12000 S.W. 49th Avenue - Portland, OR 97219
Rock Creek Campus, Building 9, Conference Room C
September 16, 2004
Board Members Present:
Dana Anderson, Norma Jean Germond, Doreen Margolin, Karen McKinney, Harold Williams
The Board of Directors convened an executive session for Real Property Transactions and Litigation in accordance with ORS 192.660 (1)(e, h) at 6:50 PM, adjourning at 7:20 PM.
The meeting was called to order by Chair Anderson at 7:30 PM. The Chair asked all present to introduce themselves.
The July 15, 2004 business meeting minutes and the September 1, 2004 planning session minutes were approved as published.
The agenda was approved as published.
President Pulliams congratulated the Financial Services staff for their outstanding work, which was recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association with two awards. They are the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award and the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. Chair Anderson presented both awards to Associate Vice President Chung and the Financial Services staff. She noted that the Financial Services staff has received awards for many years now and said the Board is extremely pleased with their excellent work. Associate Vice President Chung remarked that the awards are especially meaningful this year following the large number of significant changes made to the reporting model last year. Staff worked very hard to establish a timeline to ensure deadlines were met to maintain the level of excellence required to achieve these awards. President Pulliams invited all the Financial Services staff present to join him and Chair Anderson for a photo and congratulated each one on their excellent contributions.
Kristin Watkins, Manager of the Grants Office, shared an overview of the district-wide activities of the Grants Office staff in supporting faculty and administrators in securing grant funding used to expand and enhance programs and services at the College. The Grants Office primarily focuses on government grants, preparing proposals for federal, state and local agency grants, as well as collaborating with the PCC Foundation to support staff that want to pursue private and corporate foundation funding. They also provide an array of services to grant seekers at the College and work with the President and Cabinet in planning institutional goals for resource development. They also help facilitate a process where all Cabinet members are made aware and approve of all the grants that are sought. They write and edit grants and help staff identify funding opportunities at the College.
Grant decisions are made very intentionally to support Board goals and the College mission broadly, and specifically support the Educational Master Plan. Ms. Watkins reviewed current grant-seeking priorities and noted that following the increased College investment in Grants Office support, two additional full-time positions were added. The result of this increase of support is directly reflected in the 82% increase in revenue generated during the past three years. Ms. Watkins said that a Grants Office is only as good as the institution it supports, and they are fortunate to work with great faculty and programs who help them successfully present their proposals to the right agencies in the right way to increase funding to the College. Another factor contributing to the significant increase in funding is having clear priorities set by the Board, President and Cabinet, which helped them focus their efforts on specific activities to enhance the goals of the College.
Ms. Watkins reviewed a number of recent successes, the list of pending grants, and projects currently under development or consideration. She also shared strategies and opportunities for expanding resource development at the College. President Pulliams reminded Board members that this area was discussed at the September planning retreat and he is very pleased with the plan Ms. Watkins presented in response to this request. The President also presented his plan to move the Grants Office organizationally so it will report to the new Director of Institutional Advancement so the PCC Foundation and the Grants Office can partner in their fund raising plans. The President also plans to become more active in his relationships with federal and state officials and large foundations throughout the state. He asked Ms. Watkins to focus on building relationships with major foundations and working with congressional representatives to secure federal funding.
Director Williams expressed his pleasure in meeting the person responsible for this significant increase in funding and is amazed at the wonderful talent at the College. Director McKinney also expressed her appreciation and asked if the Grants office is looking at all branches of the government to find available grants. Ms. Watkins assured her that they explore every branch of government. Director Germond expressed her support for encouraging faculty and administrators to develop relationships with technical groups in the community that could lead to additional support and resource development. Director McKinney asked for additional explanation on how congressional representatives can help PCC obtain additional funding. Ms. Watkins explained that each year congressional representatives have the opportunity to request line item appropriations for constituents of their districts, so lobbyists could work with Oregon congressional representatives on behalf of educational needs in Oregon. Another option would be to do more advocacy with our representatives to make sure that additional money is budgeted in the federal and state budgets to support new grants for the College to pursue. Dr. Pulliams said he will start that process in October while attending the joint AACC/ACCT Legislative Seminar in Washington D.C. He plans to make appointments with Oregon congressional representatives to begin advocating for these various positions. He found that approach successful while working in New York and feels it will also be successful in Oregon.
Director Margolin asked if the College has the staff to start lobbying activities now in Washington D.C. President Pulliams said that he will be focusing more time on these types of fund raising activities, in collaboration with Ms. Watkins. If this approach is successful, it may warrant additional staff to support that type of effort, but the President does not want to disrupt the good work that is going on now in the Grants Office.
