Welcome to the 2004/05 academic year! Congratulations to our new board chair, Paul Holman, and vice chair Kathleen Shelley. I look forward to working with you in the coming year.

We are closing out the books for the ’04 fiscal year and preliminary figures show that at least we should meet our carryover target. We may exceed it but it is still too early to tell. The budget for ’05 was fully loaded by July 9, a vast improvement over last year indicating that we are becoming more effective in our use of Banner software. The auditors are here and we look forward to their report at the beginning of fall.

At your places you have a letter from Senator Ben Westlund regarding the state funding distribution formula. It might be helpful for you to review this letter. It should be noted that Senator Westlund represents Central Oregon Community College. Much was accomplished in the newest formula to address their concerns but it appears they still are not satisfied and this seems like a political intervention on how we develop a new formula. The new group convened to develop the formula has had one meeting. Marie Matsen will be representing Lane and business officers on the committee.

The accreditation self study is in the final stages of proofing and editing and should be complete by the beginning of next week. A review of the last draft showed that while we have been very open and clear about our challenges, we had not been so explicit about our strengths. A good self study document should evaluate strengths and weaknesses related to the standards, based on evidence. (Also it is a disservice to all the good work of faculty and staff to omit the strengths of the college.) We have organized the study listing our strengths, challenges and plans for improvement. I think it has shaped up to be a very good document that will be helpful to the evaluators and to the college.

Facilities Management and Planning staff are very busy this summer with a multitude of projects. You might have seen that the fountain project out front is taking shape nicely. It will make a huge difference to the college. There are many other projects and I will report on them in September.

I am very happy to report that we received word from the American Culinary Federation that our program was awarded a five-year accreditation. We were fully accredited without a probationary period. This is a testament to the great work of our faculty and staff in that area. They worked long and hard to prepare themselves and it has paid off. It will really benefit our students to graduate from a program with this accreditation.

You are aware that we have been working on our student loan default rate. Student accounts staff have done a great job in reducing the Perkins Loan default rate by 5 percentage points to 14.43%.

A long time donor to the college recently donated a home to the Foundation. The home will be sold and the proceeds will go into a trust. When we are able to use the proceeds the donor would like us to focus on activities that build community across the college. This is a wonderful donation, valued at about $225,000.

I held a second meeting with classified staff regarding work load, and a meeting with managers. Many ideas for managing work load emerged. The Executive Team will be reviewing the ideas and we will have further discussion as to the feasibility in the next few weeks. I am hopeful that we can implement some of the ideas as soon a possible. It may mean a reduction in open hours to the public but it is very difficult to maintain service levels when we have reduced staff.

I hope to have a decision on the vice president position by the end of the week. I will be receiving feedback from the various groups who met with the three finalists by the end of the day tomorrow and will consider all of that and make a decision.

Finally, I will be leaving on Tuesday for a couple of weeks, and other than a day in the office on August 23, will be out until the day of the next board meeting on September 8. The college will be in good hands. I wish everyone a restful summer.

Return to: Past communications from the President