Inservice 2012: The State of the College Address
Strengthening and Deepening
Good morning and welcome. It's great to see all of you. I always love the energy in the room as we connect with colleagues, and the burst of energy that hits the campus when students and the faculty come back. It's great to see all of you - the faces of the people who make the college what it is today. This is one day when we can celebrate all of our accomplishments with joy and look forward with curiosity and perhaps some apprehension to what the new academic year will bring us. I feel so fortunate to be able to share this time with you and to share another academic year, now my 12th, as your president. Don't know about you, but I am revved up and ready to go. SLIDES WITH FALL COLORS
Every year I try to think about topical things to include in this state of the college address. So this year we have had the Olympics, Andy Murray won the gold in tennis and the American open which made me feel a little old since I played tennis with his mother in high school. We have had the Special Olympics - amazing - and we have had two political conventions. I thought about maybe putting an empty chair up here and talking to it. But oh, that wouldn't work since it was the president that was supposed to be in the chair, and I didn't feel I could be two places at one. Do you feel lucky? Go ahead make my day? Or perhaps helicoptering in with James Bond like the queen did at the Olympics, but that was not to be. So, I simply decided to stick with the formula that seems to have worked over the last twelve years and share where we have been, where we are going and how we are going to get there – together. So here goes – the State of the College 12.0.
I want to express my appreciation to everyone who worked over the summer to close out last year and prepare for the new academic year. That takes a lot of work! Our classified staff and managers, in particular, work year round to assure that summer school happens and that we are ready to go for fall term. I also want to thank the faculty, many of whom may have been off campus but were still engaged in reviewing curriculum and practice and getting ready for the new year.
I had a busy summer but did have an opportunity to get away a bit. Like many of you, perhaps, it's the time in my life when I am caring for elders, and I am learning so much from this experience. As usual, I made my annual sojourn to Scotland SCOTLAND SLIDE to take care of my mother. At 95, she is amazing – after five weeks in the hospital this summer her physical health is failing, but she is as sharp as a tack. I just hope I have a tenth of her wit, zest for life and curiosity for what goes on in the world if I get to be her age. And here in Eugene, a dear friend who is 91 and has no family to care for her, who started college in 1939 and received her PhD in 1951, the year I was born, and taught at Northern Illinois. She has dementia, and as those of you who are dealing with that know, it is sad to see this great mind deteriorate, having the same conversation over and over as if it's the first time within the course an hour. I am learning patience and being in the moment because for her there is no immediate past, only the moment. And then I was off for a few days to the health and fitness camp to renew myself though exercise and meditation and laughing a lot with good friends. I hope that whatever you did this summer, all of you had some time to rest and renew and enjoy the glorious Oregon summer. FILLER SLIDE I hope that you had time to spend with the most important people in your lives and that the memories of summer will sustain you as you dive in and do the transformational work that makes Lane such a great place.
A special welcome to all of you who are with us for the first time. Could everyone who has joined the college since this time last year please stand? Let's welcome them. We are so glad you are here and wish you a long and successful relationship with the college. Please reach out to them over the next weeks and months to introduce yourselves and make them feel at home.
I would like to welcome our board members who are here today. Our elected board does a great job on behalf of the community and provides solid and stable leadership for all of us. I especially want to thank Sharon Stiles for stepping up to be chair. Sharon has had a long and successful career as a mediator and federal equal employment opportunity officer. I also want to recognize Nancy Golden, superintendent of Springfield Public Schools, colleague, and friend. Nancy and I serve on the Oregon Education Investment Board together. We're glad to have her here with us this morning.
And thanks to my in service team of Quinton Anderson, graduate of our multi-media program, Joan Aschim, Tracy Simms, and Donna Zmolek.
Let me start with a poem by Wendell Berry. (Wendell slide)
Horseback on Sunday morning, Harvest over,
we taste persimmon and wild grape, sharp sweet of summer's end. (persimmon slide)
In time's maze over fall fields, we name names that went west from here, names that rest on graves.
