President’s Report – December 2015
Brian probably will have more details for you but I just wanted to start my report with a big thank you to our Warming Center volunteers, including Brian, Jace Smith, Mike O’Neal, Clive Wanstall, and Dawn Rupp. Our homeless students did need shelter during the recent freezing weather.
I’m also thankful to our volunteers who work every year to provide the Whiteaker Community Thanksgiving dinner, including Clive, Brian, Bev Farfan, Chefs Tim and Adam, and so many others.
It is rewarding to be able to do some good in the wake of heartbreaking events like UCC, Paris, Syria and San Bernardino. Here at home we have too much homelessness, hunger and lack of support for mental health care, and I am grateful for and proud of the compassion and goodwill shown by our faculty and staff.
I went back to Umpqua Community College on Friday to attend the visit by Dr. Jill Biden. As you know, she has taught at community colleges for more than 20 years. UCC continues to move forward, and they continue to need support. Thanks again to everyone from Lane who has reached out.
All of us could do more to make our campuses safer and more secure. On November 18, I went to the state capitol at the Governor’s invitation along with other Oregon community college and university presidents, to talk about campus safety. We discussed current policies, protocols, system-wide assets and resources, and how to make improvements. Governor Brown has directed the Higher Education Coordinating Commission and Oregon State Police to work together in supporting this effort.
The Oregon Community College Association (OCCA) has contracted with a firm that has done a lot of work around campus safety. We’ll be attending a meeting in January with a small team, and we will be engaging in a self-assessment of what we have in place, and where we think we have gaps in meeting best practices in safety and security. We will have the opportunity to meet with these consultants to talk about what investments we should make in order to make the campus safer. Our goal is to have a price tag on that and go to the February short session to ask the legislature to help us with those investments.
I participated in an invitational White House summit on global climate change to advocate for higher education’s role in making a difference. I later interviewed about that experience on KLCC. As you know, Lane made a commitment to sustainability long before it was hip to be green. This month we were among 200 colleges who renewed our commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to become more resilient in the face of climate change.
I attended a project with our Dental faculty that was convened by the Kellogg Foundation. I’ve been working on this for a couple of years, and the intent is to create a midlevel position in the dental field called a Dental Therapist that will have some advanced and expanded functions. There are so many people, particularly in rural areas and on tribal lands, that have no dental care. So we are trying to develop this program, and our faculty are very interested in it. There are some hurdles; some dentists feel that it may take some work away from them. In the states where they have done this that does not seem to be the case, but it increases access for some of our poorest citizens. We covered racial equity and how the Commission on Dental Accreditation impacts the work, and they have come up with standards and the economic impact of dental therapists in the workforce. We are part of a large coalition and the only community college in the state involved in this work. We can build on the great dental clinic that we have if we work on the legislation to allow this midlevel professional to exist. We are also working with the tribes; because they are sovereign nations, they can do this outside of state legislation.
We have recently held two forums on Lane’s new Core Themes and had robust conversations. This is a requirement for accreditation and a useful framework to measure our effectiveness as an institution.
There has been much discussion in Washington, D.C., about Guided Pathways. Copies of the book “Redesigning America's Community Colleges” are available in my office for anyone interested. One of the authors will join us and colleagues from other Oregon colleges on February 19.
I would like to congratulate our fall Faculty Recognition Awards winners. First is the indomitable Sandy Brown Jensen, our creative digital story telling genius. The other is Bob Estil, popular math instructor at LCC Florence and an outstanding youth volunteer. Congratulations, Sandy and Bob.
I am happy to report that Donna Koechig continues to recover but it’s still unclear when she will be able to return. Meanwhile Lynn Nakamura has stepped up to manage some Professional and Organizational Development projects for this academic year such as launching a two-day orientation workshop for new employees. Over time, we will also offer it to seasoned employees. We’re also going to get “train the trainer” assistance from Suzanne Rotundo and Lizza Robb to continue our Emotional Intelligence work. Lynn has been working in grants administration and strategic enrollment management, and I appreciate her taking on this extra assignment.
We are carefully proceeding toward filling our Chief Diversity Officer opening (temporary position). We have accepted applications from internal faculty and staff to lead this work through June 2016 and will make an announcement as soon as the process is complete. Interviews will take place after the first of the year.
The latest enrollment reports show fall term down 9.8 percent, so that gap has narrowed. Winter term registrations are down 15.6 percent, which is no surprise this early in the process. Hopefully that gap will close as well.
(At 6:47 p.m. Pryor and McCown returned to the meeting.)
We’ve been interested and excited to hear about plans for Avago Technologies and Winnebago to locate in our community. Hopefully this will stimulate the economy and help create jobs. We are connecting with these companies to see about training opportunities for our students and find out how we can help them meet their workforce needs.
Oregon’s December revenue forecast was released last Wednesday. The report was generally positive. General Fund revenues are growing strongly; personal income taxes, lottery sales, and corporate taxes grew at double-digit rates compared to last year. Corporate taxes and lottery funds outpaced what was called for in the September forecast. As a result, total available resources – General Fund and Lottery – are now expected to be $56 million higher than what was expected when budgets were drafted during the summer. The Corporate income tax collections for 2015-17 are expected to be 3.2 percent higher than what was expected in the Close of Session forecast. If current projections hold, it would generate a corporate kicker in the amount of $34.7 million to be allocated to K-12 education during the 2017-19 budget.
On Friday, ACCT released a new report on food and housing insecurity at community colleges titled, “Hungry to Learn.” Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, who spoke at last month’s OCCA conference, was one of the authors and was featured in an op-ed in Friday’s New York Times.
Last month Congress passed a bipartisan deal to revise budgetary caps and suspend the debt limit.
Among other conferences, I attended a briefing from the Community College Consortium on Immigrant Education, which is recommending ways to support undocumented students.
I also spent some time with our students at the Oregon Students of Color Coalition annual conference. As you know, Lane's students are leaders in this effort.
Yesterday, Vice President Dawn DeWolf, International Programs Director Jennifer Falzerano, and I welcomed D.K. Wu and his associate from the Chinese Association of Community Colleges.
We will be celebrating the grand opening of the Center Building on January 27.
The college will be closed to the public for the holidays from December 21 through 28.
I’d like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. That concludes my report.