The President’s Report
To the
State Board of Community Colleges
January 16, 2004
Since I did not give you a report at the time of the telephonic meeting in December, this report will cover two months.
I trust that all of you had a wonderful holiday season. Certainly my family and I did, including a wonderful ten-day family vacation to Germany.
We sincerely appreciate your participation yesterday in our reception honoring Clay Hines on her retirement as our System General Counsel. Clay’s more than 30 years of service to the state has been marked by dedication and excellence. We will all miss her wise counsel and wish her well in her retirement.
On December 1, Chancy Kapp, Foundation Chair Dwight Allen, and I joined our W. Dallas Herring Fellows and the contributors to that endowment for an excellent discussion with Dallas Herring about the program and Dr. Herring’s vision for the future. We had anticipated his reminiscing about the creation of the System, but he made it clear very early in the conversation that he was not interested in the past, he was interested in looking towards the future and in challenging the Herring Fellows to lead our System into that future.
We continue to meet with the Nursing Shortage Task Force. We have been pleased that Elizabeth Isler could continue her work in this important area on a contract basis. We believe that we are making some progress in helping the nursing and medical services community see the value of our programs and the role they will play in addressing the shortage.
We have met with CC Benefits, a consulting firm, to discuss the prospects of its doing an economic impact study for each of our colleges with aggregated data on the impact of entire System on the state. We have previously met with another company and will be making a decision soon as to how to proceed. We believe that having credible data on our impact will be very helpful in building local and statewide support. The Foundation and colleges will pay for this study.
We hosted the leadership team of the South Carolina Technical College System in early December. We started with a reception at our home followed by dinner at a local restaurant at which time each senior staff person had an opportunity to get to know his or her counterpart. The following day the State Director of South Carolina and I presented overviews of our respective systems and then each of the counterparts began one-on-one discussions for the rest of the morning. We concluded with a wrap-up session at lunch. All of us felt that this was a very successful and positive interaction. We certainly learned much about their system and they did the same.
Tim Brewer and I participated in Sandhills Community College’s 40th Anniversary Luncheon and the groundbreaking for the new George Little Building, which will be built using state bond funds. I believe that is very appropriate that George be honored in that way since he played such an important role in the passage of the bonds.
Several of us participated in an Education Research Summit in the Triangle. All of you would have been proud of the outstanding job Keith Brown did in his role as a panelist on longitudinal research data.
Once again your System Office has conducted an American Red Cross blood drive. Not only are your System Office staff members generous givers of their money, but even of their blood!
We are always trying to find ways to better compensate our folks. Kennon Briggs and Rosalyn Comfort have been aggressive in pursuing funds to address equity and adequacy of salaries, with constant pushing from Fred Williams. Thanks to a major infusion of salary equity funds made available by the Governor, we are almost home in bring our staff salaries in line with other state agencies. Of course, we are a long way from equity with private industry and university salaries.
Hope Williams of the Independent Colleges and Universities hosted at dinner in her home for Molly Broad, Mike Ward, and me to conduct informal discussions of our cooperation. Also attending was a senior staffer from each system. It was a productive and pleasant evening.
Helga Mattei, Ken Whitehurst and I had a productive meeting with North Carolina State leadership on the confusion that has arisen because of a NC State Hispanic initiative. We believe that we can resolve these issues and avoid future confusion.
We continue to work on our Biotech Initiative with a Steering Committee meeting and with the advertising for the Golden LEAF funded positions. Susan Seymour continues to do a wonderful job with this Initiative. We hope to fill those positions within the month.
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation hosted a dinner for community college, public school and university leadership on professional development and how they might be involved in this important and underfunded effort. We hope that something good will come from it. Since then, I have met with Jenni Owen, the consultant for Z. Smith Reynolds, as a follow up to that dinner.
Alice and I participated in the Centennial of Flight celebrations in Dare County.
The weeks of Christmas and New Year’s were slower than usual, allowing us to celebrate the holiday season with staff at breakfast, luncheons, and other social events and to catch up on work that had been put on the back burner for some time.
On January 1, Alice, our daughters and their husbands, and I left for a much-needed family vacation in Germany. We have all returned refreshed from the experience and with wonderful memories.
Delores Parker, Ken Whitehurst, Fred Williams and I met with Dr. Tony Habit to discuss the "New Schools Project" funded by the Gates Foundation grant. We were pleased by Dr. Habit’s strong feeling that community colleges should have an important role to play in developing and implementing innovative ways to reform high schools in North Carolina.