We open a persimmon seed to find the tree that stands in promise, pale, in the seed's marrow (tree slide)
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. (geese slide)
Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds, them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. (clouds slide)
And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.
So as we leave the sharp sweet of summer's end and embark on a new academic year, it feels good to be quiet in heart, in eye, clear. I feel that way, I hope you do too. And it feels good to know that what we need is here. What we need is right here – in the intelligence, passion, commitment, experience and love of learning that each of you brings to this work that we do. This year we will be focusing on strengthening and deepening, strengthening and deepening our everyday practice whether it is teaching, or supporting or cooking or cleaning, strengthening and deepening our passion for our work, strengthening and deepening our relationships with each other and strengthening and deepening the many initiatives that are underway.
There is no doubt that we are in the midst of great changes in education and indeed in every element of our lives. Whether it is national politics or education reform, transformational change is going on around us. It makes me think about catalytic moments in my lifetime, profound moments that changed everything, For example, where were you fifty years ago when President Kennedy announced that we were going to the moon. I know, I know, some of you weren't born yet, but for those of us who were around on September 12, 1962, we might remember that game changing speech. I was 11 years old and across the Atlantic, but I remember seeing it on our grainy black and white TV. Footage of President Kennedy
And think about what happened after that. All kinds of things came together. But it didn't just happen – great minds and resources were brought together around a common vision and goal, plans were made and implemented and something amazing happened. Neil Armstrong slide
And though our aspirations at Lane may not be on the scale of a moon landing, I would submit that at Lane we are on the same trajectory. We are experiencing our own moon shot, our own transformation as we create pathways for thousands of students to have their moon shot. To put our energy into student success, quality, development of not just workers but empowered citizens.
We are on "one of the greatest adventures of all time, and we are doing this not because it's easy but because it is hard." Let's see our some of our own problem solve together to get the job done. Apollo 13 video
We have a common vision and goals, we have made plans and are implementing them and something great is happening at Lane. And the crazy thing is we are doing it without the massive investments that happened in the run up to the moon landing. We are so fortunate at Lane because the very nature of our work is transformational – our vision statement is transforming lives through learning. Every single day, it doesn't matter the job we have here—teacher, custodian, maintenance worker, counselor, librarian, financial assistant—our work is in the service of transformation and learning.
The very good news is that like going to the moon, we know where we are going. We have a vision, mission, core values and clear strategic directions that aim us in the right direction, and our work for this year is to strengthen and deepen the great work that is already going on.
The college "was not built by those who rested and waited and wished to look behind. Why climb the highest mountain? Because it will serve to organize and measure the best of our energy and skills; that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are not willing to postpone and one we will win."
Perhaps this is Lane Community College's quiet, unheralded but nonetheless triumphant moon shot.
SECTION 2 – KUDOS
But before we look forward, let's take just a few minutes to look back. It is important to take some time to celebrate what is right with Lane and to recognize the many people that have contributed to these accomplishments. Before we do that I'd like you to simply ask yourself; what did I accomplish or contribute to last year? What am I most proud of? Is there a student whose life you changed? Did I make a systemic change? What did it feel like when you saw that 'aha' moment in a student? What did I do that strengthened or deepened the work of the college this past year. So take 30 seconds and think about that. Music: What Have You Done Today? I'd like you to recognize it, own it, celebrate it and take time, for at least today, to reflect on your own best work. For it is all these individual and collective acts that make up the fabric of Lane Community College.
Even if what you were thinking about is not reflected in these upcoming slides, what is important is that you recognize that you accomplished something and made a real difference. It may have been in a quiet way, unobserved by most, but that doesn't make it any less important. So let's take a look at some of the highlights from last year. Run video
Absolutely amazing! I do want to give an additional shout out to the winners of the Faculty Recognition Awards and would ask that you stand if you are here. Slides of winners
Shannon Gaul, Health and Physical Education
Kathryn Hadley, Science
Cynthia Adams, Social Science
Ken Loge, Media Arts
Wendy Lightheart, Mathematics
Reza Oskui, Mathematics
Bill Woolum, Language, Literature, and Communication
Alice Warner, Academic Learning Skills
Let's give them another round of applause.
