THE PRESIDENT’S
STATE OF THE COLLEGE ADDRESS COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF BEAVER COUNTY AUGUST 24, 2017 STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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WELCOME
DR. CHRISTOPHER REBER PRESIDENT, COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF BEAVER COUNTY
Fall Convocation August 24, 2017 Good morning! It’s a great pleasure and honor to join you this morning to begin another wonderful year of challenge, adventure, discover y and success! Today marks another milestone in the histor y of CCBC as we begin our 51st academic year, the start of our second half-centur y of ser vice to Beaver County and the surrounding region. To begin, we are pleased to welcome several colleagues who were hired or promoted since last spring. They all bring valued skills, experiences and perspectives to our students, our college and our community.
STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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WELCOME
KOLTON CODNER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ADVANCEMENT AND SPONSORED PROGRAMS
First, I am delighted to introduce Kolton Codner, who became CCBC’s new Executive Director of Advancement and Sponsored Programs on May 15th. Prior to joining us Kolt was Director of Corporate Relations at Kent State University. At Kent State he led comprehensive university-wide corporate engagement efforts. He worked closely with Kent State’s renowned Aeronautics program and led the University’s advancement efforts in the Aeronautics and Applied Engineering areas of Kent State’s $350 million capital campaign. Prior to joining Kent State, Kolt spent nearly six years in the Department of Public Works for the City of Youngstown, Ohio, where he helped secure external funding to address critical infrastructure needs and advance economic development projects. Kolt earned an M.B.A. and a B.S. in Business Administration at Youngstown State University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. His academic excellence is even more noteworthy in view of his working full-time while attending Youngstown State full-time as an undergraduate, a challenge that many of our students are also undertaking as you all know so well. Kolt is already helping move CCBC to the next level, and his leadership and expertise will be vital to our collective efforts to advance CCBC in the years ahead. Welcome, Kolt!
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WELCOME
I’m also delighted to introduce Bryen Spriggs, who began CCBC’s new position of Sports Information Director/ Events Administrator and Head Men’s Basketball Coach on July 24th. Bryen has coached basketball at a variety of institutions, including Mineral Area College (MO), Lincoln Trail Community College (IL), The Summit Academy School for Boys (Herman, PA), Marshalltown Community College (IA), and Slippery Rock University. He has also taught Criminal Justice at Marshalltown Community College and served as Assistant Director of Admissions for The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and as a Case-Manager for Franklin County Children’s Services in Columbus, Ohio. Bryen is a native of Pittsburgh. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Slippery Rock University, where he attended on a basketball scholarship and participated in NCAA and PSAC playoffs. He also earned his Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice at Slippery Rock and is enrolled in the online doctoral program in Organizational Leadership at Argosy University in Chicago. Bryen’s combination of coaching, teaching and administrative experience will serve him well in this exceedingly important new position. He is passionate about the development of student athletes both inside the classroom and on the court.
BRYEN SPRIGGS SPORTS INFORMATION DIRECTOR / EVENTS ADMINISTRATOR AND HEAD MEN’S BASKETBALL COACH
I offer my thanks to Vice President Jan Kaminski, Director of Athletics and Student Programs John Ashaolu, and their colleagues for their leadership in creating this new position and recruiting Bryen to CCBC. Welcome, Bryen! STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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WELCOME
JESSICA DIEHL INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND DATA ANALYST
I’m also very pleased to congratulate Jessica Diehl, who was promoted on July 1st to our new position of Institutional Research and Data Analyst in the Office of Planning, Assessment and Improvement. Jessica has worked at CCBC for over four years in our Office of Information Technology and has served as leader of CCBC’s Data Team for Achieving the Dream . Her contributions to CCBC’s development and to our students’ success are too numerous to mention today. Katie Thomas said it well when she noted that Jessica “is a proven team leader and collaborator who is committed to CCBC’s continuous improvement.” Congratulations, Jessica! We all look forward to working with you in this very important new role! We welcome our new colleagues warmly to CCBC and look forward to our work together in the months and years to come in support of our students and community.
As always, I want to thank everyone in this room and many others for your involvement in our searches last spring and summer. We are able to welcome our talented new employees because of the hard work, commitment and professionalism of everyone here and in our community who participated on search committees and in candidate interviews.
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THANK YOU
We also want to thank our recent retiree, Sharon Shakespeare, who worked at CCBC for over 37 years as a full-time staff member, and, later, as a part-time faculty and staff member in a variety of areas. Sharon retired in June and we wish her and her family all the best!
And we thank Bob Grimm for his dedicated service to CCBC for 13 years as a part-time faculty member, and, since 2008, as the fulltime director of CCBC’s Police Academy. Bob also retired in late June and we wish him and his family a wonderful retirement.
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THANK YOU
I look forward to working with all of you in the coming year to serve our students and our community with excellence and to realize our collective vision and aspirations for CCBC. A cornerstone of CCBC’s success is our long-standing commitment to shared governance and collective bargaining. I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank the officers and leaders of our Society of Faculty, and Educational Support Personnel Association, with whom I look forward to working this year.
