President’s Report – February 2016
Once again I was proud of the work that Lane and its students do every year to help our community remember and celebrate the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our students played a central role in the event as always, including presenting the Maddie Reynolds Award to Rosa Maria Banuelos-Uribe; the ASLCC Community Leadership Award to Claudia Riumallo; and the BSU Scholarship award to international student and Lane ambassador Ebenezer Yemoh. Thanks to Greg Evans for his role in coordinating the event in collaboration with the University of Oregon.
Congratulations also to Greg for accepting appointment as our Interim Chief Diversity Officer. Due to Donna Koechig's medical leave, the position was opened up last term. We had many wonderful internal candidates making it a difficult decision for the search committee. However, Greg will be leading the work through the end of the academic year, focusing on implementation of the Diversity Education/Cultural Competence policy and establishing a Community Inclusion and Equity Committee to advise the college.
Grant Mathews is the new dean of ABSE. He joined the college this week, although he came last week to participate in the “Welcome to Lane” onboarding. Welcome, Grant. We are glad you are here.
I appreciated the time we had together this weekend at the board retreat. I’m very proud that the board stepped up to participate in the cultural competence education provided by Greg Evans, Jim Garcia, and Sarah Lushia, and the bargaining primer that was provided by Kevin Boyle. We also appreciated the conversations about the budget, bond, student success, and look forward to further direction from the board. It was a big time commitment on your part, and I greatly appreciate it.
I want to thank everyone who attended and helped plan our CLASS grand opening last week. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing down the concrete terraces; what a difference a year makes. Thank you to all the speakers who joined me at the event: Tony, Ashley, Liz Coleman and Don Rainer, and Russ for emceeing. And a big thanks to Todd, Jennifer, Brian, Gary, Jeff and the rest of the Facilities crew for getting us to this point. I’d also like to give a shout out to everyone who helped plan the event and the staff who work in the Center Building. We had a great turnout and people loved the new space, as do students. I don’t know how he did it, but Brett even got the sun to come out.
On Monday I did a live call-in broadcast on the Jefferson Exchange talk show on Jefferson Public Radio which broadcasts locally through KRVM FM. The discussion focused on sustainability, this week’s sustainability conference, and my work on the 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges.
Winter registrations as of the start of the 4th week of classes, are down 11.3%
We are doing a Train the Trainer program for Emotional Intelligence. We have been offering this to our faculty and staff for a number of years, and now we will build our own capacity by training faculty and staff to offer the program. We had 22 mangers, classified, and faculty to be part of that training program. We started last week. I am happy to be part of that.
We held our inaugural “Welcome to Lane” onboarding program last Thursday and Friday, which included Emotional Intelligence. It was a great learning experience for all of us. The highlight that stood out in the evaluations was the student panel. It was amazing. Ashley Jackson and Shawn Goddard participated, as did Amanda Irvin, who is a leader in our MECHA program and Diane Castaneda, who is a student doing prerequisites for dental hygiene. It was emotional and wonderful and reminded everyone who was there why we do this work. Reminding ourselves of that is very important.
I will be attending the ACCT national legislative summit next week along with some of you, and the Achieving the Dream annual conference in Atlanta at the end of this month.
You are invited to a day with Davis Jenkins on February 19. He is co-author of “Redesigning America’s Community Colleges” and a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University. He will be here to present on guided pathways as a design process that leads to student retention and success in community colleges. Community colleges from across the state have been invited as well as K-12 and university partners and representatives from state agencies including the Higher Education Coordinating Commission. We’ve had over 200 people register.
The legislative session is underway in Salem. I have distributed a list of the bills we are currently tracking. Please contact Brett if you have questions. OCCA’s top priority for the short session is a small funding request for safety upgrades on community college campuses, and we’re hopeful that $1-2 million will come to Lane.
Just a word about the mandatory activity fee policy you will be reviewing later. I’ve been working with Ashley and the students and they proposed some additional language. I had that vetted by legal counsel, and you will see when I hand out the new policy that we have embedded some additional language at the request of students which clarifies their role on the mandatory student fee committee. It clarifies who will be the voting members, and that is a good thing to have in the policy.
Tonight I would like to make a special announcement to the college community. After 36 years in higher education, including the best times of my life at Lane Community College, I am preparing to retire from my role as President effective June 2017.
I’ve talked with the board about retiring for quite some time, in fact, I believe I first mentioned the possibility three or four years ago. I have stayed on at their request but now it’s time for changes in my life.
I’m making this announcement now for several reasons. I want the board and the college to have an orderly presidential succession through an inclusive process that involves faculty, staff, students and the community. Having served on presidential search committees myself, and from my work nationally, I am well aware of the challenges in finding the right person for a dynamic institution like Lane. Since I became president in 2001, the job has become vastly more complex in ways that no one could have foreseen.
Lane has maintained a reputation for excellence and has remained focused on students through wave after wave of changes in technology, funding, accountability, demographics and more. I want to do what I can to support the board in finding the right person to be Lane’s seventh president.
My career in higher education has been incredibly rewarding. I came to this country almost 40 years ago with two suitcases, my life savings of $1900 and an education. It was that education that afforded me the opportunities I have had. Discovering community colleges was the beginning of a lifelong passion for our mission and our students, eventually bringing me to Lane where it has been an absolute honor to serve as president.
Lane truly is one of the best colleges in the nation. I could not have dreamed of a better opportunity or more wonderful people. I love Lane Community College but now I want to pursue other passions. While I will continue to work on behalf of community colleges in specific projects at the national level I will do that balanced with my other interests. Family is important and I want to be there for my first grandchild who will arrive at the end of this month. I want to give back to my community in ways that a presidential schedule doesn’t allow. I want to get better at Spanish and I want to take a poetry class from Sandy Brown Jensen, a literature class from Anne McGrail, Susie Cousar’s Global Health class, check out Chef Clive’s cooking classes and Joe McCully’s wine class and many more. That is the wonderful thing about Lane. Our faculty and our offerings are exemplary.
Once I’ve retired I will think back on all the times we’ve shared at Lane, both good and difficult, small and tremendous, and always amazing. I hope we will have time over the next months to celebrate our collective accomplishments.
However, for the next 17 months, I will focus on the board’s priorities and pursue some key goals that will help position Lane for the future. If we decide to pursue a bond measure I will lead that effort; I plan to work with our Foundation to get our major gifts campaign over 60% of our goal; we will stabilize enrollment, a challenge that every single person who works at Lane must embrace; we need to make sure we offer our students programs with a good job market and a future; we need to offer more training for local employers; we need to continue implementing student success strategies to ensure that our students complete their goals.
I will continue to focus on the quest for fiscal stability, through more enterprise activities, and legislative and public support. These are critical. I also want to complete our next strategic plan and advance our climate action plan; work on student success, partnerships with K-12 and higher ed, outreach, data and accountability, governance, safety and security, and developing a cultural competence professional development program. It’s not a small list, but hey, I’ve got 17 months!
I am pleased that with Lane’s Executive Team, the college is in good hands. This group of phenomenal community college professionals is, without a doubt, the best leadership team Lane has ever had. I am sure you will find a great president for Lane but rest assured that you are in good hands with this team.
I’m looking forward to sharing the next 17 months with all of you, keeping Lane great, and moving us forward. I am “all in” on Lane and for the next 17 months you will find me doing the job I love, leading Lane and doing the work that needs to be done on behalf of the college.
Thank you for all the support our college community has shown me over last 20 years and thanks, in advance, for your support for the next 17 months. I plan on making them phenomenal.