President's Report - January 2014

Happy New Year, everyone. It was nice to have a break, especially after all the snow and our crazy finals week. I was able to spend some time with my mother in Scotland.

I want to thank everyone who kept the college going during the snowstorm. Special thanks to Alen Bahret, the Facilities and Grounds crews, Public Safety, my wonderful Executive Team, our communications team, and to all faculty and staff who put students first and showed ingenuity and a positive attitude. I am proud of everyone for working together.

The transformation of the Center Building into the Center for Learning And Student Success has made amazing progress already as I'm sure you've noticed. Hats off to Facilities, Lease Crutcher Lewis, Pivot, Perkins & Will, our Bond Leadership Team, and our voters. You can already see what a big difference this is going to make. The project is on time and under budget.

Our preferred candidate for the vice president of academic and student services position has withdrawn his candidacy. When he came to interview he already had an offer in hand with a start date of February 3, and he decided to take that position. It is disappointing that after all the work of our search committee that we do not have a result. I plan to take a few days to think through what happens next. Conversations with many of my colleagues suggest that many colleges are facing the same issues with a paucity of highly qualified candidates for these positions. I think we saw that in our pool as well.

Winter term first-day enrollment is down 16.9% in total registrations for all classes, compared to a year ago at the same time. Total unduplicated student headcount is down 16.8%. We're tracking very close to winter 2009 with registrations and with unduplicated headcount. For the first day of classes for fall term 2013, we were down 11.7% in total registrations.

The Employee Campaign had a one percent increase in employee participation, raising total employee participation to 45%. LCC employees pledged over $75,000 to support LCC scholarships and programs and pledged almost $25,000 to support community services through the United Way.

Congratulations to Andrea Ciaston and Robert McLauchlin, who were presented with Faculty Recognition Awards fall term. Andrea teaches studio arts and Robert teaches French. Both are very gifted instructors, and obviously well supported by their students.

Congratulations to Lisa Rupp, December's Classified Employee of the Month. Lisa is a corporal in our Public Safety Office. She started at Lane in 1997 and worked in the bookstore, mailroom and facilities before joining Public Safety. She has done a tremendous job of organizing the office and leading many of our sexual assault prevention and education trainings. She also helped lead our tobacco-free campus effort.

Thanks to Christina Howard for her op ed on the value of a earning a degree and getting a college education. It was very well done. Christina is the program coordinator for our Physical Therapist Assistant Program and the current chair of our Assessment Team.

It looks like the flu could again be problematic in our area, so we have a college team who will work to promote prevention strategies to students and staff.

Over the break, Congress passed a bipartisan budget agreement that sets funding levels for FY 2014 and 2015, and partially replaces sequestration.

On Sunday, we hosted a town hall meeting for Senator Jeff Merkley at the Downtown Campus. I would like to thank Rosie and Bob for attending. I met with the Senator prior to the public meeting and was able to discuss our concerns about the president's proposed college rating system, as well as tying the Pell Grant to performance. We will another opportunity to talk with him at the National Leadership Summit in Washington next month.

During the town hall, Senator Merkley took time to recognize the great work of Lane's High School Connections program. He specifically spoke about the important work being done in the College Now, RTEC and Career Pathways programs. Deron Fort was recognized and will be receiving an American flag flown over Congress, which we hope to put on display for all the students in those programs to see. Congratulations to Deron and everyone in High School Connections for all your great work!

Next Monday, January 13, we will be hosting another legislative town hall on campus. State Senator Lee Beyer and Representative Phil Barnhart will be holding a "legislative listening session" from noon-1:30 PM in the Center for Meeting and Learning, Building 19, Room 225. We expect the February legislative session to be the main topic of conversation.

On Friday, the Oregon Workforce Investment Board met to discuss forwarding recommendations for reforming the state's workforce system to the governor. While many of the recommendations moved forward, the piece we had the most concerns with—designating the Oregon Employment Department as the lead agency for workforce programs and transferring WIA Title I-B funding from CCWD—did not. The group called for a greater conversation with stakeholders, so I think our meetings with legislators and the governor's staff helped give an opportunity to discuss this further.

The Oregon Business Council and Lumina will be hosting a one-day conference on Wednesday, January 29 for board members and presidents involved in post-secondary education to discuss education reform and strategic directions in Oregon. More information will be coming soon. Please see Brett if you're interested in attending.

We have a lot of events this month. I'll mention just a few:

We will host the Oregon Jazz Festival on January 24 and 25. Our local musicians will be joined by the band "Kneebody" whose members are from LA and Brooklyn and whose music defies categorization. Both festival concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Ragozzino Hall.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration comes back to campus on January 20, with a special keynote address by the actor Giancarlo Esposito. He is know as Major Tom Neville in the NBC series "Revolution" and was Gus Fring in the AMC series "Breaking Bad." Kudos to Greg Evans and our Black Student Union for making this possible. Before the event, the annual NAACP march begins at 9:30 a.m. at Science Factory parking lot near Autzen Stadium.