President’s Update - April 21, 2008
Good morning!
This weekend’s been a bit of history and frustration with the wild, winter-like weather and series of cancellations. When interviewing for this position, we were told that the climate in Snohomish was mild and, perhaps, on the cool side but no one mentioned the frequency of snow that’s occurred these past 20 months. Friday evening while traveling to a UW event I actually turned around and headed home since it was nearly a white-out driving south on highway 9. Couldn’t believe Saturday morning and the accumulation of that white stuff on the front yard! Actually, I was apprehensive about getting up Monday and having to consider another snow day in the middle of April. In this past month I’ve been giving family members back in the mid-west a hard time about the long winter season they’ve been experiencing, and it came back to bite me as they enjoyed 70 degree weather this weekend. Their last laugh was best.
Speaking of the mid-west and this past weekend, it did provide some down time to do things I typically don’t get to like reading the new Brokaw (a Midwesterner) book, Boom, and that certainly brought back memories of the sixties, many interesting people and attending college during those turbulent times. Reflecting back on all that happened in a very short period, it certainly was a valuable educational and life’s experience to be part of it in some small way. Enjoyed the weekend for that reason alone!
Some other reading that I had the opportunity to get to included several books that the college purchased on campus civility (Fostering Civility on Campus, Rookstool, 2007 and Encouraging Civility as a Community College Leader, Elsner & Boggs, 2005) this past month. With all the tensions nationally surrounding campus security and issues of courtesy and common good in dealing with one another (one wonders with the tone of presidential politics), I thought these books might be informative and useful. Additionally, College Council members have been discussing this topic of campus civility on a regular basis at our bi-weekly meetings and have actually developed a very thoughtful and considerate discussion paper on Campus Civility and Community. It’s attached to this blog posting for your review, should you so desire. And many of the individual council members are sharing the document and its genesis with peers and colleagues across the campus. The topic has been a major priority for the Council these past months. I hope you’ll take some time and look it over and share thoughts with your friends and colleagues.
This week there will be several campus-wide meetings about the college’s 2008-2009 budget planning process. We are in the early stages of examining a host of funding issues for this next year. During the Trustees May meeting, we will be reviewing these issues and some priorities in a work session with the Board. In the next seven weeks we, hopefully, will have reached some consensus on any major funding initiatives for the next year.
College enrollment for the current year continues to trend in a positive direction and, if all goes well, should close out at our targeted levels. With that anticipated outcome, the institution’s financial resources would have stabilized and this will provide us with a solid budget base for the next year. These campus budget meetings will be very important to learn more about our resource planning and the considerations before us.
Tonight the Board of Directors for the Alumni Association will hold their regular meeting. We continue to move for with the development of the Association as it becomes increasingly important to the College and our friend and fund raising efforts. A related effort now in its developmental stage is the capital campaign feasibility study that will be implemented in late May. This study will assess our potential for a major fund raising activity in the next year. As we continue this planning of the feasibility study, I will share additional information in a future blog.
Have a great week. Hope your spring term is going well and is enjoyable.