President’s Update, February 11, 2008
Hello!
It’s the day after the inspiring and touching Russell Day event as we are off to Washington, DC for the annual trustee legislative seminar. It was an honor to meet and talk with Russell and Majorie on Friday evening, and to experience with them the tributes of many of their students and friends. What a great event for the college, for our faculty who can appreciate and share the joy of realizing that their work with students contributes so much to so many, and the organizers like Sandy and Lloyd and the EVCC Foundation Staff with support from the Cooper Foundation. There were many other community people in attendance who have over the years heard and observed Russell’s contributions through his former students. Many also talked about the years that have gone by and how the institution has begun to transform. I hope we all walked away from that evening with a great sense of pride and fulfillment that both these outstanding teachers are part of EVCC’s excellent educational tradition. And thanks for putting all of this together. We will be celebrating many more of these, I am sure.
The “Happiness Fair” this past week involved many participants, drew a great amount of attention, and was certainly exciting for the campus as well. I heard many positive comments about the week’s activities from different people off campus who either read about it in the newspaper or heard from a participant. While many contributed to the activities, a special thanks to Joyce Walker for all her efforts.
On a completely different front, two campus budget meetings are scheduled for this week. We are starting the process for budget development so consider attending to learn more and to begin providing ideas and input. I know there are many questions and we need to begin our dialogue to better understand not only the process but why the college may consider different opportunities to fund than what was previously supported.
For example, you may know that at last week’s regular Board of Trustees’ monthly meeting, the proposal to increase activities with Global Education and to conduct a feasibility study of the College’s ability to conduct a major fundraising campaign were approved. The Board’s action allows the college to plan and implement activities for these two initiatives through June 30, 2008 and expend up to $82,000 of the fund balance on a one-time basis only.
One question might be why the college is considering these activities rather than to reallocate to some of last year’s budget reductions? The answer is not simple. We did look at some of the reductions from this last year several weeks ago, and attempted to reallocate some savings to cover these costs. The total funds reallocated was roughly $60,000. We will continue with similar efforts as need is identified and funds become available through the remainder of the year.
At the same time, we are looking for different ways to generate new enrollments/revenue that will provide some additional discretionary funds to cover future needs. This allocation approved by the Board from fund balance is an investment to generate the new enrollments and revenue. And additional funding will be required in the next year through our operating budget as these initiatives move forward with anticipated outcomes. Continuing with the same without exploring through these different initiatives carries risk as well, with little opportunity for new outcomes.
We are attempting to balance our efforts with managing current activities and attempting some new directions in international education, fundraising, corporate training, and outreach to other communities.
With these potential changes on the arisen, we need increased dialogue and understanding. Thus, the campus budget meetings provide the forum to learn more and to share ideas. College Council agenda will also include these topics and there will be additional “chat sessions” scheduled primarily for discussion about budget planning and moving ahead with some of the new efforts. Several departments have also requested separate meetings and I am enthused about sharing more information and gathering ideas.
While here in Washington DC, Trustees will be meeting with our congressional delegation, speaking to them about the need to finalize the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act which includes funding for Title III, the National Science Foundation and Department of Labor programs. They will also be talking to people about the need to increase Pell Grants and the Community-based Job Training Programs (EVCC has one of these), to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Act that supports career and technical programs and to support TRIO. And we will seek options that will support our equipment needs, especially for the Aviation Program. So the agenda is full for the next several days.
There are several recent developments with several faculty and programs that deserve special acknowledgement:
Congratulations to Pamela Pape-Lindstrom, Fayla Schwartz and Carla Shafer on their National Science Foundation award;
Congratulations to the Nursing Program faculty and staff for their outstanding evaluation and continued accreditation:
And, congratulations to Eric Davishahl for receiving the American Society for Engineering Education’s 2008 Outstanding Teaching Award for the Pacific Northwest section of ASEE.
We are fortunate to have such quality people with such outstanding individual accomplishments.
Have a good week.