College strengthened its resolve to succeed. The learning-centered goals became clearer as the Roundtables progressed. What was evolving in that time was Valencia’s commitment to becoming a learning-centered Institution. When the last of the 12 Roundtables was held in September, more than 300 faculty (almost all of the full time faculty), staff, and students had joined in moving Valencia forward. Valencia’s Learning-Centered Initiative Leadership Team was established formally by President Gianini to see that the College moved forward together. Following the Roundtables, the Leadership Team assembled key participants for an Institutional Transformation Workshop in October 1996, only one month after the Roundtable series had ended. Change in all its manifestations was the topic for that meeting, and attendees expressed very divergent concerns and views about how change in the Institution should be managed as the Project progressed. Change, they were learning, is messy. Revolutionary or evolutionary change is also hard work. One participant pointed out that while 300 Valencia people had attended the Roundtables that also meant that 800 had not. Those folks did not yet know why, much less how or what, Valencia was changing. Others in the workshop focused on other change management elements. To some the key to successful change or institutional transformation lay in organization. To others it rested upon satisfying individuals’ anxiety, stress, resentment, or hostility to change. For others still, change had to be divided into short-term actions and longer term plans to work out in the Institution. Yet it was also clear to all who attended that Valencia’s transformation had begun in earnest. The most important conclusion from the summer’s Roundtables had been firmly adopted: none of this change was going to happen unless collaboration between the sides of the cultural chasm occurred. “Top down” was going to be left behind at Valencia; collaborative decision-making was coming. At the conclusion of the workshop, Michael Hooks observed: “We are in between two worlds.” The world that had been Valencia continued on, even as the Learning-Centered Initiative moved toward center stage. As Valencia progressed past
its 25th birthday and approached a new century, one thing was obvious: in many ways, the College was dynamic proof of the age-old truism – “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Growth had been phenomenal. Valencia was by now the fourth largest (32,000 students) community college in Florida. It had become a powerful force in Central Florida, a critical employment and community support Institution. Its academic reputation was equally strong: its honors programs, its transfer programs, and its certificate and degree programs all lent substance to the excellence that a now mature Valencia sustained. It had become a nationally admired community college, the envy of many and the beacon of hope and value which community colleges had aspired to since their 19th century roots first went into the ground in community after community. Yet, the growth was accompanied by the same constant revenue shortfalls plaguing other institutions. Year after year, enrollments ran beyond budgets strapped for cash. And, although Valencia had grown very adept at securing grants and managing resources, the same extant problems persisted. Many who came to Valencia did not finish successfully. Class sizes grew larger. More and more adjunct faculty were needed. Facility growth slowed. Much as the College’s first locations were integrated with Central Florida’s own growth patterns — the arrival of Martin and the space industry, tourism and Disney, interstates and travel — Valencia by the mid-1990s was caught in those identical challenges, but potentially in different geographic places as well. The western section of the Greeneway was opened, and both East and West campuses “profited” as a result. Each became even easier to attend for local Central Florida residents. By 1997 a new focus seemed more to center on what was being labeled the “High Tech Corridor,” the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 4, well to the east of Orlando. Valencia, the University of Central Florida, the University of South Florida, and others in the State, including its governors, the Florida Legislature, agencies like Enterprise Florida and the High Tech Council, lobby groups like Associated Industries, the Orlando International Airport, and the Economic Development Commission of MidFlorida all sought a vision that a new “Silicon Valley”
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