SOCIETY OF FACULTY PRESIDENT: LANA PODOLAK VICE PRESIDENT: DON SEDLACEK SECRETARY: JACQUE BLACK TREASURER: MARY JO SLATER OUTGOING PRESIDET: DENNY HAGGERTY OUTGOING TREASURER: BETH JANSTO
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THANK YOU
EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT PERSONNEL ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: KIM TURCOLA VICE PRESIDENT: FRAN JAMES SECRETARY: REBECCA KELCH TREASURER: LARRY TYSON
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your leadership!
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THANK YOU
DR. ROGER W. DAVIS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND PROVOST
As I begin my fourth year at CCBC, what continues to inspire me most is the commitment that ever yone here has to our students. We have the privilege of working in an institution that changes and transforms lives. It’s clear that our core common value – what ever yone here champions – is our students and their welfare. The 2016-17 academic year was a monumental one for CCBC thanks to the efforts of all of you and to our Trustees, Foundation Board Members, partners, students, families, alumni and others. I’d like to begin by saluting the contributions of Executive Vice President and Provost Roger Davis, who has provided exemplar y leadership as our Chief Academic and Chief Operating Officer since his arrival in June 2016. Roger, thanks for the intellect, creativity, leadership, humor and inspiration that you share day in and day out with our CCBC community. You are an exceptional leader and we are grateful for your guidance and your support of CCBC’s aspirations for excellence and impact in all that we do for our students and our community! I’d like to take a few minutes to review some major accomplishments of our CCBC community during the past year that have set the stage for a tremendous upcoming year of opportunity for all of us, including our students, their families and our community. 10
HIGH SCHOOL ACADEMIES
HEALTH ACADEMY
AVIATION ACADEMY
Our CCBC High School Academies continue to grow and flourish under Dean of High School Academies and Dual Enrollment Joyce Cirelli. Last May 86 seniors graduated from our Aviation and Health Academies. 100% of those students have continued on to postsecondar y education, and over 75% will be enrolled full-time at CCBC this year! Further, the cumulative GPAs of Aviation Academy students exceeded those of their college peers last year; and those of the Health Academy students, many of whom are from underprivileged and traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, were close to the cumulative GPAs of
their CCBC peers. And, ver y notably, our Health Academy students’ overall grades in Anatomy and Physiology were higher than those of their peer college students in other A&P sections. These are remarkable statistics! But to really appreciate the life-changing impact of the Academies, statistics aren’t adequate. In order to gain a glimpse into the personal impact of the Academies on students, please join me in watching two brief videos featuring students and faculty involved in our Aviation and Health Academies.
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HIGH SCHOOL ACADEMIES
CCBC
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ACADEM Y Engineering Your Future
We will begin our new STEM Academy this fall, and Don Sedlacek, Carolyn Kupperman, Joyce Cirelli and others are making great progress on the design of the Criminal Justice Academy that will debut in fall 2018. We have enrolled 174 High School Academy students this fall, slightly more than were enrolled last year, and we expect our enrollment to grow significantly when the Criminal Justice Academy begins next year. Meanwhile, we continue to experience wonderful growth and development in our two college anchor programs, Aviation and Allied Health.
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NURSING & ALLIED HEALTH
Our School of Nursing and Allied Health continues to bring phenomenal pride to CCBC. You’ve already heard about our Health Academy, but let me comment briefly on additional major achievements of the School. This year’s Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) NCLEX pass rate is 94%, a significant increase over last year that places our graduates near the top of all nursing graduates nationwide who have taken the exam, including graduates of two-year and fouryear programs. And our practical nursing students again achieved a 100% NCLEX pass rate, the 11th time our students had a perfect pass rate over the last twelve years. Not surprisingly, CCBC’s Practical Nursing program has been rated #1 or #2 of some 50+ programs throughout Pennsylvania over the last few years. And last spring our Practical Nursing Program Director, Professor Sally Fitzgerald, was named Pennsylvania’s Practical Nursing Educator of the Year! Congratulations, Sally! Sally, it’s my honor to present you with this plaque that includes a newspaper article about your award.
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NUSING & ALLIED HEALTH
And CCBC’s Phlebotomy program has continued to enjoy a 100% pass rate on the Phlebotomy Registr y Exam. Moreover, our students have scored a perfect 100% pass rate ever y year since the program began twenty years ago! We congratulate our Phlebotomy students and faculty, with a special thanks to Brenda Siddall of the faculty and Lab Tutor Vickie Murray. I also want to thank Laurie Bucci and Louise Pr yor, our Radiologic Technology Academic and Clinical Coordinators. We greatly appreciate their efforts to assume additional responsibilities following the promotion of Joyce Cirelli to Dean of High School Academies and Dual Enrollment last year. And they’ve also helped increase enrollment in this outstanding program. Thanks so much, Laurie and Louise!
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NURSING & ALLIED HEALTH
At the request of colleagues at the Western Area Career and Technology Center in Canonsburg, Washington County, we are beginning a CCBC Associate Degree in Nursing Bridge Program there, with over 20 students enrolled in the inaugural class! This project required extensive leadership and hard work from our nursing faculty, as we had to seek approval from the State Board of Nursing, the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, and Middle States Commission on Higher Education in order to proceed. Following months of effort and hundreds of pages of application materials, these approvals were secured, and we are now beginning to offer
and grow programs in Washington County, expanding our opportunity to ser ve students and the region. Please join me in congratulating and thanking School of Nursing and Allied Health Dean, Dr. Shelly Moore, Professor Elaine Strouss, and all of our Nursing and Allied Health faculty and staff!
