Lehigh Carbon Community College Convocation State of the College August 21, 2014

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1 Lehigh Carbon Community College Convocation State of the College August 21, 2014 Good afternoon. I am happy to welcome you to the 49th Lehigh Carbon Community College Convocation. It is my honor and good fortune to have served LCCC since 1981, and now, as its fifth President, I invite you to celebrate this milestone of nearly half-a-century in the life of our outstanding College. Before we proceed with today's agenda, I want to recognize all of you and those who preceded you. It is through your tireless efforts for this institution and our students that have made LCCC one of the best community colleges! I hope you enjoyed the summer and are ready to begin the Academic Year with energy, creativity, and enthusiasm. In the next hour, it will also be my honor to present the State of the College address, a report on the College s key accomplishments, its priorities for , and some future initiatives. This presentation will include: My annual Presidential Goals as approved by the Board of Trustees A Governance Update A look at our accomplishments with the Strategic Plan Transformation as we begin our new Strategic Plan Many Voices: One Vision A snapshot of today s higher education as 1 of the Commonwealth s 14 community colleges Foundation Update Where we are with the studies of our Carbon and Donley Sites A word about the College s web redesign and market research study AND The planning of our 50 th Anniversary 1

2 Afterward you will hear from: Dr. Leamer, who will provide an Enrollment and Academic update, and Brian Kahler who will provide a Finance and Facility update First and most important we want to Introduce and Welcome our new faculty and staff at LCCC. Donna Williams, our Director of Human Resources will provide the introductions. At your seats is a copy of my Presidential Goals for Together with so many of you, I have begun working on these goals and would like to highlight some of the work already underway. One important goal is to increase alternative revenue sources. The College does a great job at securing grants; however, we will need to continue to increase our focus on grants from all sources: local, state, federal and private funding agencies. As we know grants are increasingly competitive and the more partnerships we have the greater likelihood of success. Let me tell you about a few of the grants we received: LCCC was awarded a two-year, $150,000 federal grant through the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council to develop and implement a person-centered model for engaging students with disabilities in an educational program that leads to strategic employment. Our Pre-K Counts program received continued state funding to provide a free half-day program for 10 eligible children three years of age up to kindergarten in our Early Learning Center. We have a very strong partnership with the Workforce Investment Board and this summer we received a Career Force grant for $250,000 to provide a program for 50 outof-school youth ages 16 to 21 with the skills needed to increase academic and work readiness skills, enter post-secondary institutions to attain a degree or certificate, and secure job placement. In addition, we also have grant applications where we are anxiously awaiting the results. Some of those include: The TAACCT Grant which was submitted in partnership with Northampton, Luzerne and LCTI. For LCCC if we are successful our focus would be on Advanced Manufacturing, 2

3 and Healthcare and we would receive $1.8M over 4 years. Notification is expected in September. Cedar Crest College was the applicant for a First in the World Grant and partnered with us and Northampton. This grant is pending and, if awarded, would provide partial scholarships for a number of our honor students to continue their education at Cedar Crest College. We also submitted a RCAP grant for $4 M for the Carbon County Site. We are waiting for word on this grant and we were informed that the Governor will announce successful applicants in September. Thank you to the Grants writers, Foundation, and grant participants. In addition to grant funding, alternative sources of revenue also include a look at how we do business; the stewardship of our resources. Recently, our Finance Department required competitive bids for several of our bank accounts. This resulted in approximately $70,000 additional annual income. Bidding on projects and services that was not previously required is now occurring and has already saved the College thousands of dollars. Academic programs that attract non-sponsor students provide increased revenues through double tuition. The Helicopter program under development is one such program that is believed will attract students outside of the sponsoring area resulting in increased revenues. Community is literally our middle name and our partnerships throughout the community are very important. We have very strong relationships, which we need to continue to strengthen. The ELL Task Force worked very hard this summer and provided numerous recommendations for partnerships. With ELL s assistance, productive meetings with the Hispanic Business Council and the International Business Council presidents resulted in an LCCC board seat on each council. With the growth in downtown Allentown, there is an increased focus on the arts. An LCCC team met with the Baum Art School Director and Chair of the Board to discuss opportunities to make the partnership more financially beneficial to LCCC and increase art course offerings. The College s relationship with our four-year partners continues to expand. Our Transfer Office worked diligently this summer to increase the number of articulation agreements. These agreements benefit our students through guaranteed enrollment and possible scholarships. The 3