Chair Anderson thanked Ms. Watkins for the fine work she and her staff are doing on behalf of the students and staff at Portland Community College.
President Pulliams introduced Jan Coulton, legislative consultant to the President. Ms. Coulton reviewed the draft OCCA Legislative Positions for 2005. There are two legislative positions requiring further discussion by each Oregon community college board to provide direction on the will of the 17 community colleges to the OCCA Legislative Committee.
The first discussion item is whether to keep the funding distribution formula within the purview of the State Board of Education administrative rule process. President Pulliams counseled against politicizing this process and said community colleges could better express their needs to the State Board rather than through the political process. Ms. Coulton reminded board members that last year a number of bills were introduced by other community colleges through their legislators that tweaked the funding formula, ultimately taking funds away from PCC to redistribute funds to other colleges. The community college presidents who introduced those bills believe they have the right to ask their own legislators to support a bill that benefits their college and some presidents still want the right to go to their legislators to ask for more. OCCA was unable to take a position on any of those bills because this policy was not in place. Director McKinney reminded everyone of the results when the Oregon University System members banded together to ask for more funding and received it. Ms. Coulton agreed that the division among community colleges last year really hurt them financially.
The Board agreed with the President and unanimously supports keeping the funding distribution formula under the control of the State Board of Education administrative rule process.
The second discussion item is whether to support maintaining the current governance of community colleges under the direction of the State Board of Education, or recommend that community colleges report to the State Board of Higher Education, or have a separate board for community colleges. There is currently no OCCA policy on governance, but they are considering issuing a statement saying that, for the time being, community colleges should remain in the current reporting structure. President Pulliams said that the reporting structure in New York was changed to include community colleges in the higher education system and the result was that community colleges quickly became the “step child” of the system with disastrous results for community colleges. Chair Anderson feels it will be important to have a policy statement on record to direct OCCA staff in future discussions with the legislature.
The Board unanimously supports recommending that community colleges continue reporting to the State Board of Education.
Ms. Coulton reported that the nine legislative breakfasts were semi-successful. 48 legislators and candidates were invited and 12 attended. Attendees came to breakfasts on all three campuses, but none attended the two breakfasts scheduled at Southeast Center. The campus presidents and Director Margolin attended the breakfasts and gathered these comments: they really like us; we’re doing a really great job; there isn’t going to be any more money; they recommend building more partnerships; get the business community to support us and other organizations to lobby for us; and don’t expect too much. The control of the Senate is up in the air and the race will be very close. The House will clearly be Republican and more conservative than before, making the likelihood of major measures being passed very dim. The legislators seemed very supportive and think PCC is doing a great job, but there just is not any additional revenue out there. President Pullmans said that there does not seem to be the attitude to make any structural changes to bring in new revenue resources this session; all legislators and candidates were very blunt about that. Ms. Coulton said staff would be working to arrange meetings with the candidates that did not attend.
Staff will be working with the higher educational institutions in the Portland area to form partnerships; Dr. Pulliams will be meeting with Dr. Dan Bernstine at PSU to discuss joint lobbying for the two institutions; and the President will be forming a delegation representing the three community colleges in the greater Portland area. Clackamas, Mt. Hood, and Portland Community Colleges will be hosting a joint reception for legislators after the election on November 17 at Southeast Center from 4:00-6:00 PM. Board members and staff are encouraged to attend. Campus, Federation, and student leaders will also be included in preparing a short presentation to our legislators.
Ms. Coulton distributed a summary of the ballot measures that will be on the November ballot.
Director McKinney asked for a brief summary of insights on the economic forecast, the funding formula, and the implications the “kicker” will have. Ms. Coulton said that individual taxpayers will probably not benefit from the “kicker,” but it appears that corporate taxpayers will. Vice President McEwen said the prospects for additional funds to be added to the formula are nil; there is nothing additional to report. Michael Dembrow, President of the Faculty Federation and member of the Commissioner’s Formula Re-look Taskforce, reported that there have been productive work sessions. The Taskforce has been looking at the elements of the distribution formula, which are the base allocation, small school allocation, the amount per FTE, and the amount dedicated to bring equity. The Taskforce is still in preliminary discussions and will have an initial report ready in about one month that will probably be controversial with some schools. It appears there is a probability that the base allocation will stay about the same, and the group is working on a mechanism to unfreeze FTE allocations. Loss of enrollment during the past year probably will not hurt PCC’s allocation because other schools lost more, and, in fact, PCC may see a slight improvement. There seems to continue to be a commitment to the principle of equity at most community colleges, but there are some concerns about how the process of getting equity was set up, especially in the absence of any new funding.
