BOARD REPORT - OCTOBER 2013

Fall in-service was held September 26. It was another encouraging event to begin our work for the year and celebrate the accomplishments of the past year. Our theme was the Hero's Journey. I'd like to thank Donna Koechig and Donna Zmolek for their incredible coordination as well as the committees involved. Thanks also to board chair Rosie Pryor for her opening remarks, and thanks to members Pat Albright and Matt Keating for attending. Nancy Golden was our guest speaker, and she talked about her own journey in education.  The week included faculty sabbatical reports and many other worthwhile events. 

One of the best parts of fall in-service is naming our Outstanding Classified Employee of the Year. This year the award went to James McConkey, technical director for Music, Dance and Theatre Arts. He began working at Lane in 1997. He is an outstanding professional and well known in our local performing arts community.

I am sorry to note the passing of three members of the Lane Community College community:
• Gerry Rasmussen, charter staff member of Lane, passed away September 30. He was with Lane from 1965 until his retirement in 1986, serving as instructor, social science department chair, associate dean, dean, vice president and interim president.
• James Britt, Zone 3 member on the Lane Board of Education from 1998-99, passed away October 1.
• Scott Williams, retired stagehand and master carpenter in Theater Arts and volunteer for the Student Productions Association, passed away September 21. Scott built our Globe Theater replica. He was well known and admired in the local theater community. Music, Dance and Theater Arts held a tribute to Scott on October 6.

Kudos to Small Business Development Center instructor Gary Smith. He is in his seventh year as our Small Business Management program instructor and runs his own travel franchise. He was named one of Travel Agent Magazine's Top 25 Agents of 2013, and his franchise was named CruiseOne Agency of the Year out of more than 790 franchises worldwide in 2012. 

Many of you are aware that Dave Willis has decided to move on to another job in Wisconsin where he can reunite his family and spend more time with them. I just want to say thanks to Dave for all he did for Lane, which has been considerable. He led many incredible projects from the Oregon stimulus funds to bond projects and much, much more. We can't thank him enough, and we will miss him.
 
I'd like to thank TE Connectivity for donating $45,000 worth of electrical, scientific and manufacturing equipment to our Advanced Technology Division. David Beede, their Environmental Health and Safety Manager, facilitated this generous donation, working with Wendy Jett in our Foundation and Pat O'Connor in our Advanced Tech Division. David is an alumnus of the class of 1995 and just wanted to give back to the college and community.

I interviewed with KLCC, the Torch and Eugene Weekly lately on various back to school topics including enrollment, state funding and the proposal for free college.

If you missed those stories, or any of our news releases, or if you forgot to save your last newsletter from Brett or the Foundation, you can find all of that on our new online Newsroom. This is the result of collaboration between Marketing and Public Relations and Information Technology. This page will be a resource to news media as well as members of the public and the campus community. You can find it from a link on the homepage or at lanecc.edu/newsroom.

Last month, board member Ackerman made a comment at the end of the meeting in response to comments made by LCCEF Grievance Chair Denise Brinkman that perhaps we should engage in some sort of mediation over labor relations with the classified staff.  I just want to remind the board that we already have done that.  After an assessment and at the request of Rodger Gamblin and Denise Brinkman in October of 2011, we agreed to participate in a process with Kevin Boyle, who has done a lot of work with AFT Oregon, to work to improve our relationship.  We were making pretty good progress; we developed a mission statement for a future labor management committee.  I want to read the statement because I think it is important:  "The purpose of Lane Community College and the Lane Community College Employee Federation is to make Lane Community College stronger through proactive problem solving, mutual education around higher level strategic issues, and to create effective labor management relationships.  We will do this to serve and support employees and the labor management committee so that we may better serve students and the Lane community.  As a result, we will normalize relationships, create shared understanding, and build mutual respect, capacity and transparency.  The LMC will spend time to make sure this purpose statement represents the commitment of the parties to work together."  Unfortunately, last April Rodger Gamblin appeared before the board during public comment and announced that LCCEF was withdrawing from the process, stating that the federation didn't feel that they could participate in the labor management process while we were still bargaining.  So bargaining is over, and I want to be clear that from the administration side we have a genuine interest and would like to make a good faith effort to re-engage in this work.  We think this mission statement is important, we developed it jointly, and we would invite LCCEF to join us and re-engage in this work. 

This fall we are launching our Peacemakers Scholarship project in collaboration with an organization called Creativity for Peace. With special funding support from the Lane Foundation, we have two very special international students at Lane this year: 18-year-old Deema Yusuf from Ramallah, Palestine, and 22-year-old Yaara Tal from an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza, will be making public presentations to share their views on peace and what we all can do. Their first presentation is Monday, October 21 from 7 - 8:30 p.m. at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene. The second presentation, sponsored by the Lane Peace Center, is Tuesday, October 22 from 1 - 3 p.m. in the Center for Meeting and Learning, here on main campus. I'd like to thank to Clif Trolin, Philosophy and Religion instructor, Stan Taylor, Political Science instructor and chair of Lane's Peace Center, and Jennifer Falzerano, International Program Director, for working on this project.

Last Sunday, Titan Court held a "Welcome to Downtown" event for its residents.  Mayor Piercy, Downtown Neighbors Association president David Mandelblatt, the Eugene Police Department, and Chief Jace Smith from Lane Public Safety were on hand to welcome students to their new neighborhood as well as give them tips on how to stay safe and become involved with downtown activities. Thank you, Brett, for helping organize the event.

I would like to invite everyone to think about what you would do in an earthquake. We are again participating in the national Great American Shakeout earthquake preparedness drill on October 17 at 10:17 a.m.  In other words, 10:17 on 10/17. We will do a brief drill on campus to test our communications systems, raise awareness, and see how we can improve.

The Foundation had its first meeting to launch the feasibility study for a new major gifts campaign.  We put a campaign committee together and we talked about the process, worked with our consultants, and identified all the people in the community that we want to talk with.

I think you know that the special session was held last week, and five bills were passed which the governor signed yesterday.  The net result for us in terms of additional funding was $1.8 million for the second year of the next biennium. 

Last week, Governor Kitzhaber announced he is appointing Ben Cannon to be the Executive Director of the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC).  Under legislation passed in 2013 to streamline Oregon's higher education system, the HECC will oversee state resource allocation, policy-setting, and coordination for the entire higher education system, inheriting responsibilities previously held by the State Board of Education for community colleges, the State Board of Higher Education for public universities, and the Oregon Student Access Commission.

On September 27, the Oregon Education Investment Board unanimously selected Dr. Nancy Golden as Oregon's Chief Education Officer.  Dr. Golden had been serving as interim director since August 1. 

In Washington, the federal government shutdown has entered its second week. All federal employees were given either an essential or nonessential designation in regards to working during the shutdown.  In the Department of Education, approximately 90 percent of their employees were declared nonessential.  However, the impact on colleges and students may not be felt too harshly.  Most federal student aid has already been distributed for the semester. For funds not yet distributed, there will be some departmental staff working to address that distribution.  Programs such as SEOG, TRIO, Title III, and Title IV will not have significant staff support.  However, since these are academic year grant programs funding distribution will not be impacted.  .

On October 10, Lady Jangchup Palmo will be speaking in the Longhouse from 2-3 p.m. You may remember that she was instrumental in bringing the Dalai Lama to Eugene last year.  She will speak on "Transforming Diversity into Compassion: The Story of a Tibetan Woman."