Congratulations to the 2007 Nursing graduates, family members, faculty, community members and college colleagues! Your attendance here today marks the greatest drive we have seen on our Southwestern Oregon Community College campus: a 100% graduation and 100% pass rate on nursing exams for your class! Your drive toward success clearly results from Personal pursuit, Intentional Tenacity and Compassionate Healing:
PITCH, not that dark tar substance, or a certain musical tone, but your action of reaching out and sending forth… of your caring and concern… in the ball game of life
· In Personal pursuit, each of you set your aim high on a medical field that requires an ever-increasing knowledge base, lengthening program of study and tightening window of professionalism. I was not here at Southwestern when you began your General Studies pre-requisite for our Associate Degree Nursing Program application, since this is my second year as President. But I know that many of you are completing a dream begun a decade, maybe even two decades ago. Your ability to balance your personal pursuit with your personal life; family obligations, educational background, lifestyle, residence, and financial resources; set you on this path toward success.
· Intentional Tenacity, not occasional tenacity or accidental tenacity but intentional tenacity kept you on the path toward your profession in nursing while some fellow students wavered, winds of change blew and days grew into long nights. You not only set your own tenacious course, but visibly modeled that intentional tenacity for others; setting the academic bar in biology and chemistry classes, assuring that your families needs did not go unmet amidst your long hours of study and dragging those stacks of books and resource manuals around on your back, in that suitcase or on top of the luggage carrier. Your intentional tenacity set watermarks even higher than you thought you could reach for your own ability to go without sleep, respond with new knowledge, work with new teams of health professionals.
· Your capacity for Compassionate Healing was tested early in your Nursing studies as we shared a medical emergency on our own campus. Your concern not only for our deceased adult student Nancy Douglas, but for each other, demonstrated the very core of your learning- the importance of humanity in our profession of service. Your focus on your fellow students’ health and wellbeing following that horrific event and long before you were expected to have the experience to do so demonstrated to all of us that you have the right PITCH:
The right Personal pursuit, the Intentional Tenacity and the capacity for Compassionate Healing that marks your graduation.
Congratulations, Nurses, you are the best, and Southwestern Oregon Community College is proud to call you one of our own!
CCQ Begins
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
College Presidencies Aren't for Sissies
College Presidencies are Not for Sissies!
Coos Bay ZONTA Club
September, 2007
My fifteen years of experiences as a college president confirm current data about community college presidents, especially women in that position. The 2007 American Council on Education (ACE) of “The American College President” states that changes for presidents in the higher education landscape over the last twenty years result from changes in the diversity, conduct, and mindset of students, parents, faculty, external forces and personal life.
Students today are more diverse in age and thought but more similar in their needs. Similarly, ‘helicopter’ parents are becoming more common, hovering over their students children, young and old alike. The concept of ‘in loco parentis’, college responsibility for students on their campus as in K-12 institutions, has not existed for colleges and universities since the 1800’s. By law and practice college students are adults, protected by unique privacy laws that prevent colleges from communicating student performance even to parents, unless a legal waiver is signed. Therefore, the new student and parent realities fly in the face of college legal requirements, causing significant leadership conflicts.
Faculty members’ diversity, once very singular in perspective, now match the increasing diversity of our students and society; requiring more sensitivity, finesse and understanding for all leaders amidst the gender and cultural differences and perspectives.
Increasing awareness of and expected accountability for the communities we serve require increasing amounts of presidential time. Public accountability and leadership expectations have slowly increased since the 1970’s and now take up over 50% of a college president’s time, once totally internally focused.
Amidst all of this change in higher education diversity of culture and thought, diversity of community college presidents has also increased. When I accepted my first community college presidency in 1991, the percentage of women in community college presidencies was lowest of all types, 14%, with doctorate- and masters-granting institutions slightly higher. At that time only baccalaureate degree granting institutions documented female presidents in over 20% of their institutions, but primarily because of the number of nuns in those positions in private, church-based institutions. In 2007, Associate Degree granting institutions boast the largest proportion of female presidents (26.7% of new presidents and 28.8 of all presidents); with Baccalaureate (26.2% and 23.2%), Masters (23.4% and 21.5%) and Doctoral (17.9% and 13.8 %) right behind. The total number of female presidents in all American higher education institutions is now 23%. It is noted in the 2007 study that women continue to be hired into presidencies at a rate significantly below percentages of women represented in higher education administration and senior faculty. Minority presidents only total 13.5%: 11.4% for Doctoral, 12.9% for Masters, 13.1% for Baccalaureate and 13.9% for Associate degree granting institutions.
