Board Report – June 2012

It's the time of year when we celebrate success and completion on many levels.
First I would like to welcome Mary Weatherhead, as the new elected president of ASLCC.

We've had lots of celebrations the last few weeks—

• Rhody Days from May 18 to 20. Our Florence team hosted an Art Fest booth showcasing the artwork of students, faculty and staff, for the Humane Society by raffling off a two-night stay at Siltcoos Station;
• The Employee Gala on May 23 honoring about 1,000 years of collective service and celebrating our first 40-year employee, Sue Thompson;
• ASLCC's Lanestock music and arts festival on May 31;
• The Asian and Pacific Islander Student Union Luau on June 1;
• The dedication of the Ragozzino Performance Hall on June 1, a wonderful memorial tribute to our late faculty member and community performing arts leader Ed Ragozzino.

The best is yet to come with college graduation on Saturday at the Fairgrounds, beginning at 4 p.m. We also have Florence Scholarship Night on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Events Center, and on Friday we have the Trio Celebration at noon and the NASA Graduation at 6 p.m., both in the Longhouse.

The Foundation has much to celebrate. We completed the Opening Doors Campaign surpassing our original goal of $23 million with a total of $29.4 million. We also welcomed a new scholarship endowment with a $125,000 anonymous gift.

The 2012 Distinguished Alumni Awards were announced at the President's Circle reception on May 17, including Jacque Betz, city manager for Florence; Karen Bernheim Cardin, corporate jet pilot for Les Schwab Tires; Dan Dunnington, stockbroker, retired from Morgan Stanley; and Colt Gill, superintendent of the Bethel School District. Kudos to these outstanding alumni.

I would like to congratulate graduating student and track star Gylany Crossman. She was awarded the 2012 NWAACC Red Lion Scholarship, the first from Lane to win this prestigious award. She was the fall and spring Southern Region Champion, and she shattered Lane's 35-year-old school record in the 3,000 meter, running 9:48.73. Gylany is finishing Lane with a 4.10 cumulative GPA and is going on to compete for the Adams State Grizzlies in Alamosa, Colorado.

Spring term Faculty Recognition Awards were presented last week, honoring Alice Warner of Academic Learning Services, Reza Oskui in Math, and Bill Woolum in English. I had the honor of presenting Bill's award and while he has more than earned it, I am sad to say he is one of this year's retirees.

Hats off to Carrie Newell, Lane biology instructor, who probably is Oregon's most well known and respected marine biologist. Carrie helped open the new Whale, Sealife and Shark Museum in Depoe Bay last month.

We continue to develop our international program and last week met with Mark Ashwill of Capstone International Recruiting about Vietnamese opportunities. I also attended a meeting and dinner with International Agency Partners.

Later this month we will host guests from Australia and Scotland that are here for the sustainability conference.

We've achieved some notable success with benefits. Thanks to the extended work of HR employees in partnership with Pacific Benefit Consultants, we reduced the health insurance renewal rate for classified and management employees, from 9.8 percent to 7.1 percent for the coming year. This means there will be no increase in employee contributions for health insurance next year. We also reduced premium rates for long term disability and life insurance rates for classified and management staff. This is good news for employees and for the budget. Many thanks to Human Resources, the classified union, and the Management Steering Committee.

On the state front, Governor Kitzhaber selected Oregon's first Chief Education Officer, Dr. Rudy Crew. He formerly led New York City and Miami-Dade public schools systems with significant accomplishments, including the New York initiative to adopt curriculum standards for all schools, eliminate tenure for principals, and introduce school-based budgeting, and the Miami-Dade Parent Academy providing more than 100,000 parents with courses and workshops designed to help them support students' education. Since 2009, Dr. Crew has been a professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. He will begin a three-year contract on July 1.

The latest quarterly revenue forecast on May 22 shows that Oregon's economy continues to grow, but too slowly to make much difference in the state budget. The state budget has grown by $115 million from three months ago, but that's largely the result of some one-time legal settlements and is already spoken for. Nonetheless, there is increasing confidence that budget planners won't have to make more cuts over the final year of the 2011-13 budget.

In Washington, negotiations to extend the current subsidized Stafford loan interest rate at 3.4 percent for an additional year have heated up. Last week House Speaker Boehner sent to President Obama some newly proposed offsets to cover the near $6 billion cost of an extension. While less controversial than previously proposed offsets aimed at the Affordable Care Act, they have since been rejected by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. However, late last week Senator Reid offered two new potential offsets that may be able to garner bipartisan support; both involve reforms to the pension system. With rates set to double on July 1st, Congress will need to act quickly regarding an extension.

Secretary of State did a performance audit on Career and Technical Education community colleges to evaluate whether we are meeting the workforce needs for high demand jobs. The report was released today and the headline is Improvement Needed to Better Meet Oregon Workforce Skills. This is not related only to community colleges, but to all the organizations involved in workforce training. The recommendations are not too helpful for us, because those are things we are already doing.

You've heard that Dr. Michael R. Gottfredson was selected by the State Board of Higher Education, and the University of Oregon Search Committee on which I served, as the finalist for president of the University of Oregon. The state board will meet this Friday to vote on the appointment. Dr. Gottfredson currently is Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of California, Irvine, and a Professor of Criminology, Law and Society. He is a well regarded scholar and a successful academic leader with a strong record of achievement.

I want to draw your attention to the Op-Ed in today's issue of the Register Guard condemning the recent racial intimidation last month. The Op-Ed was submitted on behalf all of the local public agency leaders: the University of Oregon, Lane Community College, the school districts, LTD, the county, the cities. Colt Gill, who was mentioned as an outstanding alum, authored the first draft of the letter and then we all signed on to it and submitted it. We have already received thanks from many groups in the community today for taking a stance against this kind of behavior.

The current publication of Denali Literary Arts Magazine is a great one; there is one in each of your places.

Just a reminder that we will be closed on Fridays from June 29 through August 31.

I'd like to end my report with two special thank you's.

First, thanks to Torch Editor Kinzely Phillips and her staff for reporting excellence this past year. Kinzley took on some complex and challenging issues, and The Torch did a good job of keeping students informed and engaged. I understand that the incoming editor, Byron Hughey, already is at work, and I look forward to working with him.

Finally, it is my pleasure to thank outgoing student body president Mario Parker Milligan for a second outstanding year.