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AVIATION SCIENCES
And our Aviation programs continue to soar under the leadership of School of Aviation Sciences Dean and CCBC alumna Dana Donati. Enrollment in our Aviation Academy, Air Traffic Control, Professional Piloting, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and Aerospace Management programs continues to grow. As of today we are seeing an 8% School of Aviation Sciences enrollment increase over last year at this time. And our students continue to excel. Recently we learned that 131 of our Air Traffic Control students passed an exam that qualifies them for a position with the FAA, and 66 of those students were given offer letters to attend training at Oklahoma City. To our knowledge, these numbers are significantly higher than any other collegebased program in the countr y, including Daniel Webster College, Sacramento City College, Green River Community College, University of Alaska at Anchorage, Florida State University at Jacksonville, Purdue University, and the Community College of Baltimore County (the other CCBC), among others! I’d like to offer special thanks and congratulations to Air Traffic Control faculty Wayne Resetar and James Thompkins. Further, the success of our Professional Piloting students, coupled with the growing national need for professional pilots, is bringing increased and deser ved recognition to CCBC. Several weeks ago CNN reported that over the next two decades, 87 new pilots will need to be trained and ready to fly a commercial airliner ever y single day in order to meet our nation’s insatiable demand to travel by air. That’s a need for a new pilot ever y 15 minutes! A growing number of airlines are courting our students and offering them signing bonuses. 16
Sponsored by Alpha Eta Rho, Alpha Phi Chapter
September 22,will2017 colleagues be holding Dean Donati and her
County Airport. We have also invited the Air National Guard and the Reser ves.
a Fall Aviation Career Day at the Aviation Sciences CCBC Aviation Sciences Center Center on September 22nd and expect Meanwhile, Dana and 125 Cessna Drive | Beaver Falls,many PA 15010 airlines to attend. The several of her students airlines will discuss career have been invited to opportunities in their offer a presentation at Presentations from the following airlines: organizations throughout an upcoming annual the day with students, conference of the 10am & 1pm: Piedmont Airlines, room 146 & 1:30pm: Compass Pennsylvania Airline, room 121Aviation parents10:30am and family members, including the Council that will be 10:30am & 1:30pm: Republic Airline, room 147 11am & 2pm: PSA Airlines, room 136D financial incentives the attended by over 300 airlines are offering our airport and airline 10:30am & 2pm: Mesa Airlines, room 128 11:30am & 2:30pm: 171st Air Refueling Wing Air students, and other hiring leaders, legislators National Guard, room 133B information. Geneva and others across 11am & 2pm: Air Wisconsin, room 145 College, Robert Morris theWing, Commonwealth. 12:00pm & 3:00pm: 911th Airlift room 136A University and Southern Folks, please join me 11:30am & 2:30pm: CommutAir, room 143 CCBC alumni! Illinois Welcome University will also in a round of applause 10am & 1pm: Express Jet, room 142A American Airlines Pilot Doug Jett be present to discuss to congratulate and and Pilot Recruiter their Bachelor DegreeHeather Bowers thank Dean Dana programs that offer Donati and our Representatives attending from SIU, RMU, Geneva, and many more! seamless progression Aviation Sciences from CCBC, including faculty and staff! SIU’s program that Contact Captain Dana Donati 724-888-9397 Dean, School of Aviation operates on the ground Dana.Donati@ccbc.edu at our Aviation Sciences Center at the Beaver
questions?
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BUSINESS, ARTS, SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY
CCBC
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ACADEM Y Engineering Your Future
And in the School of Business, Arts, Sciences and Technology there have been many achievements during the past year thanks to the leadership of Dean John Higgs and all of his faculty and staff colleagues. Dean Higgs and his colleagues have developed a new STEM Academy that debuts next Monday, our third High School Academy. And Dean Higgs, Dean Cirelli and Professors Carolyn Kupperman and Don Sedlacek are hard at work developing the Criminal Justice Academy that will be promoted this fall and next spring for its launch in fall 2018. Working closely with our faculty, our School of Business, Arts, Sciences and Technology colleagues have also revised our Engineering curriculum, explored the development and expansion of high impact practices, and they have begun a process to analyze and improve our developmental education program in order to help more students succeed.
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BUSINESS, ARTS, SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY
Under John’s and Provost Roger Davis’ leadership, CCBC has continued to develop articulation agreements regionally and nationally. As a result of these efforts, CCBC now has more than 600 articulations to four-year college and university programs nationally, including many new agreements regionally, extending the ladder of educational and career opportunities to CCBC from high schools – and from CCBC to four-year and graduate programs. This is the essence of what we mean when we say that CCBC is “the partnership college.”
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BUSINESS, ARTS, SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY
contributions to community and economic development.