So what does all of this mean? One short answer lies in a brief expression I heard over a decade ago “It does not pay women to be in a field which is predominantly female, because the wages are always higher in predominantly male fields.” So the good news for women in higher education is that we are paid as well as men in our field for our investment in the futures of the students in communities we serve.
However, sacrifices for all presidents have increased as a result of increased campus diversity and expectations on- and off-campus. The conclusion in the 2007 ACE study is that presidents have no personal life. My experience has been that the way in which a president’s personal life has been defined in the past; opportunity to anonymously relax away from the job within the community; has been lost for those who work in my field due to increased accountability in our electronic real-time world. In other words, I live in a fish bowl.
On the surface, the fish bowl is exciting and filled with opportunities:
· This morning we kicked off a new transportation program with twenty South Coast Trucking Firm owners.
· Our many dinners and events at the new Culinary Institute connect me with hundreds of community members with great ideas for new initiatives.
· I have learned that Jerry Livingston, a college employee, grew up in my home which has afforded me a chance to learn more about the college connections to both my home and the community.
· My next door neighbor expressed in a casual conversation her concern about not modeling the right image for her daughters because she is staying at home to raise them. I answered, I live next door… your daughters see a professional women every day and know very well they can achieve careers of their dreams.
· And of course, the opportunity to speak with you today about women in higher education provides a significant entrée for community and college interface.
Personally, the fish bowl requires that I, like you, work very hard to carve out the time with my families, with colleagues and for personal rejuvenation. It also seems for professional that the time required for personal rejuvenation, requisite for effective work with our families and colleagues, increases over time.
I am here to tell you to schedule that personal time, to value and protect the time for yourself as much as you value and protect that time for your family and job, and make sure that the personal time does not come at the expense of sleep and exercise, but in addition to a healthy lifestyle.
My life and the lives of my female colleagues are just like yours: full. Make sure you treat yourself as the professional others value in you!
Coos Bay ZONTA Club
September, 2007
My fifteen years of experiences as a college president confirm current data about community college presidents, especially women in that position. The 2007 American Council on Education (ACE) of “The American College President” states that changes for presidents in the higher education landscape over the last twenty years result from changes in the diversity, conduct, and mindset of students, parents, faculty, external forces and personal life.
Students today are more diverse in age and thought but more similar in their needs. Similarly, ‘helicopter’ parents are becoming more common, hovering over their students children, young and old alike. The concept of ‘in loco parentis’, college responsibility for students on their campus as in K-12 institutions, has not existed for colleges and universities since the 1800’s. By law and practice college students are adults, protected by unique privacy laws that prevent colleges from communicating student performance even to parents, unless a legal waiver is signed. Therefore, the new student and parent realities fly in the face of college legal requirements, causing significant leadership conflicts.
Faculty members’ diversity, once very singular in perspective, now match the increasing diversity of our students and society; requiring more sensitivity, finesse and understanding for all leaders amidst the gender and cultural differences and perspectives.
Increasing awareness of and expected accountability for the communities we serve require increasing amounts of presidential time. Public accountability and leadership expectations have slowly increased since the 1970’s and now take up over 50% of a college president’s time, once totally internally focused.
Amidst all of this change in higher education diversity of culture and thought, diversity of community college presidents has also increased. When I accepted my first community college presidency in 1991, the percentage of women in community college presidencies was lowest of all types, 14%, with doctorate- and masters-granting institutions slightly higher. At that time only baccalaureate degree granting institutions documented female presidents in over 20% of their institutions, but primarily because of the number of nuns in those positions in private, church-based institutions. In 2007, Associate Degree granting institutions boast the largest proportion of female presidents (26.7% of new presidents and 28.8 of all presidents); with Baccalaureate (26.2% and 23.2%), Masters (23.4% and 21.5%) and Doctoral (17.9% and 13.8 %) right behind. The total number of female presidents in all American higher education institutions is now 23%. It is noted in the 2007 study that women continue to be hired into presidencies at a rate significantly below percentages of women represented in higher education administration and senior faculty. Minority presidents only total 13.5%: 11.4% for Doctoral, 12.9% for Masters, 13.1% for Baccalaureate and 13.9% for Associate degree granting institutions.
