H. Martin Lancaster, President
North Carolina Community College System
NC Council of Educational Opportunity Programs
Spring Conference  
St. Augustine's College, Raleigh
April 14, 2005

Thank you for inviting me to be with you today. I must confess that I feel right at home. When I look around this room, I see people who come from large public universities and fine liberal arts colleges as well as our community colleges. I see in your faces the same commitment to the success of every student that I experience in my work in community colleges.

At the North Carolina Community College System, we use "open doors" as our symbol-- the open doors to opportunity grounded in the philosophy so eloquently expressed by Dallas Herring. We look to Dr. Herring as our spiritual "godfather" for his role in helping establish our system more than forty years ago. Here's what he told us our task must be:

You may use different words and images, but I know that you believe that this is your task, too. Educational opportunity programs are all about opening doors.

All of us have that commitment to opening doors in common. Narrowly, that means we know about , work in and support the specific programs funded by TRIO. More broadly, it means that we understand the continuing and growing importance of ACCESS as one of the vital challenges of higher education in North Carolina.

In inviting me to speak today, your co-chair Linda Crisp suggested that I discuss the importance of TRIO programs in North Carolina, the future of TRIO in North Carolina's community colleges, and my own support of TRIO programs. The short version is -- we have lots of them and we need more; I hope TRIO lasts forever in community colleges, and I'm all for them and tell our congressional delegation that every chance I get!

My more serious response is this. TRIO in its original form is, like our own community college system, a product of the great social reforms of the 1960s, designed to combat poverty by, among other things, throwing open the doors of education to millions of people who had been shut out. Over its four decades, TRIO has pumped millions upon millions of dollars into programs all across North Carolina, including many in our community colleges. Just the current list shows TRIO grants at work in community colleges stretched from the mountains to the sea -- how does "Mayland to Manteo" work as an image for you??

I know that many -- perhaps most -- of you have a much longer experience with TRIO that I do. However, in my almost eight years as President of the North Carolina Community College System, I have seen what a tremendous impact these grants make, and I have noted with pleasure the growth of TRIO investment in our system. I'm pleased to hear from professionals in our colleges that at least some of that growth can be attributed to technical workshops and other strategic work undertaken by the resource development staff at the System Office. My predecessor organized that office, and the good work has continued under the leadership of former VP Elizabeth Johns and now Delores Parker. As a former Congressman, I know that North Carolina's delegation wants our state to claim our share of federal funds. I pledge to you that the System Office will continue to find ways to help everybody here do that.

Yes, I know that President Bush has proposed cuts in TRIO programs, particularly Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search. Rest assured that I support holding fast to what we have, at the very least. I cannot predict what the outcome will be, but I can guarantee that I will advocate for TRIO as one of the most effective programs at work in our colleges.

In community colleges, we literally cannot do without TRIO, especially in student services. Because of the massive layoffs in manufacturing in the last few years, our colleges are jam-packed with adults who need training, re-training -- even basic skills. These are older students with little experience of higher education and tremendous needs for testing, counseling, financial aid -- all the student services that support student retention and success. Those students are flooding into our colleges just as state budget cuts have eliminated critical staff positions. We must find a way to get the state funds back, and we must continue to let our federal legislators know how much we value the support they give us for the TRIO investment, too.

The success of TRIO programs reminds us in community colleges -- and I imagine elsewhere, as well -- of the importance of continuing to find new ways to extend access to North Carolinians who remain outside our great higher education institutions.

I'm proud to say that we have a number of such efforts in community colleges. Our Minority Male Mentoring Project involves five community colleges in one of the most impressive programs I have ever seen to go right at a persistent problem -- that is, the gap between African American males and so many others in college attendance and completion. Last year, I attended presentations from program participants this spring, and I can tell you that rarely have I heard such extraordinary stories.

Thanks to the generosity of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, we have a state initiative on Hispanic and Latino issues, which is a valuable complement to the excellent work going on in many of our colleges to engage the Spanish-speaking community in higher education and economic development.

