval of Dr. Ann Britt as President of Martin Community College, we now have eight women presidents in our System.
The System Office joins me in wishing you the very best of the new year and the new century. We look forward to working with you in the years to come.
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