So what does all of this mean? One short answer lies in a brief expression I heard over a decade ago “It does not pay women to be in a field which is predominantly female, because the wages are always higher in predominantly male fields.” So the good news for women in higher education is that we are paid as well as men in our field for our investment in the futures of the students in communities we serve.
However, sacrifices for all presidents have increased as a result of increased campus diversity and expectations on- and off-campus. The conclusion in the 2007 ACE study is that presidents have no personal life. My experience has been that the way in which a president’s personal life has been defined in the past; opportunity to anonymously relax away from the job within the community; has been lost for those who work in my field due to increased accountability in our electronic real-time world. In other words, I live in a fish bowl.
On the surface, the fish bowl is exciting and filled with opportunities:
· This morning we kicked off a new transportation program with twenty South Coast Trucking Firm owners.
· Our many dinners and events at the new Culinary Institute connect me with hundreds of community members with great ideas for new initiatives.
· I have learned that Jerry Livingston, a college employee, grew up in my home which has afforded me a chance to learn more about the college connections to both my home and the community.
· My next door neighbor expressed in a casual conversation her concern about not modeling the right image for her daughters because she is staying at home to raise them. I answered, I live next door… your daughters see a professional women every day and know very well they can achieve careers of their dreams.
· And of course, the opportunity to speak with you today about women in higher education provides a significant entrée for community and college interface.
Personally, the fish bowl requires that I, like you, work very hard to carve out the time with my families, with colleagues and for personal rejuvenation. It also seems for professional that the time required for personal rejuvenation, requisite for effective work with our families and colleagues, increases over time.
I am here to tell you to schedule that personal time, to value and protect the time for yourself as much as you value and protect that time for your family and job, and make sure that the personal time does not come at the expense of sleep and exercise, but in addition to a healthy lifestyle.
My life and the lives of my female colleagues are just like yours: full. Make sure you treat yourself as the professional others value in you!
Cultural Chasm Classroom
Asia Retrospective
The World Newspaper
November, 2006
A quick look at election returns on the Tokyo airport television, following an early morning flight from Shanghai to Tokyo, reminded me of the drastic dissonance among our cultures. The televised American election commentary amidst countrysides of hand-shocked rice fields and state-mandated college curriculum underscored the contrasts in our basic freedoms evident amidst my visit to Korea and China. While Korean citizens experience significant personal freedom, the mere economic gaps in our cultures limit their ability of pursuit. Chinese citizens privately contrast current economic progress with the Revolutionary days under Mao, but still maintain a central political influence over personal pursuit foreign to our American experience.
Cultural contrasts were most evident on my last day in China which began with an ancient river city tour and ended in Shanghai. The two-tunnel city entrances over the river, initially one for women and one for men, were designated by Mao as worker and government official entrances. My young hosts, all English-speaking Chinese professors, insisted with laughter that I use the government official entrance, much to the consternation of the older gentlemen workers entering with me. Once in Shanghai, we viewed the Yangtze River traffic from the Oriental Pearl Tower: ancient barges rowed by singular oarsmen amidst sleek schooners mounted with full electronic advertising screens. The sight reminded me of similar contrasts downtown Seoul as I viewed skyscrapers above the ancient Emperor’s Castle compound.
A beautiful Oregon sunrise above the clouds greeted me as our jet arrived at the U.S. coast. News of big rains on the Northwest Coast welcomed me home as I shook the China smog and Seoul dust from my clothes. Despite the cultural contrasts, both Hyejeon College and Changzhou Institute of Technology presidents and I agreed to common intercultural education opportunities for Southwestern and our sister colleges in Korea and China: Exchange chefs, Exchange interpreters; English Language Institute at Southwestern for Korean and Chinese students; and Service Learning opportunities in Korea and China for Southwestern students to complement Current Student Scholarship and Faculty Exchange initiatives. Both Hyejeon and Changzhou were most excited about the Chef Exchange. They each plan to send a chef and interpreter within the next year to provide short-term coursework for students and community alike at our Oregon Coast Culinary Institute in exchange for a similar visit from our chefs to their institutions.
As I returned, Secretary of Education Spellings announced plans to visit China to develop relationships for American colleges and universities. The announcement confirmed for me that the vision Southwestern Oregon Community College has embraced for intercultural education exchange leads national pursuits. I feel exceptionally proud to lead Southwestern’s dreams for our citizens and students.
