2011 Archive - Lane Community College

I have several things I would like to report I would like to report but the bulk of my report will be the Oregon Community College Association report.

Later this evening we will discussion our budget projections. I think there is a lot of good news in these projections. We truly have closed the gap and can look forward to maintaining our existing service levels this year and for the next two years. In other words, we can enjoy the fact that we will not have to cut the budget or see enormous tuition increases in the next two and one half years. However, we are not out of the woods yet. There are still many uncertainties and we must continue to make progress on deferred maintenance and equipment among other things if we are truly going to achieve financial stability. Also we are projecting a deficit in 2007 so we want to plan for that. There would be no excuse if we reach that year and still have deficit. We should be using our resources wisely in the next two years so that we can avoid that deficit. So while we can look forward with some optimism I want us to continue to be cautious.

You will recall that last year we faculty positions that we did not fill .We had an agreement with the LCCEA to hold these positions vacant as an alternative to cutting the budget and as a bridge to see if the budget situation would improve. I am pleased to say that it our intention to fill all 28 faculty positions. There are four or five that we want to have some discussion with division faculty and staff but pending those discussions we do want to fill positions. In addition, we discussed in the Labor Management Committee revitalizing the Appropriate Levels of Full Time: Part Time Faculty committee. We are gathering data and then we want to focus on the departments where we know the ratio is not in line with where we want to be.

The Strategic Planning Task Force has completed its draft of strategic directions. We will be sending that out to the college community for review in the next couple of days. The Task Force will consider the feedback and finalize the plan and we will bring it for your review and approval in February.

The Governance Task Force continues its work. As I mentioned to you, I will not be able to meet your initial deadline of November. I think this work is too important to rush and I believe we are making good progress so I am requesting that you give me until February to bring a proposal to you. The Task Force plan is to have a proposal by the end of term. We will then have full discussion by the college community in January and bring a recommendation to you in February. Discussions are already going on around the college. We had a very fruitful conversation with classified staff at the Classified Participation Day and Faculty Council and LCCEA have had two discussions so far. I am particularly pleased with the work that a sub-group of the Task Force has done within the last couple of days to identify the areas for which faculty have primary responsibility.

Last week I spent two days in Washington DC attending AACC meetings. I was appointed to the AACC Commission on Inclusion and Diversity. We had an excellent meeting that included a debrief on the Michigan affirmative action case and how colleges are handling hate speech. That was particularly pertinent for us.

At the AACC meeting we also talked at length about the ADN program. In the Journal of the American Medical Association there was an article that said that there was a higher mortality rate if a patient had been tended by an Associate Degree Nurse. There were many flaws in the study including: the fact that ,many nurses tend a single patient and the most clear correlation to patient progress is the number of attending surgeons in a given unit, not the qualifications of the nurses. This study has been placed in the hands of the entire congressional delegation at a time when we are trying to get the Veterans’ Administration to remove its requirement that nurses working in VA hospitals have a Bachelor’s degree. This is simply another attempt to devalue the AND degree and AACC is working diligently to highlight the flaws in this study and have asked for another study.
I will send out the AACC president’s full report in an update over the next week or two.

The Foundation continues to raise friends and funds for us. The final tally for the Harvest Dinner and Golf tournament was $68.000. This was a great effort for a first event.

The Reading Together project is going very well. You may have seen or heard items in the media. The play Montana 1948 opened last weekend. It is excellent and I encourage you to buy your tickets for the final performances this weekend.

The Staton family continues to support Lane students. Last month I reported that they had spent some time at the college meeting with Staton scholars and having the Foundation meeting. One of the students in our auto body program has a debilitating stutter. At the luncheon, Darrell gave a speech of thanks to the family. He only spoke a sentence but it took a tremendous amount of effort and the family was touched. They have translated that into action by paying to refer the student to a speech therapist in Portland and for a device that one of the family saw on the Oprah show that helps people who stutter learn to speak.
Our thanks to them.

Thanks also to Kathleen Shelley for persevering in having the Strategic Conversation with school superintendents and board chairs. I think our conversation this evening went very well and I think we should try to do this at least every two years.

I am passing around the exhibition catalog for the Student Art competition that we participate in with the League for Innovation. Lane’s entries are marked.

Finally, the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner is on Saturday evening and we ill have students and staff attend. Greg Evans will be recognized that evening by the NAACP.

I would like to welcome David Bridgham, board member from Southwestern Oregon Community College and President of ACCA and Andrea Henderson, Executive Director of OCCA. After an update and short discussion, we will turn to a review of the OCCA goals.