CCBC’s Process Technology program, our new Apprenticeship Readiness program, and continued full-scale engagement with Shell Chemicals and the regional petrochemicals industr y – all led, developed and nurtured by Deans John Goberish, John Higgs and their colleagues – are positioning CCBC to be a tristate leader in a rapidly developing economic and industrial transformation. We are hosting meetings on campus of Shell leaders regularly. For example, in June we welcomed international Shell executives to campus including Ben Van Beurden, CEO of Shell Global, who met with our Process Technology students! As a result of these efforts, CCBC was named one of the top 100 Organizations in Pennsylvania last year by Pennsylvania Business Central in recognition of the College’s 20
Dean Higgs continues to lead the growth of ten-week late start classes, online classes, Saturday classes, and a new winter intersession, called Winterim , that was inspired by a suggestion last year from Professor Pete Zubritzky. And an exciting new program in Data Analytics and Business Intelligence is in the final stages of development, with a planned launch in fall 2018. These are just a few examples of major progress in the School of Business, Arts, Sciences and Technology, and our Office of Workforce and Continuing Education. Please join me in a round of applause to thank both of our Johns – Dean Higgs and Dean Goberish – and all of our Business, Arts, Sciences and Technology faculty and staff, and our Workforce Development faculty and staff!
CELEBRATIONS
At the end of the day, CCBC is about our faculty and our programs, and the successful graduation and degree completion of our students, a theme that will be loud and clear tomorrow at New Student Orientation. I’d like to thank Provost Roger Davis, Vice President Jan Kaminski, and other members of our Achieving the Dream Student Success Committee, or Dream Team as they have come to be known, for their work all of last year to improve our New Student Orientation program. Please join us tomorrow as we welcome our new students and also have some fun! When I meet and greet new students at Orientation, I often share that New Student Orientation is one of our College’s two favorite times of the year. And then I ask the students what they think is our other favorite time of the year. It is, of course, Commencement, when we celebrate the success of our students. I can’t think of a better reminder of our collective shared values and goals than Commencement, the culmination and celebration of our students’ successful journeys at CCBC. Last May’s Commencement was extra special as we celebrated the conclusion of our 50th anniversar y, the return of our College’s Alma Mater , and unbridled excitement and anticipation of all that the future will bring. Gratitude, excitement and enthusiasm were abundant in the proud eyes of our graduates, their families, and all of us. Please join me now in watching a brief video from our May 2017 Commencement.
COMMENCEMENT 2017 Folks, Commencement is the reason all of us are involved in college life! STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
Allow me to say a few words about the College’s health and our future. Ladies and gentlemen, in spite of significant external challenges beyond our control, CCBC made great progress last year in enhancing the College’s financial strength, both short-term and long-term. I am enormously grateful to the leadership of Vice President for Finance, Operations and Information Technology Glenn Natali, and ever yone on his team. They led our entire College community through a budget process that more effectively ties data to planning. And like all things, the process will continue to be improved and refined over time. Working together last year, we were able to achieve our financial goals of improving college efficiencies without negatively impacting our effectiveness and the integrity of support for student success and community ser vice. We were able to invest in new initiatives that will promote the College’s enrollment growth and financial health while limiting tuition and fee increases to a combined 1.55%, the lowest increase at CCBC in many years, and one of the lowest increases among Pennsylvania’s 14 community colleges. And, ver y important, we were able to avoid retrenchment and layoffs,
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and to continue to grow the college reser ve. Overall, the College’s revenue increased last year by more than $1.7 million, which is $231,000 more than budgeted. Expenses also increased, but overall CCBC’s net position grew by over $230,000, nearly double last year’s increase. And by next June our College reser ve will reach $1 million, a ver y important milestone on our journey to achieving national financial benchmarks and preparing for our next Middle States reaccreditation process. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Trustee Steve Robinson, who ser ves as Treasurer of the CCBC Board of Trustees and chairs our Operations and Risk Management Committee. Steve offers invaluable advice and guidance to my colleagues and me in all things financial.
COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
And in the Information Technology area, a true center of pride for CCBC, many improvements continue to be accomplished that make life better for all of us. Improvements such as the Office 365 conversion project, enhancements to our Internet 2 connectivity, changes with resource accounts, improved disaster recover y redundancies, efforts to transition to a Cloud Exchange system, and ongoing efforts to improve technology and technical efficiency. We are most grateful to Paul Pinchot, Ray Schweinberg and all of their IT colleagues for their strong leadership and support. And we are exceedingly grateful to Executive Director of Planning, Assessment and Improvement Katie Thomas, and her capable team. Their new and expanded office will help all of us continue to advance the College and our student success outcomes to the next level by using meaningful data and analysis to guide our planning and decision-making. Katie has been a highly skilled and effective leader throughout our Middle States and continuous improvement efforts, and, like all of you, I am honored to work with her.
Please join me in thanking Glenn and his entire team in Finance, Operations, and Information Technology, and Katie and her new team, for their leadership and dedication to the College’s continuous improvement!