4 agreements include dual admission with Bloomsburg and East Stroudsburg; core-to-core with Delaware Valley and DeSales; and reverse degree agreements with Kutztown. Consistently, the agreements are calling for the students to complete the associate s degree prior to transfer. With the completion of the renovations of our Student Services Center, our University Center will be available to our four-year partners. Over the summer, I met with the presidents of Cedar Crest College, Northampton Community College, Penn State Lehigh Valley, Penn State Schuylkill, Central Penn College, and Kutztown University. All of the Colleges and Universities are interested in increasing linkages between the schools. The New Student Orientations provided opportunities for approximately 1000 students and their family members to be introduced to all that LCCC has to offer at all 5 of our locations. In the near future, we will be establishing a High School Initiatives Task Force to discuss how we may increase services to our sponsoring school districts and strengthen our relationship with the sponsors. Thank you to the Coordinators, Deans, Vice-Presidents, Faculty, ELL Task Force members, Community Services, Student Development, and Transfer Offices for your efforts on behalf of our students. Transparency and Communication is central to our actions and interactions with each other, our partners, and our community members. Several new initiatives include: College Voice publication increased to twice weekly and distribution expanded to include trustees and superintendents Student opportunities to interact with the president through informal gatherings and lots of pizza Roundtable Discussion groups Administrative Office Hours New areas on the website including: expanded President s Page with input form; and the Sponsor Communications Tab An Update to our sponsoring school districts providing key College information such as enrollment, capital plan projects and academic updates to provide an opportunity for our sponsors to hear from LCCC throughout the year. 4

5 Although we have made great strides in communications and transparency, there is always more to be done and we look to your input for new opportunities. The work to achieve these goals will be on-going throughout the year and in partnership with each of you, I will be providing a mid-year update to the Board of Trustees, at their December Board meeting. The update will be shared with the college community. As you know the College re-aligned the Organizational Structure for the year with a review of my prior position. The newly structured VP position follows a growing trend to bring increased visibility to Enrollment Management and provide an Executive Team level seat at the President's Cabinet table. The position was seen as the next logical step in building upon our efforts to create a unified approach to the many enrollment components, and considers the fiscal and population demographic challenges colleges face nation-wide. I want to thank the faculty and staff who served on the Search Committee this summer. The timeline provides for a candidate to be approved by the Board of Trustees at their October meeting. As we have been researching the early beginnings of LCCC preparing for our 50 th anniversary celebration, it is interesting to read about the decisions and directions that were made by those that came before us in the early years of the College. In the area of governance, the Federation and the Committees provided guidance to the direction of the College. I am proud that we are continuing with and expanding on that early direction. We will continue to increase the openness in discussion, the openness to new ideas, and the openness in operations and financials. Our President s Cabinet expanded this year and now includes the Senior Administrative Staff, the President of the College Faculty Association and the President of the Education Support Personnel Association. Academic Council is a strong leadership council with representation of FT Faculty, PT Faculty and Senior Academic Staff. The Leadership Team of the College expanded to include Senior Level Administrative staff, Middle Level Administrative staff and faculty, and Leadership Fellows. Leadership Fellows support the Institutional Focus to develop staff and succession planning and recognizes that leadership within any organization is not tied specifically to titles, and many within our institution are leaders within their departments. Seven Fellows serve in

6 The Coordinators are the liaison between the faculty and Academic Services. As the team leaders who assist Academic Services in the administration of the programs in their respective professional areas they perform a multitude of tasks from coordinating adjunct faculty activities to the submission of faculty schedules plus much more. They are an integral part of shared governance on campus. The College Committees and Task Forces continue to increase as we depend on your expertise and look at new focal areas of the College such as our newly formed ELL Task Force. Our College direction will be guided by the input and recommendations of our college stakeholders with decisions that will be transparent. As from the early beginnings of the College we will continue to review, monitor, and revise our governance structure with final approval by our Board of Trustees. Before I begin with an update on our strategic plan Transformation, I want to convey a message from the Board of Trustees to you. They requested that I convey their deepest appreciation and recognition of your hard work in the successful completion of Transformation and the development of Many Voices: One Vision. They are proud of the outcomes and team work that was involved in this great work. On behalf of the trustees thank you for your hard work. Let s take a look at the changes since we launched Transformation. We ve completed two major Middle States events (Self Study and Periodic Review Report), moved to a three-year rolling strategic plan Many Voices, One Vision, re-aligned and strengthened our administration, and gained a level of national prominence through programs such as SHINE, and Teacher Education, National Science Foundation funded STEM Edugaming and the Bachelor of Applied Technology. Since July 2009, Foundation and Academic Grants raised in excess of $18.5 million. Not one, but two Learning Management Systems were launched (ANGEL and Web Study) and shells were created within the LMS for every class. The portal was simultaneously launched with a unified student system. Through the efforts of the Leadership Team and our College community, we ve seen: The development of the Enrollment Management Plan and the establishment of EMAT A focus on Transforming Students Lives in the First Year with team attendance at FYE conference, broad campus discussion, and revision of RSS 104 curriculum 6