This week Dr. Ken Boham and Dr. Jim Owen have presented to legislative oversight committees our position on studying the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement and the weighted grade issues. Kennon and Saundra presented on CIS and the Textile Center.
If you have had trouble reaching us this week, the reason is that we have an incredibly sophisticated new telephone system and we are all struggling to learn how to use it. Once the training is complete and we are comfortable with the system, we believe that we will all have better telephone service and better ways to communicate with you and others. Though problems have plagued us this week, we are especially grateful to Kennon Briggs and his staff for obtaining the funds and doing the necessary leg work for this implementation.
Earlier this week I spoke to new public school superintendents about how community colleges relate to public schools and universities to create a seamless educational system.
Also earlier this week, Helga Mattei hosted a dinner for various leaders who are interested in the Hispanic Initiative that is now underway.
I continue my efforts to raise funds to complete the North Carolina/United Kingdom exchange which began with visits of higher education leaders from the United Kingdom to North Carolina almost two years ago. I have made efforts in November and just this week, to identify potential givers who can help us complete this effort.
I believe that some of you know of the untimely death of one of our staff members, Larry Marshburn. He died unexpectedly in his home at the end of November. We all mourn his passing.
In mid-December, I spoke to the Raleigh Civitan Club.
We are pleased to have recruited Dr. Paula Berardinelli as our Distance Learning Coordinator. She was formally on the faculty of the College of Education at North Carolina State University and will be a great addition to our distance learning efforts.
A number of North Carolina Community College personnel, including our own Vonna Viglione, attended the national conference of The Council for Resource Development in December. This was a wonderful opportunity for our people to meet with federal funders and to gain insights into ways to raise money in Washington.
We are very pleased that Dennis King at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and the Chairperson of our Transfer Advisory Committee was able to resolve long-standing community college issues at the meeting of that committee in December. Much needed changes to Comprehensive Articulation Agreement were made by adding courses, subtracting courses, and restructuring the Agreement as it applies to the Associate in Science degree, making it unnecessary for us to pursue the Associate of Science in Engineering.
A coalition of employers, educators, associations, community groups and workforce development agencies worked together to obtain a Duke Endowment grant of $450,000 for Wake and Johnston counties healthcare facilities. Judith Mann represents the System Office on this coalition.
Wachovia Bank has contributed $25,000 to our scholarship program to assist students enrolled in technical programs and Progress Energy has contributed $15,000 each to Nash Community College, Cape Fear Community College, Robeson Community College, and Wake Technical Community College for a variety of technology programs related to electricity.
As you know from our December meeting, Herb Watkins, Saundra Williams, Kennon Briggs and their staff were able to work out many issues with our CIS vendors to allow the extension of the contract and to address other issues with regard to the final implementation of the system. The cash reporting issue is well on the way to resolution.
Keith Brown has been selected by the US Department of Education to serve on a technical review panel which will develop new derived variables for the IPEDS Peer Review Analysis System. He will be one of two individuals to represent community colleges from across the country.
For the first time in two years, the Program Audit Services Section is now fully staffed with the addition of Richard Garrett and Elizabeth Self.
Kennon Briggs and his staff reported to the Higher Education Bond Oversight Committee on December 8 that our System has now expended $122.3 million of the bond funds on approximately 200 projects.
As you know from your budget workshop yesterday, Kennon and his staff have completed their work for our budget request for the Short Session.
We are pleased that Duke Energy Foundation has announced a $70,000 grant to enhance economic development in Western North Carolina in the area of biotechnology by funding a new biotechnology laboratory at McDowell Technical Community College. This grant will make it possible for them to offer programs to assist companies such as Baxter Healthcare Corporation.
Since we last met, new industries involving over 750 new jobs have been announced.
Dr. Stephanie Deese has been appointed to the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals Board of Directors.
Chairman Woody and Fred Williams attended the Alamance Community College’s Business & Industry breakfast in December. Fred also attended the 2004 Economic Forecast Forum sponsored by North Carolina Citizens for Business & Industry and the North Carolina Bankers Association.
We continue to work hard in your System Office and on your campuses to meet the needs of our citizens in a transitioning economy. We pray that 2004 will bring a much needed turnaround in that economy.
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