President’s Report – July 2015

Congratulations to Sharon and Tony on your re-election to the board.  Lane is fortunate to have your leadership.  I would like to welcome to our newest board member, Phil Carrasco.  It has been twenty years since Lane has had a board member from the Latino community, and I look forward to greater connections with the Latino community and students.  I’d like to give a warm welcome back to returning board member, Susie Johnston. I know that you are each deeply committed to our community and students. I think we’re going to have a great year of successes as well as challenges, and I’m looking forward to working with you.

I would like to welcome Sandy Cutler who’s filling in at the SBDC for a while. Many of you know Sandy from his past work at SBDC and in the business community.  During his previous work at the OSBDCN, Sandy was Instrumental in developing the funding for small business development centers across Oregon. 

Best wishes to Executive Dean Maurice Hamington. Sadly for us, he will be leaving Lane to become director of university studies and professor of philosophy at Portland State University. This is an excellent opportunity for Maurice and a boon for PSU. Thank you, Maurice for your hard work, insight and wonderful humor that has made Lane a better place.

Tonight it is my pleasure to announce our Cooperative Education Employer of the Year Award for 2014-2015. As most of you know, our co-op internship program is one of the oldest and largest in the country with 800 employers and 2,000 students participating annually. This year’s award goes to the University of Oregon Information Services Department. UO Information Services, or IS, has taken on at least two Lane interns per term between their Windows, Linux, Storage and Virtualization, and  Technology Help Desk units since partnering with us in 2013. They provide a superior internship experience in a large, complex IT environment. These are paid internships and our students have access to professional development workshops as well as job search training. Three of our former interns now work there. We attribute the success of this internship program to the vision of UO Chief Information Officer Melissa Woo and her dedicated team, including HR Manager Jenna Rakes and Operations Manager Micah Sardell.

Thanks to exceptional attention to safety over the past three years, our workers comp premiums for 2015-2016 will be nearly $80,000 less than they otherwise would have been. Credit is due to all of our employees and students, especially those in Facilities, Management & Planning; Public Safety; the Safety Committee; the Wellness Program; the Bond Leadership Team; and Sharon Daniel and the Benefits Team in HR.

Lane has won a Walmart State Giving Program grant of $182,930 to support the Ready to Work program. The program will help 100 area residents build work readiness skills including entry-level computing, customer service, effective communication, problem-solving, teamwork, resume' creation, interviewing skills, and more. Congratulations to our grants and workforce teams.

I met with the new publisher and editor of The Register-Guard, N. Christian Anderson. We had a frank discussion about the paper and the college. He plans to give the Guard a strong digital presence, in keeping with the trend that is transforming the newspaper industry.

Enrollment for the first day of summer term was down 17.4% compared to the same time last year, and early registrations for fall term are down 31.2%. These are early numbers, of course, and will be changing.  You will remember that we budgeted a 7% decrease in enrollment, so anything greater than that will have an impact on this year’s budget. 

I had a great time judging the Iron Chef Eugene competition held in three heats over the last month at Lane, hosted by our Center for Meeting and Learning. This Monday was the last heat and the winner was Belly Restaurant of Eugene. Our CAHM faculty and Center Chefs Tim Hill and Adam Hammel participated, and students enjoyed the opportunity to prepare and serve a three-course banquet to spectators and judges. It was inspiring to hear the feedback from the restaurant employers who are so enthusiastic about our programs and students. Proceeds from the event will go towards CAHM student fees and technology upgrades for the Center.

The Oregon Legislative Session adjourned late Monday. It was definitely an eventful six months, especially with the change in the Governor’s Office just a few weeks into the session. OCCA has prepared an end-of-session report, available on their website, for those interested. Highlights of the session include:

* $550 million funding for the Community College Support Fund along with a budget note requiring the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to report back to the Legislature before implementing a new funding formula.

* A great turnout of Lane supporters at the Springfield Ways and Means hearing, something that was replicated by community colleges around the state and helped lead to legislators prioritizing additional funding for the community college budget.

* Passage of the Oregon Promise, which seeks to replicate Tennessee’s “free community college” program. The program is funded at $10 million for the 2016-17 school year, and the legislature will consider full funding (estimated to be approx. $35 million) during the next full session. You may also have heard that the America's College Promise Act of 2015 was introduced in Congress today, which as a White House newsletter puts it, “All it requires is for everyone to do their part: Community colleges must strengthen the quality of their programs, states must commit to invest in higher education and training, and students must take responsibility for their education by staying on track to graduate.”  We want to promote first dollar in, as that will support lower income students.

 The Oregon Education Investment Board was eliminated and OEIB will now become the Chief Education Office.

* The integration of CCWD into the HECC was completed. CCWD now becomes the Office of Community Colleges and Workforce Development and will be headed by Dan Finley from PCC. 

* Funding for the Oregon Opportunity Grant was increased nearly 24% to $141 million.

* Legislative approval was given so certificates may be awarded to students in non-credit programs. Thanks to Mary Jeanne Kuhar, Jeanette Kane and Continuing Education for playing a big role in this accomplishment.

I would like to thank Brett Rowlett and the entire OCCA staff for a job well done.

In Washington, Senate Republicans unveiled their budget summary for FY16 last week, which includes more than $1 billion in cuts to the Department of Education. The proposal calls for a $300 million cut to this year’s Pell Grant funding, $29 million cut to Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, $40 million cut to the Federal Work Study program and completed elimination of First in the World competitive grants and the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools Program. There are also numerous more programs with reductions or level funding, and many of these will impact Lane students. The House has also released its plan, which includes similar proposals. We are watching both closely and will keep you updated.

The end of spring term is always busy with conferences and this certainly was true for me. I attended the NILD in Salt Lake City, the AACC Future Leaders Institute in Las Vegas, and the OILD in Silver Falls, and the Executive Team met for its annual retreat this week and got a good start on mapping out the work for the year.

Coming up, please consider attending a lecture on July 15 by Marta Effinger-Crichlow, associate professor and chair of literature and theater in African American Studies at the City College of Technology in New York. Her talk is titled, “Mapping Black New York: an Interdisciplinary Search for Home.” The lecture is at 6 p.m. at our Downtown Center. She is speaking as part our National Endowment for the Humanities Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, funded in part by a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities grant won by English instructor, Dr. Anne McGrail.

I also hope you can attend Lane’s second annual Al Fresco outdoor dining experience in the Learning Garden on July 29. I’d like to thank WildCraft Cider Works for stepping up as our title sponsor.

Our 50th Anniversary Campaign won a 2015 APEX Award for Publication Excellence. APEX is a national competition for communications professionals. Kudos to Tracy Simms, our agency of record, Funk/Levis, and the entire marketing and public relations team. More award-winning work is on the way and our fall recruitment campaign begins next week. We will have new success story billboards, bus signs, digital, mobile and social posts and promotions, and student success stories online. I believe Tracy has a new recruitment video to show us, and I would like to end my report with that.