We are in the first year of an ambitious national grant program sponsored by the Lumina Foundation. Called "Achieving the Dream," the multi-year initiative includes community colleges from five states, including Durham Tech, Guilford Tech, Martin and Wayne from North Carolina. The goal is to use solid data and thoughtful policy to boost the college success of underserved populations -- especially minorities. Much of the design of "Achieving the Dream" relies directly on "best practices" developed by TRIO programs over the years.

Our community colleges share with many of your institutions responsibility for nurturing new approaches to high school reform, all focused on increasing high school success, college attendance and college completion. Learn and Earn, Early College High School and Middle College High School are all about access -- access for at-risk, low-wealth and rural students to rigorous coursework, access for all students to college, access for families to new pathways to success.

Folks outside this room might ask -- and ask reasonably -- why we keep needing new programs if the ones we already have, like TRIO, are getting the job done. Are we making progress or not?

The answer is clearly that yes, we are, at least in some areas. Our college-going rate in North Carolina is now above the national average, dramatically higher than it was seven or eight years ago. We are a world center of medicine and biotechnology.

However, we must all understand and help OTHERS understand that making progress does not mean that the job is DONE and OVER WITH. Frankly, it won't EVER be done. I don't mean that in the Biblical sense that "the poor will always be with us." Rather, I mean that the folks who fund us must understand that educational progress and ACCESS are moving targets. In North Carolina, those targets have hopped and skipped and bounded ahead in ways that none of us could have predicted.

Let me share with you a few examples, drawn from research done by MDC Incorporated of Chapel Hill. MDC is a nationally-respected think-tank specializing in economic development issues. The Lumina Foundation chose MDC to manage the Achieving the Dream project. MDC publishes the State of the South every five years.

Understand that community colleges are in the jobs business -- we prepare people for jobs, we help them get better jobs, we help recruit and grow industries that create jobs. So I have a special interest in data that matches education to workforce needs. That's the "target" we aim for first.

This statement from the MDC report jumped right out at me -- telling me that our target is suddenly made up of different COLORS and it's very likely in a different PLACE that it has been for many years. Listen to this:

New targets. BIG targets. But not easy to hit. Listen to this part of the report:

As we enjoy today's setting in an institution dedicated for almost 140 years to PROVIDING those role models, we recognize that this job will NEVER be done, so long as our state -- and our NATION -- continue to the "golden doors" of opportunity for everyone with dreams of prosperity and freedom.

In North Carolina, we talk a lot about history and legacy and pride. That's a good thing. We must be honest, however, about those parts of the legacy that are handicap more than help.

Beyond the divisions of ethnicity and income, we need to be BRUTALLY honest about wrong-headed policies of the past. MDC notes this about the entire South:

Ouch. The bad news is -- well, it's a true statement, INCLUDING in our own North Carolina, with its very large manufacturing base. Census reports released just this month show that we are tied for third FROM THE BOTTOM in the number of adults over aged 25 who have high school credentials or above. How's that for a tradition of dropping out to get a job at the mill?

The good news is -- kind of --that tradition is OVER. It has to be. Most of the mills are gone. The ones that are left demand highly skilled technicians, and high school dropouts aren't going to get jobs there,

A lot of the people who ARE going to get jobs today, tomorrow and into the future are the people who benefit from the work that every one of you does every day. They are Pillowtex employees bewildered by the disappearance of one of North Carolina's great companies -- but buoyed by the careful guidance of a skilled counselor. They are teenagers inspired by the example of responsible adults who don't see failure as an option. They are courageous mothers, determined to recreate themselves as examples for the next generation.

I think of the past state president of our student government association Sharon Wright Watson holding up a flickering candle at our system's fortieth anniversary banquet to symbolize the hope that caring educators gave her as the faced the reality of single motherhood, five children, great financial need -- and a burning desire to succeed as a nurse. Today, she's a graduate of Piedmont Community College and NC Central University, a nurse, and a military officer.

Yes, we use the open doors as our symbol in community colleges, and it's a good metaphor for the work we all do. I also like Sharon's flame -- I've said more than once that I think community colleges should copy the Asbury flame of the Methodists, because everybody who chooses to work in our colleges --- and in your offices as well -- is truly a missionary -- consumed by the commitment to move our people one more step toward the future they deserve.

I thank you for your attention, I thank you for your great work, and I will be happy to take your questions.