And also to our classified employees of the month. Our classified staff individually and collectively make this place hum, and let's recognize our awardees again.
If you could please stand as I say your name.
SLIDE – Pictures of classified staff of month
October 2011 – Darcy Spencer, Mathematics
November 2011 – Linda Ackers, Library
December 2011 – Paula Sena, Health and PE
January 2012 – Jennifer Hayward, Facilities, Mgt & Planning
April 2012 – Alen Bahret, Information Technology
May 2012 – Amy Burbee, Advanced Technology
June 2012 – Shirl Meads, Small Business Development Center
Please join me in giving a round of applause for the monthly recipients.
As notable as those achievements are for our monthly recipients, each year we identify that one individual to be the Classified Employee of the Year. It is my great pleasure this year to name the 2012 Classified Employee of the Year. SLIDE OF Darcy Spencer. Darcy, would you please join me at the podium to receive this well deserved award while I share a bit about you with your colleagues?
Here are some quotes from the nominations:
"Darcy serves as the front-line person in our division office, and she handles her position with confidence, friendliness, and commitment. She is an empathetic listener and has an outstanding ability to meet students where they are and guide them to appropriate solutions for their problems. Darcy is the epitome of warmth, kindness and genuine concern of others. She is always willing to go the extra mile and does it with a smile. Her patience is unwavering and in high supply every day. She is truly phenomenal."
Please join me in honoring the 2012 Classified Employee of the Year.
We've recognized these classified staff members, and there are many more yet to be recognized. Your stories comprise what makes this institution great. Join us this year in nominating individuals who are demonstrating excellence, innovation, diversity and partnerships that stand above the rest.
We don't have any formal recognition for managers, but they also pulled their weight last year, so I would like to recognize them for everything they did.
I want to take just a moment to acknowledge the passing of some of our own:
Former faculty and staff:
Debbie Daggett, Health & PE, 30 years of service
John Holland, FMP, over 20 years of service
Darwin "Mac" McCaroll, Electronics and Drafting, 18 years of service
Dean Webb, Former board of education, 7 years of service
All of these people made a tremendous contribution to the college. They will be sorely missed.
I also want to highlight from last year our new Downtown Campus. DC slide. This week we had the opening of Titan Court and students are moving in. In January, we will begin classes in the new LEED platinum academic building. Be watching the Weekly for opportunities for tours and open houses for employees during winter term. This is an amazing accomplishment for the college in bringing together $44 million of public investment with our own $9 million from the bond and making something truly magnificent happen to create a wonderful learning environment for students and trigger the revitalization of downtown Eugene. Eventually the housing will create a revenue stream that will contribute to the general fund to help better fulfill our mission. A special thanks to Dave Willis, Todd Smith, and the FMP staff, and to Greg Morgan for pulling together all of the complicated financing for the project.
Ty video
What can I say about the Foundation? Our Opening Doors campaign set a goal of raising $23 million. In June we closed out the campaign at $29.6 million raised. Wonderful work by a great team of Foundation board and staff members.
Add to that a balanced budget, completed bargaining, no lay-offs, growth. And then there are all the quiet miracles that each of you contribute to. It is thanks to you that the state of the college is strong; the state of the college is good.
What a year! To all of you: bravo, and thanks for continuing to go above and beyond to serve our students and the community.
You have been sitting for a while now, so it's almost time for a stretch break. Once we start to look ahead at what's on the plate for this year, you will get exhausted pretty quickly. Sometimes it feels too hard and we feel too weary, we all experience "stretches" during the school year, excuse the pun, when the grind of daily routines take their toll – working at a feverish pace, overwhelming demands, work never done, papers to grade, budgets to balance, contracts to settle, floors to be mopped. But we must remember that our students can be turned off so easily and we need to be alive in this work so it is important that we each take care of our own health and wellness. Here's an interesting twist on exercise – Dance walking video I would be happy to sign up for dance walking across campus any day. So now your turn. In the spirit of strengthening and deepening, let's direct our attention to Wendy Simmons and Layne King, stars of the Tosh.0 blog, to take a one-minute stretch break.
