Lane Community College

40th Anniversary Open House

October 21, 2004

 

On this day 40 years ago, Lane County citizens braved a cold and icy night to report to their polling  places, mark paper ballots, and drop them into padlocked wooden boxes. Deputy sheriffs brought ballot boxes from Florence, Mapleton and up the McKenzie back to Eugene for counting. Bert Dotson was there. He counted the ballots. He had served on the feasibility committee, was appointed district clerk by the first board, was the first assistant to the president, and today still serves on the college Budget Committee. Larry Romine was there too. He was the Register-Guard reporter who got the story. He went on to be the college's first public relations director and today he is a member of our Board of Education.

 

Voters overwhelmingly approved forming a community college district by a 5-to-1 margin.

 
It was a transformational investment in our area's educational, economic and cultural future. Today, Lane is the first choice for education and training for a diverse cross section of our community: single parents learning marketable skills; displaced worker retraining new careers; high school graduates getting a quality education towards advanced degrees; citizens and retirees pursuing lifelong learning.

 

Lane plays a premier role in our community's economic health. Every tax dollar invested in Lane returns a cumulative $19 over the next 30 years, Students earn an additional $2,000 in annual income for every year they complete here. Lane's custom training programs help entice new companies to the area, and keep the local workforce competitive.

 

Since 1973 we have been the only Oregon member of the international League for Innovation in the Community College, we're one of only 20 colleges on the League's board, and one of only 12 Vanguard Learning Colleges recognized by the League for innovation and excellence.

 

Much of what we have been able to achieve over the last forty years started with the vision of the many people who dreamed about having a community college in Lane County. One of these people has had a profound influence on Lane till this day.

 

INTRODUCE DALE

Dr. Dale Parnell is our special guest today. Dale was principal of Springfield High School and then superintendent of the Lane Intermediate Education District when he began advocating to start a community college. He went on to become Lane's founding president, just the beginning of a lifetime of distinguished service on behalf of community colleges. He has served as state superintendent of public instruction, president of the American Association of Community Colleges for 10 years, and Oregon community college commissioner. He helped establish the Community College Leadership Program at Oregon State University. His 1985 book, "The Neglected Majority," still makes the case for community college education. It is my sincere pleasure and honor to ask you in giving a  warm welcome to Dr. Dale Parnell.

 

[Dale's presentation]

 

An anniversary not only provides an opportunity to reflect on our celebrated past - but also to envision our preferred future. We have much work to do. And have many ambitious plans. Just let me share a few of the things we plan to achieve over the next few years.

 

Learning

We need to understand our mission as community colleges.

This is a time in our country’s history when this unique American invention of the community college, grounded in principles of social justice and the ideal of opportunity for all takes on profound significance. We must open the door to higher education. We are acutely aware of the fact that this is the age of the knowledge-based economy and the knowledge worker. It is not just rhetoric  – knowledge is one of the single most important things in our world – today and tomorrow –thus learning for all is essential. The fact is you learn or you don’t work, never mind the need for an educated citizenry that is essential to a democratic society.

The challenges and opportunities of this dynamic and revolutionary era require us as community colleges to be more adept than ever at fulfilling our mission.

 

We will continue to make it known to all students that it is their right to have access to higher education.

We will continue to provide an environment that is welcoming and where students need not fear; where we can encourage them to choose to try, to begin, to engage.

We will engage learners with compelling experiences, the residual effects of which endure long after the experience has ended.

Lane will be students’ first choice, not an afterthought. Students will be proud to say that they attended Lane Community College. In other words Lane and other community colleges will have the deep respect we deserve.

Students will achieve.

 

More concretely, by 2014 we will have a new Health and Wellness building

The Downtown Center will be completely refurbished and there will be a new Library and Information Commons.  All of these building will be “green” built to high standards of sustainability.

KLCC will be downtown. We will be a catalyst for civic engagement.

There will be public art everywhere you look at the college

We will have gone back to the community in 2009 for a new bond measure and it will pass by over 60% of the vote.

We will have completed a five year Title III grant focusing on student retention

There will be individualized attention for students

We will have an Organizational Learning Institute that will build on and complement our current professional development efforts and will help us grow our individual, collective and organizational capacity.

 

Diversity

Despite the odds that face our low income, or students of color we will have closed the achievement gap for students of color.

We will have a safe and respectful environment for all

We will have made greater strides in attracting diverse faculty and staff

We will be the premier college of choice for students of color

 

Innovation

There will be sufficient funds available to support experimentation and to mainstream innovation

We will better understand learning theory and brain research to enhance the learning environment

Each student will have an electronic learning plan to guide their choices

We will have an Academy for k-12 in-service training

 

Collaboration

Our college will be known for the rich and intricate partnerships we have with other sectors of education, businesses, labor and the community. For example, we will have the premier bi-lingual teacher education program. Our students will be able to transfer seamlessly to any university, public or private. Our community will look to us the first choice for a world class under-graduate education whether it is in the transfer, professional technical or developmental area.

We will be the preferred provider for workforce training garnering even more of the federal resources to do so.

 

Fiscal

 

We will continue on our path of fiscal responsibility and accountability.

We will provide a scholarship for everyone who needs it.

 

Integrity

We will be known as a college that does what it says we will do- in the classroom, the office in the board room. We live up to our vision of transforming lives through learning. Students achieve, we assess it, and we prove it to ourselves and to the students themselves.

 

As you can tell, we see a vast universe of possibility for this college in the future and we plan to sail into it. Dante said it this way:

The patterns of the stars are quivering near the horizon now,

The north wind’s picking up, and farther on

There is the cliff’s edge we must reach

Leap of Faith

But we are not going to careen over the precipice. We are going to choose our path carefully over the next forty years. Each step will be taken with great care and above all, grace.  All of us will be leaders and followers depending on the skills needed in the moment and when our day is done we will be able to look back five, ten, forty years from now and say we did something worthwhile.

 

How do I know what we do here is worth while? Well I would like to show you our ten minute anniversary DVD. Just listen to some of our students and Dr. Dale Parnell, the founding president of Lane talk about vision and transformation.

 

DVD plays

 

This is what we do at Lane: transform lives. Can you think of more noble work? I can’t. That ’s what we are doing, making contributions that are bigger than any one of us. As we embark on the next forty years I think we can wholeheartedly lift up our students and in so doing lift up ourselves.

 

THANKS

To conclude this presentation Id like to thank:

Music faculty Ron Bertucci, Glenn Griffith, Mike Denny and Nathan Waddell

Culinary Arts students and faculty

Center for Meeting and Learning staff

Lane Archives, Foundation and Marketing and Public Relations staff

 

Before you leave campus today, I invite you to walk through our new West Entrance Labyrinth Garden. The garden is an innovative solution to a leaking pool and the lovely brick labyrinth, gravel maze, seasonal plantings and new water feature are an expression of our pride in the college. The renovation was made possible faculty, staff, the Foundation, and the generous support from community donors including:

Delta Sand and Gravel

Rexius Forest Products

Willamette Graystone

John Deere Landscapes

Oregon Copper Bowl

Stangeland & Associates landscape designers

 

Thanks to everyone for coming out today to honor the past and envision the future.

Return to: Past communications from the President