President's Report – April 2014

I arrived back from break in time to attend the Pew Charitable Trust Dental Campaign. There was a meeting in Portland of the Northwest Health Foundation, Community Catalyst, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Kellogg Foundation. The goal of them coming together is to make oral health care available to rural areas through the creation of a dental therapist strand within dental care, and they want to partner with community colleges to provide the training, so we are exploring that.

I am sad to note the unexpected passing of Erik Humphrey last week. He was an instructor in our Criminal Justice program and a graduate of that program. He also served with the Eugene Police Department. Erik was a Native American and a member of the Klamath Nation. There will be a memorial service this Friday at 10 a.m. at the Faith Center on 13th Street in Eugene. We will miss Erik.

I was also saddened to learn of the passing of Lane student and scholarship recipient Tamera Flores. She lost her battle with cancer on March 14 at age 47. She won an Oregon Community Credit Union scholarship this year, and a Staton Scholarship the past two years. She was in the Physical Therapy Assistant program. In her scholarship essay she wrote, "I have learned that my strengths are not negated by my limitations and that I can grow during adversity."

You may remember that Lane chemistry instructor Harry Rice passed away earlier this year from cancer. A Celebration of Life is planned for June 15. Gifts in Harry's memory may be made to the Lane Community College Foundation which is establishing a scholarship in his name. Wendy Jett can help you if you'd like to contribute.

Lane art and sculpture instructor JS Bird also writes fiction. He has published a novel titled, "The Boy Who Painted Fire," now available on Amazon.com. It's the story of a young boy's life as he becomes an artist. Congratulations to JS.

English instructor Anne McGrail has completed the reporting for Lane's NEH Office of Digital Humanities Start-Up grant. Our project is called, "Bringing Digital Humanities to the Community College and Vice Versa." There is now a video and other materials related to the grant on the project's website. Russell Shitabata produced the video. You can find the video and more on our online newsroom at lanecc.edu/newsroom

I want to thank the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County for creating a library for our Adult Basic and Secondary Education students with a donation of 300 books. The library is in the ABSE area of Building 11.

Total registrations for all classes for spring term as of the second week of classes are down 16.2% compared to the same time last year. Total unduplicated headcount was down 15.5%.

The Senior Companion Program's annual recognition event for volunteers is scheduled for April 22 from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church in Eugene. Congressman DeFazio and Mayor Piercy are scheduled to attend and speak. Contact the SCP office if you're interested in attending.

In Washington, the budget season is well underway. Last month, the President and House Republicans released their proposed budgets for fiscal year 2015. Both proposals respect the overall spending caps set at the end of 2013, although I'm not sure if either of them will make it through.

I just wanted to say a word about governance. The board had asked for a review of the governance system and expected some recommendations by this meeting. College Council created a subcommittee to do that. The members of that subcommittee are Bob Baldwin, Barb Delansky, Anayeli Jiminez and myself, and it is chaired by faculty member Russell Shitabata. Since the subcommittee started meeting in January, both the chairs and vice chairs of governance councils have been invited and have attended meetings to share their perspectives, and there have also been other invitations to faculty, staff, and students to attend to provide perspective, and several people have taken advantage of that opportunity. In addition, the subcommittee developed a survey which was available for people to complete for the last couple of weeks. The survey closed last night. I'm interested to see the results of this survey and to see if there is alignment with the other testimony we have received so we can have a good diagnosis of which issues need to be addressed to make the governance system stronger. So I am not ready to make recommendations this evening, but we will continue with the review.

Last month I told you I had interviewed with the Associated Press about proposals to make community college tuition free. It finally hit the wire on March 26 and has been picked up by dozens of media across the country.

I am writing four quarterly columns for the Oregon Business Magazine. The first was published online on March 26 under the headline is "Closing the Gap: Community Colleges and Workforce training.

I also interviewed for a Business Officer Magazine story on a story carbon neutral efforts at various colleges, including Lane, to be published in June. The magazine is published by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. I want to thank Brian Kelly and Jennifer Hayward for helping provide data for that story.

Last night I returned from the AACC Annual Convention in Washington, D.C. It was a jam-packed weekend. We had Vice President Biden join us along with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, who is a community college faculty member. She was presenting on Monday and back in her classroom on Tuesday. Also, you will recall I was a member of the 21st Century Community College Commission which published the report "Reclaiming the Dream." Since then, over the last year and half, implementation teams have been developing resources, and they issued a report at the convention. I also presented on our International Program, attended the meeting of the Global Commission that I sit on, I met with the first secretary on education with the Chinese Embassy to talk about partnerships for sending students to Lane, and finally I met with the Kellogg, Carnegie, and Kresge Foundations regarding funding for math reform. All in all, a pretty busy but productive meeting.

Spring is a very busy term as you know. Here are a few of many upcoming events:

Juan Carlos Arean will speak at the Downtown Campus this Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m. He wrote "Breaking the Cycle: Fathering After Violence," and produced "Something My Father Would Do: Overcoming Legacies of Family Violence." Donna Koechig has details.

Tinh Mahoney, a Vietnamese storyteller, filmmaker and guitarist, will be at Lane Thursday and Friday, April 17-18, for film screenings and a presentation. Donna Koechig has details.

The Peace Symposium is Friday, April 25 in the Longhouse. The theme is "Awakening the Dream–Move to Action." Stan Taylor has details.

The NAACP Education Forum will be held at our Downtown Campus on April 26.

Our annual Advisory Committee Gala will be held April 30 in the Center for Meeting and Learning.

Finally, our Spring Conference will be Friday, May 2. The college will be closed.