President's Report – July 2014

Congratulations to Pat and Matt on your election as chair and vice chair. I know you'll do a wonderful job.

I'd like to thank Rosie Pryor for an outstanding year as board chair, and present a small token of appreciation.

I would like to thank all of you who attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the CLASS project on June 16. I would especially like to thank Russ Pierson, Todd Smith, Gary Cummins, Brett Rowlett, and everyone from Lease Crutcher Lewis who helped with the event. We had great attendance, both from staff and our state legislative delegation, and the weather cooperated as well.

I want to thank our Executive Team for all their hard work last year. We had a great retreat last week. We face tough issues again this year, but we have a great team, and I am energized.

Congratulations to Sharon Stiles, Mary Jeanne Kuhar and our entire Florence center staff and community. We raised $48,000 at this year's Florence Scholarship Night.

The Foundation recently finalized an estate gift of more than $225,000 to support student scholarships at Lane. The scholarships will be named for the donors' daughter, Barbara Swezey Allen, who was an alumna of LCC, and who passed away as a young adult in 1987. The donors are Barbara's parents, Shirley and John, who passed away in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Thank you to Wendy Jett and her Foundation staff for helping make this wonderful gift possible.

Enrollment is still troubling. Summer term registrations for all classes are down 31.2% compared to the same point last year. Fall term registrations are down 22.6% compared to the same point in the registration cycle last year.

The College Council Governance Sub-Committee produced a summary of its governance survey. 215 faculty, staff and students participated. The summary noted issues that need to be addressed and will help focus our work to improve the system.

As you've probably heard by now, this year's Eugene Celebration has been cancelled. However, thanks to support from Lane, the City of Eugene, and Kesey Enterprises, the parade will go on as scheduled. Lane Community College will be the parade's grand marshal this year, giving us a great opportunity to kick off our year of 50th anniversary activities. You are all invited to join us and march in the parade, so please mark your calendars for the morning of Saturday, August 23. Brett will be sending out additional information as soon as the details are confirmed.

Late last month the Senate passed a bipartisan, bicameral bill to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act. The bill contains a number of positive aspects for community colleges. It places a greater emphasis on career pathways and the attainment of postsecondary credentials. It also eliminates the current sequence of services, creates common performance indicators across programs, and allows local areas increased flexibility to contract with institutions of higher education. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) passed by a vote of 95 to 3 as a substitute to the House-passed SKILLS Act. The bill is expected to be taken up soon by the House.

Following numerous hearings in the House and Senate, both chambers have released priorities for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Both proposals support year-round Pell Grant access, consolidation of repayment options, better loan counseling, and demonstration projects, such as competency-based learning. However, the House bill would diverge in key ways, setting the stage for potential partisan clashes this year. Most notably, the House bill would prevent implementation of the White House's college rating system and gainful employment rules.

The college participated in the ACCT/TICAS project on financial aid cohort default rates and will be included in a forthcoming report. Thanks to Helen Faith and her staff for providing information for our profile. We noted that the recession brought many older enrollees to Lane who "may have lacked the necessary preparation for college and had other competing financial and life responsibilities" which contributed to the default rate.

Student debt also continues to interest the media. I interviewed with Oregonian reporter Jeff Manning on that topic, and sent him data. We don't yet know when that story will be published.

Last Monday I attended a meeting regarding performance based funding model in Tennessee. The HECC will recommend at least some portion of community college funds to be distributed on performance.

I was involved in presenting at an Executive Leadership for Sustainability program at Harvard. I worked with a couple of Harvard professors and one other community college president and the executive director for the Center for Green Schools at the US Green Building Council to develop a model for integrating sustainability from a leadership perspective. There were about 50 people there, but 200 people actually applied to be a part of this. Lots of corporate people, people from South Africa, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and many countries. I was involved in developing the model and did a presentation. I think it went very well. I made a lot of connections with businesses who are interested in sustainability.

In August I will attend the Oregon Presidents' Council Retreat, and then I am off to Scotland to take care of my mother.

I hope everyone has a great summer. I'll see you in September.