Dr. R. Scott Ralls, President
North Carolina Community College System
Report to the State Board of Community Colleges
July 18, 2008
Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute
Watauga Campus
Boone, NC
I want to thank Dr. Ken Boham and the
trustees, staff, and faculty of Caldwell Community College and
Technical Institute for hosting our Board meeting and retreat this
month at their Watauga campus. Caldwell has been a forerunner of
innovation in our System for many years, thanks to the vision of Dr.
Boham and the great leadership at this college.
Recently there has been a lot of talk in our state about the
relatively abstract notion of “seamless education,” and if you want
to see a concrete example of what this practically means, there is
no better place than Caldwell Community College and Technical
Institute. Here you will find a University Center, a Middle College,
and a soon-to-be completed Early College all within steps of one
another on their Hudson campus.
And, if you want to see the North Carolina Community College System
philosophy of taking people from where they are and carrying them as
far as they can go made real, and if you want to see the notion of
seamless education personified, it could be in the person of Chad
Stevens. Chad was the subject of a lead story in last Friday’s
News-Topic about the ASU Center on Caldwell’s campus. He was quoted
here above the fold as saying, “We’ve all been through our share of
bad luck, but now I feel I like I can do anything.” Laid off from
his furniture manufacturing job in 2005, Chad gained his GED high
school equivalency through the Caldwell Basic Skills program,
completed his associates degree and is on track to be one of North
Carolina’s future teachers as he completes his Bachelor of Science
in Early Childhood Education from Appalachian State University at
the ASU Center located on Caldwell’s Hudson campus.
North Carolina’s community colleges are to me, the “seam” --the
place of coming together if you will -- of seamless education, and
while Caldwell is certainly pioneering and unique in having both
high schools and a University Center in such close proximity on
their campus, seamless education is very much evident at every
community college in our state, and particularly since the passage
of the Common Articulation Agreement with the UNC System in 1997.
And Chad’s opportunity to become a teacher is just one example of
how university transfer opportunities are a part of our important
education and workforce development mission.
Another example with which I am familiar is Chris Stroud who
graduated from N.C. State University in May, but his journey toward
his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering began at my former
college, Craven Community College.
Chris participated in Craven’s 2+2 engineering partnership with NCSU,
enabling the 21-year-old Morehead City resident the opportunity to
take his first two years of college close to home and then transfer
to Raleigh for his final two years. “Craven was close, and it was a
cheaper way of doing it,” he has been quoted as saying. “In fact,”
Chris said, “the first two years I spent here (at Craven) cost about
the equivalent of one semester at State.” Chris also says the time
he spent at the community college better prepared him to excel at
NCSU and to finish near the top of his class. This summer, he began
working as an engineer for Progress Energy in Wilmington.
An important step to furthering seamless education and additional
opportunities for university transfer happened just this week, when
I visited the offices of Dr. Hope Williams and her staff at the
North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities to sign an
Independent Articulation Agreement representing 24 of 36 members of
that organization.
The State Board approved the agreement about a year ago, and since
then, Hope and her colleague Tim McDowell have worked hard to get as
many signatories as possible. Those who have signed on so far are:
Barton; Belmont Abbey; Bennett; Brevard; Campbell; Catawba; Chowan;
Gardner-Webb; Johnson C. Smith; Lees-McRae; Livingstone; Louisburg;
Mars Hill; Montreat; Mount Olive; North Carolina Wesleyan; Peace;
Pfeiffer; Queens; St. Andrews Presbyterian; Saint Augustine’s; Shaw;
Warren Wilson; and Wingate.
The agreement parallels the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement
between the Community College System and UNC System that has been in
effect and constantly under improvement since 1997. That first
system-wide approach to college transfer was mandated by the General
Assembly, and there’s no question that it has spurred tremendous
improvements, especially for our students who have many more
opportunities now for high-quality, affordable, convenient higher
education.
Why is this new agreement important? Transfer to private
institutions is not new. Indeed, many of our independent colleges
have been pioneers in welcoming our students, even before semester
conversion and re-engineering. Mount Olive College, North Carolina
Wesleyan College, Pfeiffer University and Gardner-Webb University
are just a few examples of institutions that have worked with our
community colleges for years.
The agreement signed this week is important because:
1) It defines a block of courses that will transfer without
case-by-case analysis, just as the agreement with the UNC System
does.
2) With the guarantee of junior status for the GRADUATES of our
college transfer programs, it encourages our students to COMPLETE
associates degrees before transferring.
And, three, the public attention that the agreement has already
attracted will raise awareness of the growing role of community
colleges in opening the door to advanced degrees for many people who
may not have had the opportunity otherwise.
North Carolina, I believe, has the nation’s richest higher education
environment, in an age when higher education is more important to
economic prosperity than perhaps any other time in our state’s
history. But even beyond that, as evidenced by our “path”-breaking
articulation agreement with the UNC System, and now our new
articulation with the North Carolina Independent Colleges and
Universities, we have an incredibly unique collaborative partnership
among higher education systems and institutions in our state that is
enabling Chad Stevens to become a teacher here in the mountains,
that enabled Chris Stroud to become an engineer on our eastern
coast, and that will benefit North Carolinians for many years to
come.
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Tuesday, August 05, 2008 02:37:00 PM
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