November 2013

November 22, 2013

Greetings,

It feels like a nanosecond, but it has been four months since I came to Allan Hancock College and it has truly been the best four months of my career. We are suddenly on the cusp of the Thanksgiving Holiday. How did we get here so quickly?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love its universal, non-partisan spirit that allows us to collectively pause and recognize how fortunate we are. As we come to the Thanksgiving season, my family and I have a lot to be thankful for – new friends, a welcoming community, and an opportunity to be part of a great college. Our students certainly have a lot to be thankful for: dedicated faculty, committed staff, and a brand new campus. As educators, we have much to be thankful for as well. We do nothing less than make a positive, life-changing difference for our students.

I am thankful to work with educators (we are all educators at AHC!) that are committed to serving our at-risk students. Our efforts to purchase Thanksgiving meals for families and the “Angel Tree” are tangible examples of your generosity. Although I have been here only four months, I can affirm that the community is thankful for the work we do.

A Hancock Hero As many of you know, our community lost a legendary educator this month when Nat Fast passed away. I did not have a chance to meet Nat myself, but Marti and Sue Fast were kind enough to invite me to the memorial service. It was an amazing event – the Marian Theater was standing room only with a video feed to the lobby for the overflow. The hour long event included stirring remembrances, songs, poems, readings, and excerpts from PCPA productions. As I waded through the crowd in the lobby, I heard one story after another about the personal impact Nat had on individual lives. I am saddened that I never got to know Nat, but I can see his impact on our campus and in his community. He was truly a Hancock Hero.

Staying Focused This week I am attending the annual conference of the Community College League of California. A highlight of this meeting is the presentation given by Chancellor Brice Harris on the future of our system. His message this year was to “stay focused.” With all of the think tanks and external organizations that want to “help” us with “prescriptions,” Chancellor Harris noted that we are making real and sustainable progress in serving our students. Our efforts in basic skills have substantial impacts on our underserved populations, our course completion rates are improving, and the system has created more than 1,000 associate degrees for transfer in only 18 months.

I echo Chancellor Harris’ theme – as long as we stay focused on student success we will be successful ourselves.

Budget Looking Up I know it’s not me, but I sure would like to take credit for the statement Betty Miller made about the budget this week. In presenting the Budget Council’s 2014-15 income and expenditures assumptions, she said it is the first time in years that the most likely assumption puts us in the black (or “green,” as Kelly Underwood prefers to say!). After seven painful years, the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way for California community colleges.

And with that, there is some good news for students. We have clearly seen that the passage of Prop 30 has already increased access to AHC, with the percent of first-time students up in fall 2013 by 24.4 percent.

At the risk of sounding all “Alan Greenspany” with irrational exuberance, we are optimistic that the next five or six years are going to be markedly improved. There are many structural issues to address in the state, but even the Legislative Analyst Office is reporting better than expected budget news.

It is also true that we can never fully rely on state funding to provide all that we need. To that end, Allan Hancock College has been very successful over the years securing grants and other private sources to support teaching and learning.

Earlier this year we received a $400,000 CCAMPIS grant in the early childhood studies program to help parents succeed in college by providing childcare for their children, along with other support mechanisms. And just last week we learned that a donor, yet to be publicly named, has promised $1.4 million to enhance the Public Safety Training Complex. When we have the green light to provide details about this exceptionally timely and generous gift, you will be the first to hear.

Credit Rating While we are on the topic of funding, budget, and Measure I projects, we had additional good news last week about the college’s impressive credit rating. Wall Street analyst Standard & Poor’s recently elevated its credit rating of Allan Hancock College to AA/stable, and Moody’s Investor Services reaffirmed its AA rating of the college, in anticipation of the sale of $8.6 million in bonds for the college’s Measure I facilities improvement efforts.

The bottom line is that this means the industry’s leading credit analysts have affirmed that we have properly managed our budget and the bond funds entrusted to us. It further emphasizes, as Standard & Poor’s cited, “strong financial management assessment (FMA) due to prudent financial planning,” along with the district’s tradition of “consistently managing to very strong fund reserves.” This is a direct reflection of the board’s fiscal policies and the excellent implementation of those policies by Dr. Betty Miller over the last two decades. By receiving these high ratings (our credit rating is better than many countries), the bond interest rates are lower and therefore the taxpayers win with a shorter payback period. We are issuing $10 million in bonds to complete the projects we currently have under way.

