Edmonds Community College President
Quarterly Update: Winter 2010
I hope all of you enjoyed the holiday break; hopefully, you were able to spend time with family and friends and even squeeze in some well-deserved rest.
I appreciate everything you did in 2009. Through your efforts, our college continues to be a leader in providing quality opportunities for learning and service and a place that our community turns to for hope and direction in tough economic times.
As you know, enrollment is up and funding is down and we're definitely feeling the pinch. Even so, while we served more students than ever, 2009 was one of the smoothest fall quarters I’ve seen at this college (and I’ve seen 14 of them).
We continue to serve our students in an exemplary fashion — and I am well aware that budget constraints have made this more and more difficult. Everyone — and I don’t think anyone will be put out if I especially mention our enrollment services and financial aid team — made this fall as good as it could be. Once again, you displayed impressive commitment to our students.
In 2010, it is certain that we will continue to be asked to show great spirit in tough times. Our can do spirit will be tested. We are serving nearly 1,500 students more this winter than last. Meanwhile, the state’s budget outlook continues to be grim. The budget situation is not sustainable over the long term and is definitely not in the best interests of our students.
Throughout the upcoming legislative session, our community college system and our college will continue to make the case to the state that our current budget straits put our college, our students, and our community at risk.
Serving more students means more hard work—no matter how you look at it, no matter how creative, efficient, and innovative (and we are all those things) we get.
We’ll let the legislature know our key concerns:
- serving more students with greater need in our classrooms, Student Financial Services, the Counseling and Resource Center, Services for Students with Disabilities, and the Learning Support Center, and
- serving more students with fewer resources in our Developmental Education programs, at the Center for Families, and in our Running Start program.
You can find facts about these needs at www.edcc.edu/legislative.
Our community needs us more than ever to retrain laid off workers and help revive our state’s economy. People depend on us to provide educational opportunity and hope.
The fact is some of the programs that really make a difference for students — TRiO, I-BEST, Opportunity Grants — cost more per student. These time-intensive services, which allow us to do our best work, aren’t available to all students.
Where’s the payback for all of our hard work? It’s in our students and what they’ll achieve after they leave our college for jobs and further education. They’ll return our investment in them to our community by filling needed jobs, earning higher wages, supporting their families, and giving back.
That’s why I am most grateful—when I see those skyrocketing enrollment reports (and the college’s full parking lot!)—to know that the individuals employed by this college will step up to the plate to serve students to the best of their ability both in these tough times and in the better days ahead.
Speaking of tough times, we’re working hard to put a projected 2010-11 budget together. I want to thank everyone for the input and good ideas that have allowed us to get to this point—the creativity on this campus continually impresses me. A budget study session will take place at the Board of Trustees’ meeting on January 28 and we will be sharing more information once we have a projected budget ready to go. In addition to serving our students, you are engaged in critical planning and development activities across the campus aimed at improving and shaping the college in areas such as institutional effectiveness, sustainability, SEM, aerospace training, parking, operating efficiently within our new budget constraints, and other projects too numerous to mention. With this work, we continue to look forward and advance our mission so that we are even more prepared for the better days ahead.
Thank you for all the great work that you do. It is most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Jack Oharah
