Board Report - March 2008

It has been an incredibly busy month with many evening and weekend events as well as the usual cultivation and college events.

On February 15, I presented our request for Strategic Investment Fund dollars to the State Board of Education. It went well, and there was a good discussion of our proposal and the goals of the strategic fund. The proposal was divided into three parts, and I do not believe we will receive funding to offset the past weaknesses of the funding formula. However, parts two and three, which focused on building programs and grants capacity here at Lane that would also benefit the state, look positive. Commissioner Preus was not able to devote the time to develop a recommendation prior to the March meeting, so it will be on the April State Board agenda. I expect to receive some funding but not our full request.

We have had a number of events and guests on campus. Congressman David Wu came to Lane on February 19. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the Community College Caucus; the Staton family – our largest scholarship funder – was on campus and met with students recipients. As always, it was an emotional and positive experience hearing students tell their stories.

Lane hosted the Eugene Chamber Business After Hours in the Center for Meeting and Learning. Our catering services did a great job, and representatives of Cooperative Education, Business Development, Continuing Education and the Foundation, as well as Culinary and Hospitality were out in full force to talk to business owners.

KLCC has had two Open Houses for donors and a community Open House as part of the First Friday Art Walk. The facilities are great; if you have not been there yet, I encourage you to check it out.

The Classical Cuisine dinner on February 28 gave an opportunity for our students to shine. We had a full house.

The inaugural annual Peace and Democracy Conference was held on February 29 and March 1. It was a wonderful conference. My thanks to Stan Taylor and Peg Allison who co-chaired the conference. Many students and community members attended.

Finally, in terms of campus events, the Foundation held the Second Annual All-About-Business Breakfast last Tuesday. This event was really well attended by the business community, including members of the Lane League. We had an interesting speaker who talked about the national phenomenon of task saturation – this idea of being totally overwhelmed by workload, which he commented is happening across all sectors of the economy. Of course, we have felt that at Lane for quite some time.

Lane hosted a table at the NAACP dinner last Saturday.

We have held two Community Conversations – one in Cottage Grove, which had a very good turnout, and the other last night in Oakridge. We are learning a lot and can see patterns of things that we can focus on.

We held an orientation session for the lay members of the Budget Committee to share the audit, reports and projections that board members have already seen.

Sonya and I attended the annual meeting of the NWCCU – our accreditors. They are implementing a new accreditation/self study system. We will share what that will look like in the future as it gets fleshed out more.

I attended the League for Innovation conference in Denver. As current chair of the League board, I had some responsibilities. Margaret Robertson, chair of the Facilities Council, and I presented a session on sustainability. It was very well received. Lynn Songer and Jane Benjamin, whom you heard from last month on Geographical Information Systems, also presented, as did Jane and Sarah Ulerick, Interim Chair of Science.

At the regional conference for the Council on Resource Development, Lane presented a panel which included Tony Baker, Opening Doors Campaign Chair, Jim Selby, our consultant, Michelle Erickson, our donor relations officer, Janet Anderson, Foundation Director, and myself on the different roles of each team member in having a successful capital campaign.

Our basketball teams are awesome. Both went to the regional championships, with our women taking third place. We received a letter from Mayor Piercy congratulating us on the number of home wins for our women’s team.