30 seconds of dance music for Wendy and Layne to dance to the stage
Stretch slide
SECTION 3 – LOOKING AHEAD
Let me just lay out some of what's ahead. I'll touch on the national, state, and Lane picture, but as you will see, Lane is leading so much of this work.
National slide
We are living in what has been called a VUCA – a world full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and our challenge is to learn to thrive in it—and we are.
At the national level, I don't need to tell you that the economy is still precarious, and that has the potential to cause us problems now and in the future. In November we have a very important choice to make as citizens, and I would recommend that you take a look at least at their plans for higher education. Slide of Romney and Obama. Even while living in that context, we can't stand still. The challenges of the 21st Century demand unprecedented vision, ingenuity, courage, and focus from community colleges and our partners in the education, policy, business, and philanthropic arenas. Slide of report The 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges published its report in April. This is the third such commission in the history of the community college, the first being the Truman Commission in 1947 that led to the unprecedented growth of community colleges, the second in 1987, Building Communities, which was led by our own founding president, Dale Parnell and now the 21st Century Commission. I was honored to be part of the Commission. As I participate in this national work, Lane is my case study, my foundation, my reference point that I never forget because your thinking and action is, I believe, in the vanguard of what is happening in this country. The report itself is not as bold as I would have wished. It really uses the completion agenda as its context – important but not sufficient for the kinds of things we focus on at Lane like sustainability, democracy commitment, liberal education. However, the report can be used as a touchstone for us as we continue to strengthen and deepen our quality, progression and completion initiatives.
Community colleges continue to receive a great deal of attention at the national level. Along with all the accolades comes some bad press. Some of it is our own fault. I think our collective failure as community colleges to go beyond anecdotes to tell our story is not working and results in reports like Leaders and Laggards which gives each state a report card – Oregon's community colleges got D's and F's, and they state that it costs $92,000 for each associate degree awarded. Meaningless data used to reach meaningless and false conclusions. Or this one put out by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research - Completion Matters: The High Cost of Low Community College Graduation Rates. Fortunately, our national association published a blistering response calling the analysis a "pseudo-academic attack on community colleges" and a piece of "shoddy work" and pointed out that this so-called research organization is basically a shill for the for profit institutions whose graduation rates are worse than ours. Once in a while, though, accurate data are reported that tell the real story. For example, the recent Inside Higher Ed article IHE article slide reveals that 45 percent of all students who finished a four-year degree in 2010-11 had previously enrolled at a two-year college. Of all the states, Oregon had the fifth highest percentage of degree completers at four-year institutions who had previously enrolled at two-year institutions at 62 percent. We need to be savvy about using data to tell our story.
At the state level, you may be aware that Governor Kitzhaber is moving a significant agenda on education and health care, calling for deep systemic changes. He is working with unions and the business community to broach the thorny issue of tax reform in Oregon which is sorely needed to provide the resources we need. He is trying to bend the cost curves on things like health care and prisons – mandatory sentencing so that more state money can be invested in the 0-20 education systems and to meet the 40-40-20 goal.
As you know, I serve on the Oregon Education Investment Board, which was established through legislation in 2011, and you might have heard a bit about Achievement Compacts that each college, university and school district has with the state that were included in legislation passed earlier this year. Frankly, if I had been queen for the day I would not have started with achievement compacts. Focusing on the larger, important goal of 40-40-20 and how we achieve it would have been a much more interesting and productive conversation—a conversation upon which it is crucial that we focus as we strengthen and deepen the many initiatives that we are already doing to improve student attainment and achievement. As usual, Lane was all over it, and we had a Task Force – Sonya Christian, Bob Baldwin, Craig Taylor, Phil Martinez, Jim Salt, and Don McNair – that spent a great deal of time thinking about achievement compacts. They made a great contribution to the field that has sharpened everyone's thinking about achievement compacts. Achievement compacts are not the whole answer by any means, but they are one way to tell our story through using data and metrics developed by us as academics rather than the legislature or the US Chamber of Commerce.