The World Newspaper
November, 2006
A quick look at election returns on the Tokyo airport television, following an early morning flight from Shanghai to Tokyo, reminded me of the drastic dissonance among our cultures. The televised American election commentary amidst countrysides of hand-shocked rice fields and state-mandated college curriculum underscored the contrasts in our basic freedoms evident amidst my visit to Korea and China. While Korean citizens experience significant personal freedom, the mere economic gaps in our cultures limit their ability of pursuit. Chinese citizens privately contrast current economic progress with the Revolutionary days under Mao, but still maintain a central political influence over personal pursuit foreign to our American experience.
Cultural contrasts were most evident on my last day in China which began with an ancient river city tour and ended in Shanghai. The two-tunnel city entrances over the river, initially one for women and one for men, were designated by Mao as worker and government official entrances. My young hosts, all English-speaking Chinese professors, insisted with laughter that I use the government official entrance, much to the consternation of the older gentlemen workers entering with me. Once in Shanghai, we viewed the Yangtze River traffic from the Oriental Pearl Tower: ancient barges rowed by singular oarsmen amidst sleek schooners mounted with full electronic advertising screens. The sight reminded me of similar contrasts downtown Seoul as I viewed skyscrapers above the ancient Emperor’s Castle compound.
A beautiful Oregon sunrise above the clouds greeted me as our jet arrived at the U.S. coast. News of big rains on the Northwest Coast welcomed me home as I shook the China smog and Seoul dust from my clothes. Despite the cultural contrasts, both Hyejeon College and Changzhou Institute of Technology presidents and I agreed to common intercultural education opportunities for Southwestern and our sister colleges in Korea and China: Exchange chefs, Exchange interpreters; English Language Institute at Southwestern for Korean and Chinese students; and Service Learning opportunities in Korea and China for Southwestern students to complement Current Student Scholarship and Faculty Exchange initiatives. Both Hyejeon and Changzhou were most excited about the Chef Exchange. They each plan to send a chef and interpreter within the next year to provide short-term coursework for students and community alike at our Oregon Coast Culinary Institute in exchange for a similar visit from our chefs to their institutions.
As I returned, Secretary of Education Spellings announced plans to visit China to develop relationships for American colleges and universities. The announcement confirmed for me that the vision Southwestern Oregon Community College has embraced for intercultural education exchange leads national pursuits. I feel exceptionally proud to lead Southwestern’s dreams for our citizens and students.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Pacific Rim Economic Development
JORDAN COVE ENERGY
LAND USE HEARING
August 28, 2007
JUDITH M.L. HANSEN, PRESIDENT
SOUTHWESTERN OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Good afternoon Coos county Planning Department Members. I am Judith Hansen, Southwestern Oregon Community College president. Today I request your consideration of the major positive impact that the land use proposed by the Jordan Cove Energy project will provide for the Oregon South Coast economy. Economic Development through new workforce opportunities, new tax revenues for continued student access to education, training for our rapidly changing workforce needs and expanded opportunities for our families will result from Jordan Cove industrial land use through increased training, employment, salaries and spin-off businesses.
This year, Southwestern Oregon Community College announced start-up funding for nine new careers in Allied Health, Alternative Energy, Golf Course Horticulture, Construction Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, Transportation, Marine Fire Science, and Manufacturing Technology to train workers for the new South Coast economies represented by the land use proposed for Jordan Cove Energy . Without the local tax base that Jordan Cove will provide for continued training in these nine new fields, funding for our new programs may not continue.
In a recent state-wide Economic Impact Study, it was found that past Southwestern Oregon Community College students contribute 12% of the total salary incomes on the South Coast. We can improve on that percentage by increasing the number of graduates who can afford to stay and work on the South Coast following their education at Southwestern. In that same Oregon Economic Impact Study, it was found that over $1,000,000/year in medical, welfare and crime costs in Coos, Curry and Douglas Counties are saved through your investment in our students’ education. We can increase the social benefit of higher education and reduction of the costs of crime through increased numbers of employees trained for work on the South Coast. And finally, 19.3% of our tax payers’ investment is returned to you through the education of our students at Southwestern Oregon Community College. You will not find a better return on your dollar and Southwestern can continue that rate of return for every tax dollar generated by Jordan Cove Energy Corporation.
