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Presidential Report May 15, 2007Welcome!Tonight is the first Board meeting for our new Trustee, Lisa Greer. Welcome, Lisa! We know you will be a great addition to the Board! Thank You!I would like to thank each Board member for participating in the recent Graduation Exercises. I think you will agree that Janet Pino did an excellent job as our Commencement Speaker. I would also like to thank the Board for the outstanding annual evaluation that you gave me. A copy of the letter to Chancellor David Armstrong, with the overall ratings, is provided at your place. Student AchievementsCongratulations to Justin Bagley, national recipient of the Phi Theta Kappa Distinguished Chapter Officer Award. Congratulations, Isa Rosado Adney, the recipient of a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship! As you know, this is a highly competitive scholarship program that provides $30,000/year for the student to complete their baccalaureate degree and $50,000/year for their master's degree. Today, I received the listing of the 51 recipients, out of 723 applicants from the nation's 1200 community colleges. Only four scholarships were given in Florida - Broward Community College (two), Miami-Dade College (one), and Seminole Community College - Isa!!! This makes the second year of the program and SCC has had a recipient each year. Many congratulations to our faculty and our Grindle Honors Institute for fostering this kind of success! Women's Basketball AwardAshley Armstrong, a sophomore member of our women's basketball team, is the recipient of the 2007 Sandy Miller Scholar Athlete Award, presented by the Florida Community College Activities Association (FCCAA). The award is presented to an outstanding women's basketball player, whose career emulates the ideals of a complete student-athlete. Armstrong is the second SCC women's basketball player to win this award since 2004. Winning this award in two of the last four years speaks volumes about the commitment of our Athletic Department to academic scholarship. Armstrong has a 3.56 GPA. SCC Baseball and Softball All-Conference TeamFive SCC baseball and nine softball players were recently named to the All-Conference Team. In addition, we sent two teams to State competition - women's basketball and women's fastpitch softball. The men's baseball team almost made it to State as well. Congratulations to our students and coaches! 2007 Endowed Teaching Chair HonoreesPlease join me in congratulating our new Endowed Teaching Chair Honorees for 2007. The following faculty members were awarded a $5000 Endowed Teaching Chair at the Graduation Ceremony on May 3 - Baboucar Jobe, Social Sciences; Sue Kellicut, Mathematics; and Sherry Savrda, Physics. Thanks to Dr. Matt Hodge and the SCC Foundation Board; the Chelsey Magruder Foundation; Sprint and Phoenix International for their contributions making this year's awards possible. Chancellor's Leadership SeminarCongratulations to Dean Angela Kersenbrock and Dr. Marcia Roman. They will be representing SCC at the 2007 Chancellor's Leadership Seminar in Tampa in June. Dr. Jeff Hockaday, former Chancellor for Virginia's Community College System, will be leading the Seminar. And, just today, Dr. Hockaday agreed to conduct our new Board orientation once the selections have been made. Faculty/Staff Media AchievementsIn the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, Mr. Richard Weinblatt, program manager in Criminal Justice, received the following media requests.
All the media exposures prominently mentioned Seminole Community College. Congratulations, Richard! You may have noticed in your Spring issue of the Trustee Quarterly that our own Shelley Ouellette has a byline for her article about the CEO award. Congratulations, Shelley! Educator Prep Institute (EPI) GraduationThe Board is invited to attend the first EPI Graduation Ceremony on Monday, May 21, at 7 p.m., in the Fine Arts Concert Hall. We will be graduating 10 baccalaureate degree holders who will be certified as teachers. Marilyn Hawkins directs this program for SCC. Heathrow DedicationOn May 4, we hosted a tour of the new Heathrow facility for our partners who will be in residence there with us. I must say that there were smiles all around. Please mark your calendar for the July 25 dedication at 10 a.m. Also, we will hold the June Board meeting at Heathrow. Budget - 2007-08Don Payton was asked to give the Board a report on this year's Legislative Session. In a bad economic year for Florida, community colleges and SCC fared very well thanks to Don, the lobbying that our Trustees did, and our Legislative "friends" in Tallahassee. With that said, I also want to note that putting this year's budget together was a struggle. As you know, we are not forward-funded like the universities. So, getting two new facilities up and running is a challenge. But, our entire team worked together and we have a balanced budget which places emphasis first and foremost on honoring raises for our employees. We have met the second year of our plan to enhance faculty salaries and have done much better than the $1,000 raises provided to all State employees. With that said, it is going to be a tight year for SCC. We will be short-staffed at our new sites and we will need to generate an increase in our enrollment if we hope to meet our salary goals for next year. We need to thank: Representative David Mealor for championing a special allocation for the UCF/SCC Direct Connect program; Senator Lee Constantine and Representative David Simmons for an additional $500,000 in operating funds for the new Altamonte Springs Campus; and Senator Lee Constantine and Representative David Mealor for the $4.1 million to start the renovation of Buildings L and F. Senator Evelyn Lynn and Representative Joe Pickens also were budget champions for the entire community college system and especially SCC. And many thanks are offered to Don Payton, who lives in Tallahassee during the session. In fact, Don did such a great job this year that he has been asked to chair all of the Legislative Liaisons for the entire community college system next year. The Board was asked to help lobby on behalf of SCC and to try and make sure that the Governor doesn't veto the tuition increase. The tuition increase is worth nearly $1 million to SCC. |
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