I see achievement compacts as an accountability mechanism – Lane telling the state how we are doing on several metrics. I also see them as a way to hold the state accountable as to what they are going to do to help us be successful. It is a compact, after all, which I see as a two-way street. Working with the Task Force to reach consensus about what an evolved achievement compact should be, last night the board reviewed a framework for achievement compacts that make them a three way partnership with the state, the OEIB and the local college. We have the opportunity in the next few months to evolve the achievement compact into a tool that will be useful, and I will be working heard to assure that achievement compacts will not hurt the college but rather tell the story of the great work that you are doing in helping students succeed. To a certain extent, we are all working with the unknown; the jury is out on the achievement compacts as you might see here. Wildebeest video
The best we can do is engage, be at the table and try to shape the direction.
There is also discussion about outcomes based funding and governance that creates a lot of fear in many people. For my part, I am not interested in operating out of fear. What you can count on in my role as an OEIB member is that I am representing Lane Community College and community colleges generally, and I will be arguing for the best policies for Lane, community colleges and for Oregon. I will fight for the preservation of our local governance and autonomy that community colleges have enjoyed in Oregon since their inception, but not from a defensive posture but rather through proudly showing the great work that already is being undertaken. I will work for a larger investment in community colleges and for achievement compacts that make sense as an accountability tool that tells a powerful story, not as a mechanism for funding. I think we need to be smart and strategic and we know how to do that at Lane.
Clearly, there is much to be done, not only to develop this American Community College Agenda for the 21st Century but to make it a reality. If our visions are large enough and actions bold enough, nothing can stop us. Right now, we have the chance to shape this catalytic and transformative moment for community colleges and when asked if we, community college professionals, are up to the task? I say "yes, we are" because, guess what, we are already doing it at Lane.
STRENGTHENING AND DEEPENING
So there is a lot going on at the national and state levels that impacts us, but even more exciting is that there a lot, and I mean a lot, going on at Lane and it's really terrific work. You are all aware that we have multiple initiatives. Slide of strategic directions and projects which have already been developed
In both the state and national visioning a central tenet will be student success. We are being called upon to focus on results and develop strategies for increasing community college students' completion of certificates and degrees; achieving equity in outcomes across student groups, by race, ethnicity, gender, age, and family income; preparing students for real jobs that pay family-supporting wages; and demonstrating public accountability for improving institutional performance and student success. Yes, we are all about student success. It starts right here. Student success video.
Student success starts with you, it starts with me. It can start anywhere, everywhere, any place, any time, every place, every time.
When a student enrolls at Lane, it is an act of optimism and trust. I think we all want to assure that they leave with something to show for their work – knowledge, skills, proficiencies, meaningful credentials and as empowered citizens able to deal with the unscripted problems that come up.
Folks, we are already well into the work on student success.
We will continue to focus on all of our strategic directions but our direction on a safe working and learning environment will come into sharp focus.
1. Focus on safety strategic direction
Strategic Directions slide
Safety on college and university campuses across the nation has been the subject of increasing attention and analysis in recent years. In particular, the randomness and severity of some violence has raised college consciousness of the need to put in place effective plans and systems to secure our community and property.
Our plan on the safety direction states that at Lane, safety has multiple dimensions: all members of our community have a right to learn and work in environments in which they are safe from discrimination or threats of harassment or physical harm. We have a commitment to taking an active role in designing and maintaining healthful physical surroundings that are as free as possible from environmental toxins, pathogens and other contaminants, and that as an institution of higher learning, Lane is a place where people should have a right to engage in respectful, civil discourse, and where tolerance of alternative views is actively encouraged. The strategic direction states that we will promote practices and processes that encourage civil discourse and protect college communities from discrimination, harassment, threats and harm.