The opportunities provided by Jordan Cove for employment, training, increased tax revenues and related economic benefits for our Bay Area will return to our Bay Area an increased quality of life. A healthy economic future for the Oregon South Coast is in our hands, ladies and gentlemen: an economic future with the help of Jordan Cove Energy Corporation that will repay your investment through new family wage jobs for decades to come.
LAND USE HEARING
August 28, 2007
JUDITH M.L. HANSEN, PRESIDENT
SOUTHWESTERN OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Good afternoon Coos county Planning Department Members. I am Judith Hansen, Southwestern Oregon Community College president. Today I request your consideration of the major positive impact that the land use proposed by the Jordan Cove Energy project will provide for the Oregon South Coast economy. Economic Development through new workforce opportunities, new tax revenues for continued student access to education, training for our rapidly changing workforce needs and expanded opportunities for our families will result from Jordan Cove industrial land use through increased training, employment, salaries and spin-off businesses.
This year, Southwestern Oregon Community College announced start-up funding for nine new careers in Allied Health, Alternative Energy, Golf Course Horticulture, Construction Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, Transportation, Marine Fire Science, and Manufacturing Technology to train workers for the new South Coast economies represented by the land use proposed for Jordan Cove Energy . Without the local tax base that Jordan Cove will provide for continued training in these nine new fields, funding for our new programs may not continue.
In a recent state-wide Economic Impact Study, it was found that past Southwestern Oregon Community College students contribute 12% of the total salary incomes on the South Coast. We can improve on that percentage by increasing the number of graduates who can afford to stay and work on the South Coast following their education at Southwestern. In that same Oregon Economic Impact Study, it was found that over $1,000,000/year in medical, welfare and crime costs in Coos, Curry and Douglas Counties are saved through your investment in our students’ education. We can increase the social benefit of higher education and reduction of the costs of crime through increased numbers of employees trained for work on the South Coast. And finally, 19.3% of our tax payers’ investment is returned to you through the education of our students at Southwestern Oregon Community College. You will not find a better return on your dollar and Southwestern can continue that rate of return for every tax dollar generated by Jordan Cove Energy Corporation.
The opportunities provided by Jordan Cove for employment, training, increased tax revenues and related economic benefits for our Bay Area will return to our Bay Area an increased quality of life. A healthy economic future for the Oregon South Coast is in our hands, ladies and gentlemen: an economic future with the help of Jordan Cove Energy Corporation that will repay your investment through new family wage jobs for decades to come.
Plea for Federal Railroad Support!
SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD
STB Docket No. AB-515 (Sub-No.2)
August 21, 2008
CENTRAL OREGON AND PACIFIC RAILROAD, INC. – ABANDONMENT AND DISCONTINUANCE OF SERVICE – IN COOS, DOUGLAS AND LANE COUNTIES
STB Finance Docket No. 35160
OREGON INTERNATIONAL PORT OF COOS BAY- FEEDER LINE APPLICATION- COOS BAY LINE OF THE CENTRAL OREGON AND PACIFIC RAILROAD, INC.
JUDITH M.L. HANSEN, PRESIDENT
SOUTHWESTERN OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Good afternoon board Members. I am Judith Hansen, Southwestern Oregon Community College president. Today I add my support for continued central oregon and pacific railroad (CORE) service from eugene to coquille, oregon, because of the devastating economic impact that lack of rail service would have on the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay and the Oregon South Coast. The increased training, employment, salaries and spin-off businesses that will result from industrial land use will create Economic Development through new job opportunities, new tax revenues, educational opportunities, training for our rapidly changing workforce needs and even more opportunities for our families.
This year, Southwestern Oregon Community College announced the addition of nine new career programs in Allied Health, Alternative Energy, Golf Course Horticulture, Construction Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, Transportation, Marine Fire Science, and Manufacturing Technology to train workers for the new South Coast job opportunities that would be created by the land use proposed by Jordan Cove Energy. Without the local tax base that Jordan Cove will provide for continued training in these nine new fields, funding for our new programs may not continue.
In a recent state-wide Economic Impact Study, it was found that past Southwestern Oregon Community College students contribute 12% of the total salary incomes on the South Coast. We can improve on that percentage by increasing the number of graduates who can afford to stay and work on the South Coast following their education at Southwestern. In that same Oregon Economic Impact Study, it was found that over $1,000,000/year in medical, welfare and crime costs in Coos, Curry and Douglas Counties are saved because of your investment in our students’ education. We can increase the social benefit of higher education and reduce the costs of crime by training more potential employees for work on the South Coast. And finally, 19.3% of our tax payers’ investment is returned to you through the education of our students at Southwestern Oregon Community College.