Director Margolin asked if the report from the Taskforce would contain the recommendation of Cam Preus-Braly, Commissioner of the State Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, that this be the new distribution formula. Mr. Dembrow said the recommendations will be reviewed by the President’s Council and will be controversial. It will form the basis of Ms. Braly’s recommendation to the State Board of Education, and the Taskforce presumes that the State Board will use those recommendations to determine how to unfreeze funds and what might happen with equalization.
Chair Anderson thanked Ms. Coulton for the legislative news and said the Board will be looking forward to a report on changes to the distribution formula.
None
Following clarification from Vice President McEwen regarding the substituted new Resolution 05-014 to reject all bids received for food vending supplies and machine maintenance, Director Margolin moved to approve Resolutions 05-005 through 05-019 by consent agenda. Director Germond asked for explanation of the elements covered by the architectural services fees and after Vice President McEwen discussed the services provided, the consent agenda passed unanimously.
None
Michael Dembrow, President of the Faculty Federation, reported that the Federation held its annual planning retreat at Kennedy School. They were very productive in setting goals for the year in terms of the contract, legislation, and internal and external communication about the College and faculty. Chair Anderson and President Pulliams attended the retreat and Federation members were pleased to meet them and work on plans for the coming year. The afternoon was spent on political action efforts for the important fall ballot measures regarding federal and legislative races. Both Federations are actively working to get as many students registered to vote as possible and would welcome participation by management as well.
The OCCA priorities list was discussed by faculty leaders of all colleges in the State with Cam Preus-Braly, Commissioner, State Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, and Andrea Henderson, Executive Director of OCCA. Partnerships in moving the legislative agenda financial issues, access/quality funding proposal, construction bond, and student opportunity grant were discussed. Faculty were encouraged to discuss these issues with their boards to convince them of the importance of unity among community colleges. Mr. Dembrow expressed his support of the idea of a separate board for community colleges, but agrees that for this biennium it makes sense to stay with the current reporting structure.
Mr. Dembrow said that classes will be starting soon, and faculty members are looking forward to using the new classrooms.
Mr. Dembrow expressed Lucia Barnett’s regret for not being able to attend the board meeting. She received news that one of her sons was wounded while serving in Iraq. President Pulliams said he would convey the Board’s concerns to Ms. Barnett.
Chair Anderson said she enjoyed attending the Faculty Federation planning retreat and they had a great lunch at Kennedy School.
Chair Anderson encouraged Board members to attend the district-wide In-Service on September 20th and also the grand opening ceremony for Building 9 at Rock Creek on September 24th from 10:00 AM til Noon. Director McKinney will be making remarks on behalf of the Board at that ceremony.
President's Report:
President Pulliams reminded the Board and staff of the college In-Service September 20th at the Sylvania Campus starting with continental breakfast in the HT Courtyard at 8:00 AM. He also invited the Board to the grand opening ceremony for Building 9 at the Rock Creek Campus on September 24th at 10:00 AM. The President also invited Board members to attend the grand opening of the new buildings at Cascade Campus on October 20th at 3:00 PM and at Sylvania Campus on November 10th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
The President reported that Summer Term is completed and enrollment was 150 FTE below last Summer Term's enrollment, so some ground was lost. Current Fall Term enrollment projections two weeks prior to the start of the term shows 8 FTE above enrollment last Fall Term. That means enrollment is flat, but the next two weeks will be critical to make sure enrollment stabilizes.
President Pulliams reported that staff are currently working to fill three positions: 1.) Director of Institutional Advancement - the application period has closed and a selection committee has been formed to review the 25 applications received; 2.) Sylvania Campus President; and 3.) Vice President of Academic and Student Services. PCC has contracted with Dr. Berringer of Gold Hill Associates to assist with the latter two searches, which will begin soon.
The President noted that he has been very busy meeting with business folks and elected officials. He thanked the Public Affairs Department for setting up seven interviews with local newspapers who seemed very interested and excited about the direction the College is heading and the new facilities becoming available. They have been very positive and supportive.
Staff are ready for the return of students on Monday, September 27. The last four months have been the single most intensive, unprecedented period of investment in facilities in College history, and every campus and department has been involved in the teamwork required to coordinate these projects.
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:25 PM.
The next meeting of the Portland Community College Board of Directors will be held on October 21, 2004 at 7:30 PM in Conference Rooms A and B at the Sylvania Campus.
_____________________________ _____________________________
Chair Anderson President Pulliams
Prepared by:
______________________________
Judy Schwartz
Assistant to Board of Directors
Minutes approved on November 18, 2004