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COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
In the area of Student Affairs there were many accomplishments last year thanks to the dedicated and wise leadership of Vice President Jan Kaminski and her ver y talented team. Our new and highly successful student recognition banquet last April, developed skillfully and conscientiously by my immensely talented and dedicated assistant, Leanne Condron and her hard-working and creative committee, culminated a year of significant progress in supporting our students and community. Last week a Work Study Job Fair was held on campus to broaden interest among students and employees in student employment opportunities available at CCBC. Research indicates strong correlations between students working and spending time on campus, and student satisfaction and success, so increasing the involvement of students in college work study is a priority going for ward. I thank Jan Kaminski, Career Ser vices Coordinator Erica Fox, Leslie Tennant, Financial Aid Director Janet Davidson, Financial Aid Specialist Cindy Grimm, and their HR colleagues Vicki Suehr and Gloria Jacobs for their leadership of this initiative.
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COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
Recently members of the Enrollment Ser vices, Academic Support, Student Life and Financial Aid staffs completed new customer ser vice training. And working with Provost Davis, Executive Director of Marketing and Public Relations Leslie Tennant, Katie Thomas and others, Jan created a new Strategic Enrollment Management Committee that is making ver y significant improvements in all areas of enrollment management, including the recruitment and retention of students, management and forecasting of enrollment data and trends, and the alignment of strategic enrollment opportunities with new marketing strategies. Thanks to these and many other efforts across the College, we are seeing the beginning of a gradual increase in enrollment. After many years of enrollment decline, our full-time-equivalent enrollment increased by 1% in fall 2016, 2.6% in spring 2017, and over 3.5% in summer 2017. It is too soon to know our final fall enrollment but we are hopeful.
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COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
Our enrollment progress is in part a result of a new targeted, data-driven marketing model called PASS – Program, Area, Strategy, Score – that is being led and implemented by Leslie Tennant, Roger Davis, Scot Rutledge, and Emily Martin. The plan includes an integrated marketing calendar, media flowchart, and various tracking mechanisms to measure return on marketing investment and generate inquiries for our enrollment ser vices colleagues to help meet enrollment goals. Following a series of enriching meetings with faculty and deans from program areas identified for growth in 2017-18, creative briefs and individualized marketing plans were developed. Team members further developed strategies and tactics for increasing enrollment and retention among key markets. Messaging focused on what you can do with a CCBC degree, targeting prospective students.
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Informed by the input of faculty, PASS programs for fall 2017 included Professional Piloting, Process Technology, Criminal Justice, Biological and Natural Sciences Education, Early Childhood Education, Nursing, and Business Administration. The team worked closely with Angela Hamilton and Nancy Honse from the Enrollment Ser vices Office to track the conversion rate from inquir y to enrolled students, adjusting strategy and creative accordingly along the way. This outstanding initiative that focuses our efforts on our greatest opportunities, and uses data to track success, will continue to be developed and refined and is an example of the data-driven processes that we seek to employ in all areas of continuous improvement.
COLLEGE HEALTH AND FUTURE
Throughout the summer, Katie Thomas and her colleagues worked with our deans to develop new, customer friendly enrollment reports that we plan to share periodically with our entire College community. We have created a report that shows ever y program’s total enrollment last year, the enrollment goal for that program this year, and enrollment so far this year. Although this is still a work in progress, I thank Katie and her team for preparing an example to show you today. Throughout the coming year and going for ward, we plan to share these reports with all of you so that ever yone knows our progress and results, and each of us can share our best thinking and efforts to help us achieve our collective goals. STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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STUDENT SERVICES
When life gets rough. We are here to help.
Welcome to the CCBC SGA Food and Supply Pantry! Choose from: Non-Perishable Foods
Cereal, soups, pasta, peanut butter, canned fruits, vegetables, etc.
Paper Products Business Attire Limited selection
Conveniently located in Room 1024 in the lower level of the Student Services Center
All requests are strictly confidential.
In the area of Student Ser vices, Jan Kaminski and her colleagues have advanced ongoing discussions on campus and in the community regarding vital needs and issues such as opioid abuse, gas and oil regional workforce training, STEM education, Veterans support, help for students and community members in economic distress, and diversity and inclusion. They have collaborated with the Beaver County Drug and Alcohol Abuse Coalition, Franklin Center, and Shell Chemicals, among many others. Working closely with Jan, Director of Student Support Ser vices Liz Marshall, Librarian Terri Gallagher, Director of Enrollment Ser vices Angela Hamilton, Director of Financial Aid Janet Davidson, Director of Athletics and Student Programs John Ashaolu, and their dedicated team members all are making significant and creative contributions to the success of our students and our College. And I’m also delighted to share that the cumulative GPAs of our student athletes was 3.13 last year, exceeding the College-wide average student GPA. This is an accomplishment of which we can be exceedingly proud as we continue to advocate the importance of academics first for our student athletes. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Jan Kaminski, all of our staff in Student Affairs and Enrollment Ser vices, Leslie Tennant and her team, and Katie Thomas and her colleagues, for their collaborative excellence and exemplar y contributions to CCBC!