The opportunities provided by continued rail service to the Oregon south coast and Oregon International Port of Coos Bay for employment, training, spin-off businesses and increased tax revenues – in the form of income taxes from new family-wage jobs and property taxes from increased local home ownership – will result in a better quality of life for all Oregon families. A healthy economic future for the Oregon South Coast is in the hands of the Federal Surface Transportation Board hands, ladies and gentlemen: an economic future with the help of continued rail service to the Oregon South Coast that will repay your investment through new American family wage jobs for decades to come.
STB Docket No. AB-515 (Sub-No.2)
August 21, 2008
CENTRAL OREGON AND PACIFIC RAILROAD, INC. – ABANDONMENT AND DISCONTINUANCE OF SERVICE – IN COOS, DOUGLAS AND LANE COUNTIES
STB Finance Docket No. 35160
OREGON INTERNATIONAL PORT OF COOS BAY- FEEDER LINE APPLICATION- COOS BAY LINE OF THE CENTRAL OREGON AND PACIFIC RAILROAD, INC.
JUDITH M.L. HANSEN, PRESIDENT
SOUTHWESTERN OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Good afternoon board Members. I am Judith Hansen, Southwestern Oregon Community College president. Today I add my support for continued central oregon and pacific railroad (CORE) service from eugene to coquille, oregon, because of the devastating economic impact that lack of rail service would have on the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay and the Oregon South Coast. The increased training, employment, salaries and spin-off businesses that will result from industrial land use will create Economic Development through new job opportunities, new tax revenues, educational opportunities, training for our rapidly changing workforce needs and even more opportunities for our families.
This year, Southwestern Oregon Community College announced the addition of nine new career programs in Allied Health, Alternative Energy, Golf Course Horticulture, Construction Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, Transportation, Marine Fire Science, and Manufacturing Technology to train workers for the new South Coast job opportunities that would be created by the land use proposed by Jordan Cove Energy. Without the local tax base that Jordan Cove will provide for continued training in these nine new fields, funding for our new programs may not continue.
In a recent state-wide Economic Impact Study, it was found that past Southwestern Oregon Community College students contribute 12% of the total salary incomes on the South Coast. We can improve on that percentage by increasing the number of graduates who can afford to stay and work on the South Coast following their education at Southwestern. In that same Oregon Economic Impact Study, it was found that over $1,000,000/year in medical, welfare and crime costs in Coos, Curry and Douglas Counties are saved because of your investment in our students’ education. We can increase the social benefit of higher education and reduce the costs of crime by training more potential employees for work on the South Coast. And finally, 19.3% of our tax payers’ investment is returned to you through the education of our students at Southwestern Oregon Community College.
The opportunities provided by continued rail service to the Oregon south coast and Oregon International Port of Coos Bay for employment, training, spin-off businesses and increased tax revenues – in the form of income taxes from new family-wage jobs and property taxes from increased local home ownership – will result in a better quality of life for all Oregon families. A healthy economic future for the Oregon South Coast is in the hands of the Federal Surface Transportation Board hands, ladies and gentlemen: an economic future with the help of continued rail service to the Oregon South Coast that will repay your investment through new American family wage jobs for decades to come.
New Campus!
DETAILED DEVELOPMENT PLAN TESTIMONY
CITY OF BROOKINGS CITY COUNCIL
AUGUST 5, 2008
Judith M. L. Hansen, President
Southwestern Oregon Community College
The Southwestern Oregon Community College Detailed Development Plan submitted to the Brookings Planning Commission commits our college to a sustainable and environmentally conscious construction of our new Curry Campus for effective higher educational opportunities. The new Curry Campus will provide a full Associate Degree program, Practical Nursing licensure and Community Education opportunities on-site, as well as distance connectivity for Associate Degree Nursing and Baccalaureate and Graduate programs through the Southwestern University Center.
CITY OF BROOKINGS CITY COUNCIL
AUGUST 5, 2008
Judith M. L. Hansen, President
Southwestern Oregon Community College
The Southwestern Oregon Community College Detailed Development Plan submitted to the Brookings Planning Commission commits our college to a sustainable and environmentally conscious construction of our new Curry Campus for effective higher educational opportunities. The new Curry Campus will provide a full Associate Degree program, Practical Nursing licensure and Community Education opportunities on-site, as well as distance connectivity for Associate Degree Nursing and Baccalaureate and Graduate programs through the Southwestern University Center.