It was in this spirit that the board developed a statement of expectation for professional behavior and a set of directions to me as president. I introduced it to you at Spring conference. Let me first say what it is not. It is not an effort to suppress expression, in fact the first principle recognizes everyone's right to free speech. So, no it is not the "Lane Sedition Act." The statement's foundation are our own core values which we have agreed upon through our governance processes, and it asks us to actually "live" those core values in our daily interactions. The board believes, as do I, that every single person on this campus deserves a safe and non intimidating environment, and let's face it, we are falling short. Whether it is a faculty member feeling unsafe because of a hostile student, or a classified staff member who feels they are being treated aggressively by a colleague or manager, or a manager who has been shamed publicly, it all leads to an environment of fear, antagonism and defensiveness. I believe we can do better. There is a serious academic discussion going on across the country on this topic, and we need to be part of it.
Filler slide
I recognize that this is a tricky conversation, and I can't say I know exactly how to move forward, but I believe the poet David Whyte when he says that having conversations that matter is a form of being courageous. This is a conversation that should matter to each and every person here that desires a safe place to work where they are freed to do their best work without fear. So we'll have to figure out how to it but in a webinar that I sat in on by Chip Heath from MIT, I heard him suggest that we don't just think our way, we discover our way, the first pass doesn't have to be perfect, just directionally correct, and that you first see the problem, run the experiment, test the solution.
Filler slide
We can create a better environment for all. I know it in my bones. We at Lane are good at taking wicked problems and untangling them. Goethe said: "The things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things that matter least."
And I would just say to those of you who have experienced a lack of safety or caring that it can seem awfully important at times and take up your entire field-of-view, but it's even more important to remember the people around you that quietly move in the periphery on your behalf that enable you to navigate your toughest moments -- they are at work and at home, and sometimes are complete strangers on the street. John Maeda
2. Formally launching the institute for sustainable practices. Sustainability Slide
In an effort to strengthen and deepen our commitment to sustainability at Lane, we are pleased to announce the creation of the Institute of Sustainable Practices. This new department will provide an organizational umbrella that will encompass both operational and instructional components. This interdisciplinary approach will provide opportunities for many students, staff, and faculty to contribute to the next level of sustainability at Lane. Stay tuned for more details.
3. Continuing with Achieving the Dream Work. Achieving the Dream slide
- Moving into our second year of Achieving the Dream
- This initiative is helping us strengthen and deepen our culture of evidence on campus.
- Last year we had three data conferences where the campus community engaged in discussions about our student success data.
- In 2012-2013 we will continue our work on developmental math redesign and build systems so that every student will have an academic plan that is regularly updated.
4. Continuing to implement the Foundations of Excellence. Foundations of Excellence slide
The Foundational Dimensions constitute a model that provides two-year colleges with a means to evaluate and improve the new student experience. This model recognizes the multiple roles and functions of community colleges as well as their service to diverse student populations that have widely varying educational backgrounds and goals. Last year, many of you were involved with our institutional self evaluation and in 2012-2013 we will continue our work by implementing the recommendations.
5. Continue with the bond work. Bond slide
- The Bond work will continue with the focus on the Center Building and the Learning Commons.
- The Bond leadership team has done a remarkable job in engaging the campus in its deliberations, keeping the bond priorities always in focus, and stretching the dollars.
- Our learning spaces have been remarkably improved because of the bond. Thank to all of you for passing the measure.
6. We are working on redesigning our website and will continue with the rollout. Last year, the web team facilitated a series of campus focus groups and open discussions about revamping the Lane website. This year, the collective vision becomes reality.
The new site will not only sport a fresh web 2.0 look & feel, but will include many new features as well - including an online user directory, a mega-menu, a campus map based on the Google-map API, photo galleries, and a smartphone friendly design.