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DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION And I’d like to recognize and thank Professor Cynthia Marshall, Human Resources Manager Vicki Suehr, and the members of the Presidential Advisor y Council on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for their strong leadership and growing contributions in creating an increasingly diverse College community, and promoting and celebrating diversity in all of its forms. This year Cynthia will lead a year-long community book read in partnership with our consortium colleges, culminating in a community-wide trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. next spring. Please join me in a round of applause and thanks for the great work and contributions of Cynthia, Vicki, and all members of the Diversity Council. Will all members please stand and accept our thanks! STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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EMPLOYEES
Indeed, none of the great things happening at CCBC would be possible without all of you – our dedicated employees. At this college we are committed to the principle and value that ever y person on our faculty and staff matters. And we want ever yone’s contributions to be acknowledged and celebrated. I believe that we have made great progress over the last three years in coming together as one community, with the singular purpose of leading and supporting the success of our students and our community. I was reminded of the true and genuine spirit of community and family that is alive and well at CCBC during our Annual Employee and Family Picnic two weeks ago, and I want to thank Leanne Condron for again leading that event that has become a wonderful new tradition at CCBC!
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EMPLOYEES
Clearly our family of employees truly cares about helping our students and community in ever y way possible. Thanks to all of you, CCBC’s United Way Campaign was ver y successful again last year. The total pledged by CCBC employees was $6,021, an increase of $1,726 over the previous year, when our support to United Way was doubled over the year before that. With our help, the United Way of Beaver County Campaign raised $877,725 for partner agencies and charities across Beaver County last year. I want to especially thank Gloria Jacobs for her strong leadership of our CCBC United Way Campaign. And the March of Dimes March for Babies was held again on our campus last May and was ver y successful and rewarding. Our CCBC team of employees, family members and student scholars hosted over 500 walkers and volunteers, and our team raised $1,659 including support from faculty, staff, our CCBC Titans basketball team, and other students and family members. With the leadership and support of our CCBC community, the walk raised $47,000 this year for the life-saving work of the March of Dimes, and the annual walk will continue to be held at CCBC. The coming year’s campaign will be chaired by attorney and CCBC part-time faculty member Nicole Tesla, with the continued leadership and support of Sally Mercer, Gloria Jacobs, Leanne Condron, and others. Thank you, Nicole, Sally, Gloria and Leanne! And many faculty and staff supported our CCBC Annual Campaign with gifts and pledges to our various scholarships, Student Emergency Fund and other initiatives that support our students and our College. Over $20,000 was contributed by CCBC employees last year! Thank you ever yone!
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THANK YOU
MS. SALLY MERCER VICE PRESIDENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES
We are all privileged to work with Vice President for Human Resources Sally Mercer, who, for me, and I know all of you, exemplifies what it means to be a strong and caring leader. Sally’s living and breathing dedication to fairness, equity, and inclusiveness is an exceedingly important asset to CCBC! Because of these attributes she has gained the trust of all of our employees and others in our surrounding community. During the past year, Sally and her colleagues, working with Leanne Condron, have developed a sur vey of employee community engagement in collaboration with the Office of Planning, Assessment and Improvement. The sur vey will be sent to all of you soon in order to continue to embrace and expand our collective involvement in and support of the community that is at the cornerstone of CCBC’s mission as a community college. The Office of Human Resources led an exceptional Employee Recognition Luncheon in April that will be an annual opportunity to recognize members of our full- and part-time faculty and staff. I thank trustee Fritz Retsch for his enthusiastic support and contributions to the planning and execution of this event. And Sally’s leadership – in partnership with our Presidential Advisor y Council on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – has helped advance our shared value of creating an increasingly diverse and caring academic community. Also, I want to thank Sally, Vicki and all members of our HR team for their efforts to provide ongoing training and development opportunities for our employees and students. And I could go on and on! Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Sally Mercer and all of her colleagues for their stellar and caring leadership! 32
THANK YOU
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t celebrate for a moment the campuswide transformation that was completed over the last year, including installation of interior communication systems and automatic building and office suite locks, HVAC and roofing work, the complete resurfacing of all parking lots, installation of new exterior signage and lighting, new landscaping, a new gazebo, and new outdoor furnishings at this campus and at our Aviation Sciences Center. We now have a beautiful, newly renovated campus with inviting and even inspirational spaces in which to learn, work and ser ve the community, thanks to the efforts of so many. I want to especially thank Associate Vice President Scott Monit for his unwavering and dedicated leadership of all of these improvements over a period of at least 18 months! And I thank Ron Fr ynkewicz and all members of our Facilities and Maintenance staff for their heroic work day in and day out to support these changes, and, beyond that, to keep our campus looking beautiful, clean and safe for ever yone’s benefit. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking all of these exceptional colleagues! Would all of the members of our Facilities and Grounds and Maintenance staff please stand and accept our gratitude! These are all examples of a remarkable and defining year of accomplishment and progress thanks to the leadership and contributions of so many CCBC community members and partners. Together, and with the leadership, guidance, advocacy and support of our Trustees and Foundation Board Members, we are experiencing a College transformation and are moving to a new level of excellence that is particularly appropriate as we begin our second half-centur y of ser vice to students and the community.