Tonight marks an historic moment for Southwestern and for our Curry County citizens. Thanks to the magnanimity of U.S. Borax, represented this evening by Burton Weast; tenacity of Curry Campus staff members, lead in the beginning by Peggy Goergen and continuing with Jason Wood; loyal Curry Campus Advisory Committee members, many of whom are in attendance here this evening; the Oregon legislature, lead by Representative Wayne Krieger; former Southwestern President Steve Kridelbaugh and our Southwestern Board of Education, represented here tonight by Board Vice-Chair and Curry County citizen Cherie Mitchell; emerging collaboration with Curry General Hospital, under Bill McMillan's leadership; and thousands of patient Curry County citizens, we come to this moment of land use request before the Brookings Planning Commission for a full-service college campus in Curry County.
Our Southwestern land use request for a new Curry Campus represents true community collaboration that has resulted from decades of increasing resources and ability to provide quality higher education services. The new Curry Campus will build on the face-to-face courses, distance nursing, degree programming and community opportunities currently available throughout Curry County. With completion, citizens will be able to complete a full Associate Degree at the new campus, a new Practical Nursing program of study and continued distance Associate Degree Nursing offerings, as well as take advantage of new community meeting and performance spaces. The planning, construction and operation of the new campus also reflects the physical and educational commitment to sustainability consistent with the values of the Oregon South Coast.
Southwestern Oregon Community College thanks you, Curry County and the City of Brookings, for your patience and continued commitment to opportunity that brings this moment to reality.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Confessions of a Community College President
Waiting for a flight home at DIA on the weekend following election of President Barak Obama, I visited with a fellow traveler about the recent events. Invigorated by the national election discussion, I volunteered that my career was set with my first teaching position in Virginia Beach, Virginia, three years after landmark Civil Rights legislation.The fellow traveler responded that his family had moved to the Chesapeake Bay area from New Jersey during the same time period I taught Virginia History there 1968-70. He described his amazement at placement in a ‘Black’ school because of his Jewish heritage. I asked him if he remembered the 1952 Virginia History textbook used sin the 1960's that highlighted arrival of the first slaves as a significant economic event. He revealed that he was now a consultant with the U.S. National Parks and that the Virginia History text to which I referred had finally been rewritten in the 1990's following decades of use.I reminisced with the fellow traveler about the excitement of my first teaching assignment following college graduation and move to the East Coast for my husband's Viet Nam-era deployment. Because of the Baby Boom, classes had swollen to almost-forty students. More importantly, most of the African-American students had been placed in Special Education due to their separate and not equal educational experiences. In that 1960’s world of fresh integration rules and large classes to accommodate rapid social change, the vocational education legislation of the 1970’s was yet to come; so Special Education students were assigned vocational classes in high school.Only one African American student, whose academic skills did not match his ability or age, attended my history class; and I was worried about his high school completion. At my first parent-teacher conference I was committed to recommending to his mother that she give permission for her son to transfer into Special Education/Vocational Education classes, rather than risk dropping out of school. With true determination, the mother, who picked kale to support her family, countered my well-meaning recommendation: “Mrs. Hansen, Jerome is the smartest of my 17 children. I want just one of my children to go to regular school”. What a mom! Of course, Jerome continued to go to ‘regular school’. Jerome's mom taught me ro embrace the resilience of human intellect and spirit which had eluded our county for over two centuries.To keep his mom's lesson alive, I kept for years the first paragraph Jerome wrote for me: sentences ending in periods, some capitals, phonetically-spelled words, and a clear effort toward communication of thought within his limited writing knowledge. In the intervening four decades I wondered what happened to Jerome. Did he graduate? Could I have passed him on the street? Did I know his children or grandchildren?My casual airport conversation about teaching Virginia History in the 1960’s with a fellow traveler less than a week after election of Barak Obama renewed my poignant memories of Jerome. I realized that millions of global citizens who could be ‘Jerome’ have graduated from high school, college, professional schools since then; I have passed thousands who could be a ‘Jerome’ on the street; and I have known thousands of students who might have called ‘Jerome’ their father and/or grandfather. While Jerome is a real person with a real life, he represents millions whose lives were forever changed by a new opportunity just a few short decades ago: the opportunity for all of our citizens to dream of becoming President.
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