The evolution is steadily underway - kudos to the web-team for migrating thousands of pages and volumes of user training over the summer. The plan is to launch the complete - new - Lane web site over the winter break.
Website slide
7. Unveiling our new representation of institutional accountability through the institutional score card.
Scorecard slide
Lane's institutional score card team has been hard at work in creating a dynamic website the hosts a comprehensive set of indicators as part of our accreditation requirement to respond to the question: "are we fulfilling our mission?"
This team, of course, approached the project in the Lane way with a lot of thought attempting to capture the complex idea of developing accountability indicators for our mission. Come back after the break for the grand unveiling of our institutional score card.
8. Opening of the Downtown Campus and the Titan Court
DC slide
I have already talked about the Downtown Campus, but as we move in and have a new presence downtown, we will need to look at evolving programming, CML offerings and connecting with our downtown community.
9. Degree Qualifications Profile:
Slide
Lumina Foundation has awarded a three-year, $789,000 grant to Oregon's 17 community colleges and 7 public universities to test a statewide application of the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP). The DQP in Oregon will define what students should be expected to know, and be able to do, regardless of their majors or fields of study, upon earning an associate or bachelor's degree.
Lane Community College is the lead institution for the 7 universities and 17 community colleges and will also act as the fiscal agent for the project. I'd like to credit Sonya Christian for her dogged persistence working with Lumina to secure the grant.
10. We will also be working a new major gifts campaign as a follow up to the Opening Doors campaign. I will be working with our board and then the Foundation board and staff to craft a compelling case statement, based on the many conversations that you have had with the Foundation staff about needs that we have. Once the projects are identified we will start the quiet phase of the campaign to raise $30 million over the new few years. We know how to do this now, and I think it will be another exciting campaign.
As things have evolved over the last few years—unlike the first few years of my presidency when I was very internal—like most presidents in my role, I have become much more external. It's not that I don't miss the intellectual stimulation of the internal work, I do, it's just not my primary work anymore except at the 30,000 foot strategy and budget level. This is only possible because we have an amazingly stable and strong administrative team with the exemplary leadership of Executive Vice President Sonya Christian. Some of that will change this year as Don McNair and Andrea Newton approach retirement. We knew when we asked them to step into these roles a few years ago that this would be their final stop to retirement and they have decided it is the time. They will be sorely missed and we will make sure we celebrate their many years at Lane before the end of the year. In the meantime we are doing a national search for new Executive Deans, and I am confident that we will find the right people to join us. We also have a strong bench of Deans as well who are making a great contribution. Many of us are at that certain age when retirement is in the not so distant future but we will manage the change and stay strong. We will certainly focus on bringing new administrators into Lane in an intentional way.
SECTION FOUR
Leadership slide
So how are we going to get all of this done? Well, leadership is certainly a big part of it. In their book The Heart of Higher Education, Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc speak of renewing the heart of education requiring the kind of institutional change that can emerge when academics foster and practice a social capacity that engenders a deep conversation as a tool for institutional renewal. The change we seek is not one that flows from administrative mandate but one that arises in the energized space between careful and thoughtful human beings. When personal agendas subside, and genuine interest is established, then a quality of mutual attentiveness emerges that can become the safe harbor for the new and the unexpected that may become a seedbed of academic renewal. Fundamental change in institutions has always come from planting small communities of vision and practice within those settings; these communities can grow from good conversation and those conversations can be started by individuals whether or not they hold positional power. We should know this at Lane because we have seen it happen.
There are so many leaders across this college that are fully engaged. Leadership does not only belong to people with a high profile, but often to the quiet leaders who make things happen from wherever they are in an organization. People like Liz Coleman and Marisa Hastie, Adrienne Mitchell, Susan Reddoor, Steve McQuiddy, Elaine Prey, Russell Shitabata and Ben Hill, Jennifer Steele, Anne McGrail, Barbara Breaden, Sarah Ulerick, Alen Bahret, Elizabeth Andrade, Thad Cowdin and Brad Hinson to name just a handful of our many, many leaders at Lane.
