Board Report – May 2006

Report from Lane Community College President Mary Spilde
To the Lane Community College Board of Education
May 10, 2006

Since we have just concluded a budget committee meeting where the budget was presented for FY2007, I will keep my remarks short. The budget committee did approve the budget reductions as recommended. This will allow us to incorporate the reductions into the budget and continue to work with staff affected by these decisions. I want to repeat that these are painful decisions and that behind every item on this spreadsheet there is a face and a family. We will be losing some stellar staff that have made a significant contribution to Lane.

Regarding tonight’s agenda, we have a couple of changes: we would like to pull the consent agenda item regarding the HP back-up system. We expect to bring back a proposal that includes the same hardware and services but has a different (and better) software component. Also, there has been a reduction in the cost of the sewer system upgrade, so I am distributing a new cover sheet.

Donna Koechig and I were pleased to attend the Oregon Outstanding Student Scholar celebration. Congressman David Wu, who is co-chair of the community college caucus in Washington, presented the recognition to our students, Julianna Hafemeister and Harmony Heartsun.

I was also delighted to notify one of our students that she had received the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship. This is the third year in a row that a Lane student has received this scholarship. We are one of only four colleges whose students have received the scholarship three times in a row. Congratulations to Morgan Ironplow.

The 4J budget committee approved $20,000 for students to participate in the RTEC program. That is in addition to $35,000 allocated for SB 300. We are very grateful to the school district for their willingness to partner with the college to benefit students.

Our alumni association, Club Lane, is gearing up. They will be conducting a telethon next week to recruit alumni.

We had an excellent Spring Conference last week with the author of one of our Reading Together books. Lucille Clifton is an internationally recognized poet. It is always difficult to decide whether to have these kinds of events when we are in the midst of budget reductions. However, the agreements were made many months ago. I do think it is important that as a learning institution we take time to come together and learn ourselves. Lucille did two sessions for students and the public on Thursday that were very well attended, especially by students. On Friday she was the keynote speaker for staff.

Tomorrow we will be having the culminating event of our year with our first Visiting Scholar, Dr. Janne Underrinner. We will hold a chinuk wawa lu-lu. There will be guests from the Grand Ronde tribe.

You might have noticed the large trees on the ground in the parking lot. These are the trees donated by the Coquille tribe for use in the Longhouse. It is exciting to think that we are getting closer to making that project a reality.

We were visited by dignitaries from Seitoku University in Japan last week. They require their students to complete a year abroad to learn English. They are interested in sending students to Lane.

Sonya and I attended the AACC national convention. The Oregon Institute for Leadership development which I have directed for a number of years received a model program award. Also, I was elected to the national board of the AACC.

You may have noticed that Sonya is not here this evening. She has been invited back to Washington, D.C., for the second time to participate in a session with the US Department of Education. One of Sonya’s colleagues, Dr. Beto Gonzalez, has been appointed as assistant secretary for Vocational Education. In fact, I attended a session at the convention where he was presenting. I had never met him before, and out of the blue he began to talk about Sonya and the work she did at Bakersfield and at Lane. I was very proud of Sonya!

Lane's chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, Sigma Zeta, has just returned from our regional conference. The Regional Conference was held in Portland, and it followed the International Conference, which was held in Seattle two weeks ago. Sigma Zeta won an amazing 13 awards at regional (in addition to the one at international):

Five Star
Pinnacle Platinum
Pinnacle Gold
Distinguished Leadership
Distinguished Service
Distinguished Chapter Officer: Elizabeth Rosso
Distinguished Chapter Advisor: Velda Arnaud
Chapter President Award: Stephanie Simon
International Honors Institute Scholarship
Chapter Yearbook Award
Participation Award
Travel Award
Literary Award: Morgan Moorehead

Finally, I would like to present a couple of awards. First is Food for Lane County. We are a member of the Campus Compact which is dedicated to service learning and civic engagement. Jennifer von Ammon from the Language, Literature & Communication division is our Service Learning coordinator. She has placed students with the Food for Lane County gardens. Let me read the letter I wrote to recognize Food for Lane County. Unfortunately, Merry Bradley and Jen Anonia were not able to attend the awards ceremony in Portland because it was opening day for the gardens and they had lots of volunteers lined up. I was happy to accept the award on their behalf and am pleased that they are here today. I would like to ask them to come forward to receive the award.

Last but certainly not least; this is Jeremy Riel’s last meeting as ASLCC president. I would like to ask him to come forward to receive this small token of our appreciation for all his hard work over the years on behalf of Lane students. We wish him well in his future endeavors.