7 First Year Mentor Program was implemented Campus-wide discussion of Developmental Education Banner Project Proposal funded initiatives such as Flexible Registration, Chart of Accounts, Financial Aid Updates, and InfoQuest ALSO Quality Matters was purchased and implemented; faculty were trained, peer evaluations completed All of these accomplishments occurred because of your commitment to LCCC and your hard work. And now, through everyone s efforts, we begin our new strategic plan Many Voices: One Vision. This plan will guide us as we continue our focus on Student Success. Let s talk a little now about Higher Education and LCCC as 1 of the Commonwealth s 14 community colleges. First of all I am happy to say there are still only14 Community Colleges. You may remember that we closely watched the legislation that would have established a 15 th Community College. Act 126 of the Fiscal Code, now contains language to establish a rural regional college to serve students in Northwest Pennsylvania. $1.2 M was allocated for this initiative in the state budget. Earlier this year, we were concerned because the language referred to the proposed college as a community college; however, through efforts of our supporters that reference was eliminated. This year the community college was the only segment of higher education that received an increase; the first increase since fiscal year $3.5M in additional state monies were allocated for the community colleges; a $200,000 increase for LCCC. In addition, we received $400,000 through a budget line item for the College s SHINE initiative. Harrisburg Area Community College s operating agreement with their sponsors expired and the sponsors requested legislation governing their funding to HACC. Act 108 codified HACC s sponsors funding agreement and no other colleges were affected by that legislation. This was obviously very important to the community colleges. There are 5 new Community College presidents beginning this academic year in the Commonwealth. Beaver, Allegheny, Philadelphia, Westmoreland and LCCC. We hosted a new president retreat, as well as a retreat for all 14 presidents, last week at LCCC. For many, it was their first time on our campus and they could not say enough about how beautiful the campus is. 7

8 During our retreat, we had a very long discussion on the community college system which is now almost 50 years old. We discussed the fact that collectively the community colleges in the Commonwealth serve over 250,000 credit and noncredit students annually throughout all 67 counties of PA. We believe that higher education is at a crossroads and it is important to look at the glass as half full and together determine who we are and what types of legislative support we want to achieve. It was a great beginning discussion and these conversations will continue throughout the year. I want to talk a little bit now about the Foundation and the Friends of the College who are dedicated beyond expectations to helping our students succeed AND they do this through our Foundation. The LCCC Foundation, our Foundation, is currently valued at more than $13.8 M. At your places you will see the Foundation Funding Priorities for A top priority is scholarships for our students. This past year the Foundation provided over 400 scholarships for a value of over $300,000. This past spring, a new scholarship was established for our Carbon County 2014 and 2015 sponsoring school districts graduates that we call the 3Cs Scholarship. Eligible Carbon County students registering for 12 credits will receive 6 credits free. We had 60 applications for this fall. This scholarship was timely because it adds to the data we have been collecting as we study the Carbon County population and discuss the feasibility of a permanent Carbon County location. The Trustees gave our Foundation the approval to pursue donors for naming rights of the 4 buildings on campus which includes the Technology Center, Student Services Center, Academic Resource Center, and Community Services Center. The naming rights require a donation of $1M per building. Since the buildings are already completed and there is no construction costs required, the donor funds can be used to establish a scholarship fund. Identifying donors will be a top priority of mine along with our Foundation chair and staff. The Main Campus Technology Center is owned by a private corporation and leased to the College. The Center will be donated to the Foundation in 2018 and has a value of approximately $6 M. Prospective donor discussions are underway and we hope to have an announcement by the end of the calendar year for the naming of the building. 8