Facilities Update Whatever I am going to tell you right now will probably be different by the time you read it. The flurry of effort under way to finish strong with several projects means that dates and deliveries are also changing almost daily. We know that the move into the administration building remains on track for the week of Dec. 8. We also know that Student Services is in and happy, for the most part, in its beautiful new space. We still have some signage and other issues to work out, but I don’t hear anyone clamoring to get back into their old closets – I mean offices. We will plan a grand opening once classes are under way in spring.

The Public Safety Training Complex is a remarkable sight – all 68 acres. They have worked surprisingly fast to get us to the point that furniture is moving in now, with staff ready to move in December. We plan to offer classes at the new facility beginning this spring. A grand opening for us as well as the public is planned for April 2014.

The Industrial Technology building is also moving rapidly. The plan is to move all labs and lab equipment to the new buildings next month, again with lab classes taught in the new spaces starting this spring. The rest of the buildings will be delivered later this spring.

I hope you have your tickets to Mary Poppins; not only will you see a great show, but you will see some of the work that was accomplished over the last 10 months at the Marian Theatre. I say some, because it is like an iceberg, much of the most important work you will likely never see: new catwalks, HVAC systems, etc. However, the updated and expanded lobby and restrooms are a very welcome addition.

We have also completed the track, which reopened to the public this month. We have posted signs about appropriate usage with the hope that the public will work with us to ensure this great new asset stays great for a very long time. How old was the previous track? Someone told me it had been there about 40 years. What wouldn’t look bad after four decades of use and abuse?

The softball field is a work in progress. We are finalizing plans to upgrade the facility to the appropriate level for collegiate competition. That includes some work with the dugout and backstop, among other upgrades that will ensure equity within our athletic programs.

Interim VP, Student Services

While on the subject of new, let me introduce our new interim vice president, Student Services, Jane Harmon, Ph.D. She begins Dec. 2. Her contract is through June 2014. While she is here helping to move the division forward, we will work out the details of a permanent leader for Student Services. Her specialty is interim appointments. She holds a doctor of philosophy in higher education administration from the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a Master of Science degree in education with a concentration in reading/specific learning difficulties in 1981 from Bemidji State University, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education with a concentration in reading from Moorhead State University in 1971. Dr. Harmon was the interim executive vice president at Moorpark College, Moorpark, California, from July 2012 to July 2013; interim vice chancellor, educational services, at Kern Community College District, Bakersfield, California, from August 2011 to June 2012; interim chief instructional officer at Compton Community College District, Compton, California, from June 2008 to February 2010; interim vice president, student learning, at Cerro Coso College, Ridgecrest, California, from August 2006 to June 2008; and interim vice president, instruction and student services, at Gavilan College, Gilroy, California, from August 2005 to July 2006.

Planning Retreat About 50 representatives from across the district, including trustee Greg Pensa and Jane Harmon, our new interim VPSS, recently participated in two days of very meaningful dialogue and planning at the Lompoc Valley Center. We spent some time reviewing our accomplish-ments before forging toward the future. The group was engaged and fully committed to improving our service to students. We are now synthesizing the many pages of notes and plans from that effort and will share our next steps very soon.

Contest Follow Up In the last issue I joked that I thought about naming this newsletter “10,000 Words” and offered a challenge to see if anyone could figure out why and offered a tee shirt for the first person who did. I might not have thought that through very well (more ‘thinking out loud’) as I got several emails with essentially the same time stamp, so we declared first place to be a tie!

The phrase comes from an Avett Brothers song in which the singer says he, like others, “likes to talk on things we don’t know about.”

Finally, three more things to be thankful for… The past couple of months have included events that enrich our college and our community:

AHC hosted a visit from the Tibetan monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in South India. Not only was it a moving experience for each of us individually, but it was a unique opportunity to invite the public to our campus to enjoy what was perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The Dia de los Muertos celebration provided a venue for many on campus to remember their friends and family members in a way that was touching and significant. As it happened, my mother was making her first visit to Santa Maria, and I was proud to have her see the kind of people that I get to work with every day.

The Blaine Johnson Memorial Golf Tournament was a great success. The Johnson Family puts on this event every year to support the college’s industrial technology program. It’s exciting to see the world’s best racers investing in the future of our students in such a touching manner.

We truly have much to be thankful for. I can’t say it enough – I am thankful for the opportunity to work at a college that is focused on serving students and to live in a community that supports our efforts.

I hope that your Thanksgiving Holiday is great. I will see you on campus!

Kevin