President’s Update - June 2, 2008
Good Afternoon!
Another school year has passed for all of us and we celebrate the success of many of our students this next Friday, June 6, 2008 at our commencement ceremony. The evening should be a great celebration as many students will receive the much deserved recognition for all their work and dedication in pursuing dreams and goals. The Alumni Association will assist in co-hosting a reception after the graduation exercises. It’ll be fun, fulfilling and entertaining.
Of course, this year’s ceremony will be unlike no other with Rich Haldi as the commencement speaker, in honor of his many contributions to students and the College as well as being his last EVCC commencement as an employee after more than thirty years. It’s hard to imagine for many that Rich will not be part of future graduations as the VP. But it is also a time to acknowledge him for his years of service and dedication and I hope many will attend to demonstrate our appreciation of Rich.
Yes, there will be other events that honor Rich’s work here but the students are also celebrating him at their graduation by selecting him as this year’s speaker. We are all grateful to this man for his work and efforts on behalf of many students and staff. Thank you, Rich.
This month also marks the typical closure of the institution’s budget planning efforts with the Board’s approval of next year’s financial plan. The regular Board meeting for this month is June 11, 2008. We have some unique opportunities this next year with several initiatives that will generate new student enrollments and create additional resources for future college needs. We hope to fund the International Education Program efforts on a continuous basis, Hi-Q, continued efforts with increasing diversity, commitment to new compensation, build on our outreach programs to Monroe, significantly increase institutional marketing, refill existing vacancies, and fund some new positions in facilities, HR and accounting. Unfortunately, all of these will need to await the final enrollment report and whether the target is attained. That number will mean a great deal to EVCC in term of new revenues. We will not be able to secure a final budget figure until we know where we end up with enrollments and thus expect a final budget approval in July this year by the Board.
Board approval of the budget in July is not typical for the College but timeliness of the most accurate enrollment information requires this course of action. Hopefully, things work out with the enrollments for this year and the College can move forward in a financially stable direction with our new initiatives.
As we continue our college’s budget planning for the next year, the community college system has been diligent in planning for the next biennium budget and the legislative requests in January 2009. New growth enrollments, ABE funding, high demand enrollments, worker retraining, compensation study recommendations, part-time faculty conversions,<span style=”mso-spacerun: yes;”> student achievement efforts, Opportunity Grants, running start, disabilities accommodations, new equipment, technology innovation, child care and campus security are all topics under consideration for new funding in the next budget cycle. We will be working to prioritize these this summer for meeting with legislators and candidates with anticipation of the next legislative session. The needs are great and the system has made a strong effort to move the timetable ahead in preparing our legislative agenda.
During some of the recent “chat” sessions a number of people have expressed concern about the number of position vacancies that are occurring this year. There appears to be an unusually high number of people leaving the institution and this notable change creates anxiety and employee morale issues. These employee changes have also caused me to wonder what is going on with employee turnover.
This past week at the Presidents’ monthly meeting, the “academy” topic dealt with the issue of “succession planning.” It was interesting in that the system is expecting to experience (and may already be doing so) a large number of personnel changes in the coming years due to the demographics of the current workforce, the nature of this system with employee compensation, the high migration of existing employees to other institutions in the state to acquire better pay (especially along the I-5 corridor) and changes in institutional leadership. One in five employees turnover annually. There was the mention that the community college system experiences about 200 personnel changes annually in exempt positions across the state.
The workforce is aging with 42% of full-time faculty 55 or older; 36% of part-time faculty in that category; 50% of Administrative exempt and 31% of Professional exempt. Classified staff is at 29%. Thirty-five percent of all staff is anticipated to retire in the next five years. And applicant pools are shrinking by an estimated 15%.<span style=”mso-spacerun: yes;”> Compensation levels may not be keeping pace with peer institutions in other states, especially for mid-level administrative positions. There is a changing attitude and expectation with the new multi-cultural/multi general workforce about work and the workplace.
There are other suggestions for our turnover. One concerns the campus work environment and a lack of support and respect for one another. This particular concern reinforces the work on the issue of campus civility by the College Council that was addressed this year. Other factors attributed to higher turnover include greater expectations of staff members to cover work when vacancies do occur and, then, issues with supervisors.
What was gleaned for me from the discussion about “succession planning” is that employee turnover is and will be in a transformation stage in future years for the institutions because of the changing nature of the community college workforce (different generations of employees working together with a different set of values), the new opportunities that mobility brings especially in Washington, and because of changes with college presidencies(different leadership brings about transition within workforce). It seems that people are more willing to move these days to look for better work, pay and positions that carry desired responsibilities. Some of this information may help explain to some degree why we at EVCC appear to be experiencing so many employee changes.
Our experiences at EVCC are not necessarily out of the norm for an organization this size and the changing dynamics of financial challenges, work environment, retirements, and new people in leadership roles. Employee change could be an outcome of the combination of many factors.
Speaking of college employees, there are numerous employee acknowledgement and reward events occurring in the next two weeks with the school year’s end. Hopefully, we will see many of you participating. This year has had its share of challenges for all of us but we have endured a difficult financial environment and persisted in our efforts to improve our management of resources so that we are now a more stable situation. This will allow us to continue to build a strong enrollment and financial base for investment into new and valuable initiatives. Thanks to everyone for your tolerance, patience, contributions, and participation. We should collectively look forward to more success in the next year. And also look to a relaxing summer. Thank you.