We will need more than leaders; we will need to work together as we have done over the last many years.
Filler slide
The founder of Habitat for Humanity had the theology of the hammer – we can disagree on many things, but we can all agree to pick up a hammer and help build this house. We can all agree to pick up the spade or the hoe and help grow this garden.
I often think of the Learning Garden Learning Garden slide as a metaphor for the work we do at Lane. It exemplifies so many of our values – sustainability, learning, diversity. In a recent essay, Janna Malamud Smith said that "Life is better when you have a sustaining practice that holds your desire, demands your attention and requires effort, a plot of ground that gratifies the wish to labor and create." I am not much of a gardener, though since I moved out of the dark woods in South Eugene to a place full of light, I have been more interested. My two tomato plans are doing really well. But in many ways, community colleges—and Lane specifically—has been my plot of ground. I suspect it is your plot of ground as well. Malamud Smith suggests that "As with gardening, pursuing any practice seriously is a generative, hardy way to live in the world. You plan, you design, you labor, you struggle and the reward is that in some seasons you create a gratifying bounty. "
She cites the poet Richard Wilbur who wrote about laundry drying on the line laundry slide "moving and staying like white water" and "how you must hold still and wait and yet you must push forward. And while you may complete many projects, the labor itself is not finished; (we know this at Lane) this incompleteness is part of its essence. Each moment of mastery is merely a breather snatched at an overlook during a long hike – a snapshot, a sip of water, and tightening of one's boot laces. But it is not an arrival. The point of arrival wavers like a heat mirage upon the road, always in front of us. There is always the expanse yet to come – more to traverse, to learn to do. It can be frustrating yet it also offers comfort we sometimes feel while in transit. Because you are neither here nor there you share in a traveler's sense of liberation." I am grateful for that, because at Lane the work is never done.
Each of us shows up repeatedly to our plot to our work. Sometimes it seems like a grind but sometimes, just sometimes, everything feels right. Let's make it that kind of year at Lane. The fact is the more we all show up, the more chance we have to experience the gift of everything being just right. The more we sharpen our practice, the more possibility for that transcendent moment in which everything comes together and voices soar.
Malamud Smith also says that we cannot both give ourselves over to a process and preserve ourselves from the way our choice alters us. We have all chosen to be here at Lane. It has altered us. Each of us in turn has a responsibility to help grow the garden.
This poem, The Seven of Pentacles by Marge Piercy, speaks to this (slide)
Song quietly playing – Bob James "Modesty" from Dancing on the Water
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars (slide),
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening. (slide)
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
(House slide)
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting, (harvest slide)
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
I have an irrational sense of hope that the harvest will come because everything we need is here. Why would I have that irrational sense of hope? The negativity and personal attacks have already begun, and we are not yet to the first day of classes. I have this sense of hope because I have a profound belief in the goodness of this place and the people in it. I have a deep sense that we have something very special here, and I know that 80, maybe 90, heck, 95 per cent of the work is amazing, done by people of good will with great intention and passion.
So I invite you to plant yourselves at the gates of hope with me, participate with things as they unfold, expect to be surprised, enjoy the mystery of not knowing how things are going to turn out as we embark on this largely unscripted journey. Education is high stakes work – what happens in our college matters because we raise students up, futures are born, dreams achieved, passions ignited. Your commitment and passion, your willingness to stand with me to make it to the end, to achieve our moon shot, to toil in the garden of student dreams inspires me, not unlike this example of persistence, lending a helping hand and simply doing the tough work.
Olympics video
We are Lane Community College. Student Success starts here. This college is a storehouse of miracles, and if we keep our eyes peeled and listen with care, we can see the moments of wonder and transformation. They are always there waiting to be seen and savored. I wish you a wonderful year. Thank you.
Gaga Edge of Glory w/Visualizer