9 Events, such as the Clay shoot and Golf Tournament, are very important to generating revenues for our scholarship fund. Downtown Allentown and the revitalization that is taking place have presented some exciting opportunities for LCCC. We have had numerous conversations with the representatives of the LV Phantoms, the new hockey team, on possible partnership initiatives. Some of those ideas include an LCCC hockey game night with the proceeds going to a Phantom scholarship, conducting a LCCC basketball playoff at the arena and inviting our sponsoring school district students, as well as, the ability to use the arena for our 50 th commencement ceremonies which would allow us to return to where we first started in downtown Allentown. We await decisions on these and other possible initiatives. We are grateful for our Foundation for many reasons; however most recently the Foundation supported the acquisition and demolition of several homes along Rt The home closest to the gateway sign is now owned by the Foundation and within 6 months will be demolished and the final grading completed. There is only one home that remains, and at this point they are not interested in selling. However, the front entrance of the College has been transformed thanks to the Foundation. Thank you to all who contribute to the Foundation. All five locations of LCCC are very important as we serve our communities in meeting their educational needs. As you know, we have been studying both the Carbon and Allentown sites this past year and many of you played a key role in those studies. Earlier this summer our trustees took a bus trip to visit our sites as part of the due diligence in determining the appropriate locations for the two sites. In studying our Allentown location with all of the amazing revitalization taking place parking and proximity to public transportation surfaced as two critically important factors as we look for a potential new location. As I mentioned earlier, we have a pending RCAP grant for our Carbon Site. We know through our discussions that a critical factor for a permanent location for our Carbon Site is close proximity to the Carbon County Career and Technical Institute. This will allow us to share CCTI s state of the art manufacturing and technology equipment. Currently, we have approximately 1 ½ years remaining on our lease at the Jim Thorpe high school. I have met with the superintendent to discuss the extension of this lease and together we will meet with the school board in September to request an extension. An extension will provide us the opportunity to continue our due diligence for a site that best meets the needs of the community. 9

10 I m sure you ve seen the dramatic changes in the college s website. We ve updated and upgraded the website to better represent the college and its many programs. The transitional redesign of the site was very much needed and needed quickly. The navigation was upgraded removing confusion on the location of obvious information; Colors are much more striking; Photography is stronger, telling our story with a picture instead of a paragraph. As we move forward, following a competitive RFP process for a total redesign of the site, College Relations will address more substantial concerns about: Updating the content management system; Adding video; More fully incorporating social media; The more intuitive placement of pages and; Rewriting of copy for simplified and easier reading In regards to market research, in the coming weeks, we will begin to comprehensively define and describe the many markets throughout our service areas. It will help provide empirical data on those markets to make data-driven decisions on programs, niches, sites and much more. The research will give us better information on: how we stand in the eye of the public; who our competition is AND base lining where we are, who we are and where we need to go to best serve our students of today and how to reach the students of tomorrow. It may seem hard to believe but our 50 th Anniversary will soon be here. A committee of faculty, staff, students, trustees and community members is in the process of being formed. Beginning January 1, 2015, we will begin promoting our upcoming 50 th anniversary. Our Leadership Team has already started the discussions of 50 th anniversary initiatives and ideas. College Relations will have a site to ensure that all information is shared and everyone has an opportunity to participate with the planning. In conclusion, it has been a great honor and privilege for me to participate with so many great faculty and staff in our never ending task of building an educational community of distinction, and I wish to thank all of you who have helped Lehigh Carbon Community College 10

11 get to where we are today. Through your efforts, our 49-year enterprise has not only succeeded but grown exponentially. I am proud of where we are and we are poised for even greater success in the future. Thank you for all of your hard work, and know that you have my best wishes for the coming academic year. HEART OF THE COUGAR AWARD Now it is time to present our Heart of the Cougar Award. The Heart of the Cougar Award allows LCCC to pause in the midst of higher education challenges to celebrate the efforts of an individual or group who "go above and beyond" on behalf of our students and the achievement of our mission. The Cougar is LCCC s mascot. The Cougar is also known by its Incan name Puma meaning power and is a symbol of self-leadership. It reminds us to remember our responsibility to others, ourselves and personal truth. When Cougar people have a cause in mind, they leap forward with swiftness and power, and expect others to do so as well. They are decisive and the leaders of others. This happens, not through seeking positions of power, but because others see them striding confidently and choose to follow. A Cougar says, I am going there, follow me if you will, but do not follow in my footsteps, for your path must be your own. Seek instead your high goal and I will aid you on the way This year s winner of the Heart of the Cougar Award has been nominated by our College community for their work. It is my pleasure to present this year s winner of the Heart of the Cougar Award to someone who has served our students since Her many years of dedication to our students is seen by all. She strives to make sure our students get the full academic experience and involvement on campus. She is always open to new ideas and there is no challenge she is not willing to take on. Whether it is the beautiful mural of our logo seen in the Student Union, the marquee in the mall or our mascot at events, her collegial spirit is one of utmost importance and she is sure to share this spirit with students, faculty and staff. 11

12 Congratulations to Ms. Gene Eden, Director of Student Life as this year s Heart of the Cougar Award Winner! 12