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THINKING BIG
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THINKING BIG
In his book, The Magic of Thinking Big , Dr. David Schwartz wrote, “the size of your success is determined by the size of your belief.” And in The Power of Thinking Big , Mark Winn wrote: “If we underestimate what we can achieve in the long term, we underestimate our true capability. The downside is lowering our goals to an ‘achievable’ level we know we can easily meet, thereby lowering our expectations, our standards, and our outcomes.” Conversely, he wrote, “The higher you aim, the higher you will go. Big thinking gets you big results!” CCBC is gaining considerable visibility, and, with that, opportunity and accountability – not just for the upcoming year, but, I believe, for the next decade and beyond. Now is the time for us to think beyond the here and now – to think and plan for the future. Indeed, now is the time to think big! Let me ask each of you to reflect on something for a moment. Please think of a time when you took a chance, made a major life decision, or perhaps conquered a fear. Doing this likely created some angst, but, looking back on it, it was likely worth that temporar y discomfort because it led to significant growth and improvement. People who take risks for good reasons, and set their sights on a long-term vision, can literally change the world. In addition to addressing ver y important daily needs and challenges at CCBC, we have increasingly been thinking big and longer-term together, prompted in part by our 50th Anniversar y celebration. And we are beginning to see the potential large-scale opportunity that comes from that big thinking. STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017 35
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INDUSTRY LEADERS
BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY Community College of Beaver County
Economic Development Organizations
Economic Development Organizations
Education Partners
Public Sector, Non-profits & Philanthropy
Workforce Development Organizations
Public Sector, Non-profits & Philanthropy
Education Partners
Workforce Development Organizations
Economic Development Organizations Public Sector, Non-profits & Philanthropy
Education Partners
Workforce Development Organizations
Recently CCBC was chosen as the lead successor organization to a seven-year, $15 million federally funded ShaleNET Workforce Development Project that involved many leaders and organizations throughout Pennsylvania and beyond, including Chevron; Catalyst Connection; The Allegheny Conference; Penn College of Technology; The Benedum Foundation; Rand Corporation; and others. We have now been asked to develop and lead a successor organization, a Tri-State Consortium of manufacturers and industry leaders, economic development leaders, twoand four-year colleges, workforce development boards and others. This is a very significant statement about the trust others in the region have in CCBC to lead the next generation of workforce development for an economic 36
and life transformation that has begun in the petrochemicals industry and will eventually impact every part of our regional and tri-state economy. In addition to the construction of Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant that is now beginning, it is expected that a second cracker plant will be announced in Belmont, Ohio, just 70 miles from here, by the end of this year, and there is a growing expectation that our tri-state region will be home to as many as five cracker plants over the next five to ten years. The economic impact of this, in virtually every part of our economy, cannot be overstated. The Shell plant alone is the largest industrial investment in Pennsylvania since World War II. It will be the largest ethane cracker plant in the world!
EXTERNAL FUNDING
Several weeks ago we received a check for $150,000 from The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to hire a coordinator to begin to develop our new Tri-State Consortium. But more important, our leadership is positioning CCBC to seek and obtain much more significant federal, state, local and private investment over the next decade. About three weeks ago, Kolt Codner and I were invited to a meeting organized by the National Philanthropy Roundtable, which works with 630 charitable foundations and other investors nationwide. A Philanthropy Roundtable executive from Washington, D.C. organized a meeting in Pittsburgh with some of the region’s largest foundations to discuss the emerging role of high-achieving community colleges nationwide and in our region that have the potential to help advance needed economic and social justice change. There is a growing belief among many of these foundations and investors that high-achieving community colleges like CCBC are worthy of greater charitable investment in the future. CCBC was chosen as the single regional community college to attend this meeting because of what we are doing and what others are seeing and hearing about what we are doing.
Kolt and I spent a wonderful two hours with leaders from The Benedum Foundation, Allegheny/Scaife Foundation, Heinz Endowments, Grable Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Chevron, and Hunt Foundation. They wanted to hear about CCBC’s leadership and collaborative efforts. Three of these foundations have already been working with us over the past year. In addition to Benedum, The Allegheny Foundation and The Mellon Foundation will consider seven-figure investments in CCBC at their September and December meetings, respectively. Both of these investments would fund equipment and lab enhancements for our growing process technology program that John Goberish, John Higgs and their colleagues have developed and continue to grow and refine in partnership with Shell and 40 other advanced manufacturing organizations. And Provost Roger Davis, our deans and their colleagues have submitted a $1 million proposal to the National Science Foundation that will be acted upon this October. If funded, the grant will provide scholarship assistance to over 200 students. And a second and possibly a third NSF grant are under development for submission this fall and next spring. STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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INDUSTRY LEADERS
Last week, the American Association of Community Colleges, Appalachian Regional Commission, and Community Colleges of Appalachia hosted a meeting at CCBC as part of their “Industry Informed Infrastructure Initiative.” They chose CCBC as the lead organization in this yearlong project for Pennsylvania and Ohio industrial organizations and community colleges because of the big things that are being discussed and are beginning to happen here. The project is focusing on exploring deepening relationships between community colleges and industry. Attending the meeting at CCBC were representatives of Chevron, WorkAmerica, Snap-On, Lincoln Electric, IBM, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Applachian Regional Commission, and the Community Colleges of Appalachia. Participating colleges included Belmont College in Ohio, Butler County Community College, CCAC, Eastern Gateway Community College in Ohio, Pierpont Community and Technical College in West Virginia, and Westmoreland County Community College. Next month all of these partners will join us on a trip to Lone Star College in Texas to view their nationally distinctive oil and gas programs, and next spring we will attend a meeting in Washington, D.C. to discuss next steps in building ever more robust relationships and collaborations of community colleges and industry in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
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And over the summer, two of the region’s most successful business leaders began engaging CCBC and others in the region to discuss the efficacy of developing a state-of-the-art, Tri-State Center for Manufacturing Workforce Development through a public-private partnership. This remains a vision and discussion at this point, but being a leader at the table of this discussion is highly significant and presents great opportunities for CCBC.
EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY
Indeed, CCBC is playing a ver y important leadership role in bringing together all parts of our educational community to establish a vision and plan for a future K-16 educational and career ladder of opportunities in Beaver County and beyond. Our CCBC-led Quality Education Council meets monthly on campus and involves 40 educators, business and industr y leaders, public ser vants, Chamber of Commerce members and others, including school district superintendents and college presidents. Perhaps for the first time ever, and thanks particularly to the leadership and vision of CCBC Trustee Chair and School District Superintendent Dr. Rob Postupac, Beaver County school district leaders and their boards are discussing where we need to be not only today and tomorrow, but in 10 years. There is growing support for a feasibility study to chart a future pathway to an integrated educational community that begins with career awareness and engagement in elementar y and middle school, and continues on with early college in high school including CCBC’s High School Academies. Members of our diverse educational community are now discussing the possibility of Beaver County high school students one day attending high-tech centers of excellence that lead to the completion of a CCBC Associate Degree during high school, with full pathways to complete baccalaureate programs in two years upon high school graduation at local, regional and national colleges and universities. CCBC has also played a leadership role in establishing the new Beaver Area Higher Education Consortium of CCBC, Penn State Beaver, Geneva College and Robert Morris University. Together, and perhaps for the first time, our colleges are creating additional student credential pathways. We are planning joint cultural and speaker events, a shared approach to raising scholarship funding for students in our institutions, and exploration of the development of a regional innovation hub, among other big ideas. Clearly, as Beaver County’s community college, CCBC is at the nexus of bringing together K-12, four-year institutions and industr y to imagine and plan transformational change for people throughout the community and region over the next ten years. STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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MOVING FORWARD
And as our College continues its journey of life-changing and visionar y change, we will be engaged all year in a full rebranding of our College website. We have partnered with Gatesman + Dave, one of Pittsburgh’s largest and most successful advertising agencies, to redesign our site in full collaboration with all of you in order to better capture CCBC’s programs, opportunities, and vision. Through this per vasive year-long project we will strive to engage all of our constituencies more effectively in the future, using the latest digital and other technological resources available. For example, we will have a dynamic site that depicts clearly the educational and career pathways that have been created throughout the region, pathways that lead through our college’s welcoming door ways. I want to particularly thank Executive Director of Public Relations and Marketing Leslie Tennant and her skilled colleagues, Scot Rutledge and Emily Martin, for their creative, dedicated and futuristic leadership that is benefitting our entire community!
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MOVING FORWARD
Soon, Glenn Natali, Jan Kaminski and their teams will be engaging the CCBC community in planning for a $2 million renovation of the Learning Resources Center to upgrade our active learning and community engagement spaces using funding that we saved last year through the refinancing of a capital bond, plus nearly one million dollars in matching support that has just been committed to CCBC from the Pennsylvania Department of Education! And we’ll be planning for upgrades to our Titan CafÊ and the space on the lower level of the Student Ser vices Center during the coming year.
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Many of you attended our 50 Shining Stars Golden Gala Dinner in May, the culminating event in our yearlong celebration of CCBC’s 50th Anniversar y and the kick-off of our first ever, five-year, $12 million comprehensive capital campaign. Nearly 400 students, faculty, staff, alumni, family members and community leaders attended this truly spectacular event. I’d like to conclude my remarks today with a video that was shown at our Gala, featuring students, faculty, staff, trustees, partners and community leaders, all speaking about their vision and expectations for what CCBC will be fifty years from now.
50 YEARS FROM NOW
Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing we can’t accomplish when we work together for the good of our students and community! As we begin our second half centur y, let’s make this the year of our call to action for charting a future vision that is bigger, brighter and much better than any of us might have believed possible. Because with big ideas and big efforts, big things are possible. And education is the door way to that transformational change. My friends, it is an honor to be your president at this time of monumental opportunity, ser vice and impact for our students, our college and our region. Here’s wishing each of you a wonderful new academic year! Let’s think big!
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STATE OF THE COLLEGE | 2017
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MAIN CAMPUS 1 CAMPUS DRIVE | MONACA, PA 15061 724-480-2222 | 800-335-0222 AVIATION SCIENCES CENTER 125 CESSNA DRIVE | BEAVER FALLS, PA 15010 724-480-3600 PARKWAY WEST CAREER & TECHNOLOGY CENTER CCBC AVIATION ACADEMY 7101 STEUBENVILLE PIKE | OAKDALE, PA 15071 WESTERN AREA CAREER AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER PRACTICAL NURSING (PN) TO ADN (RN) BRIDGE PROGRAM 688 WESTERN AVENUE | CANONSBURG, PA 15317
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