VP Academic Affairs

Monday, February 14, 2011 8:00 – 9:00 am

Attendees: Grace Young, Bonnie Doherty, Sharon McDermot, Chuck Phair, Lynne Nadeau, Linda Shea, Janice Rogers

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 2:00 – 3:00 pm

Attendees: Mary Chatigny, Sue Grolnic, Nora Sheridan, Gene Wintner, Lauri Gordy, Deirdr Budzyna, Karen Mitchell, biff ward
Question 1 –
Budget
Partnerships
Collaborations
In the community, strong par;tnernip ship high schools, promised neighborhood init.
Stronger non credit relationship with business and industry;y more seamless process working with the college
Silo killing communications
More communication with student affairs and academic affairs, could be developed more.
We have improved long way to go to improve upon above. So that everyone is part of it. Bring it to the next level almost with everyt;hing, we have done so much with high schools, WFD has been weak.
More collaboration bet liberal arts and and professional career focused programs among academic divisions.
Leadership challenges critical period for college to establish itsw leadership role, AAVP needs to be able to make those communications so people see this as a partnership, someone who can lead us to do that as opposed to someone who drifts in and out, some practical vision, college as an engine in the community. Inside and outside skills would be a nice combo.
Knowing what business want (chambers of commerce)
Looking for someone able to make tough decisions when its time to close something close it, willing to try new things, someone that can move on something and not drag it out, we often overtalk and overtalk move something forward.
See more with global outlook meeting needs
Need leadership in moving forward high impact practices now. We startedon that road still feeling our way, to have the impact we might.
Continuation of some of the ATD work integration with traditional courses and disciplines enhancing course completion success those at risk and all stude;nts.

2. profession qualifications:

Faculty member is important, classroom experience for a number of years.
Experience not only in academic side but other parts of college, business and out in the community, interesting mix needed.
CC experience would be good, understands unions. How budget and finance piece relates to academic piece.
Feel we need someone with diverse population could be professional experience and a persons personal calling to w ork with that issue understanding of what that means. Our demographic, not just an understanding, cultural competency skills.
Should have doctorate, person should be seen that they could do the job.
The nature of the position.
First generation college student or cc student would help.
We are a passionate group we need leader who feels same way.
Substantial teaching experience
Administrative experience quite a bit. Someone that has to have some experience aavp or equal to that level.
Need a fair amount of academic management experience e.g. Dean for x number of years.
Consider proven success at previous institution how does that align with our current missions.
Important person has know about social networking and technology and how we incorporate that.
Team player know how to collaborate.
Buy into who we are and willing to support and proven you can bring people togethe3r around an idea.

#3. What personal stgrengths will they have?

Someone with vision not a micromanages, no someone totally up above a holistic view of what is going on collaborative goes with that.
Someone who can develop the strength in others be grounded in strengths in AI or has that experience or who wants to learn ab out it. If they didn’t believe in AI it would be more difficult we are on a roll, if they didn’t belive in that that would be very b ad.
Someone who understands disagreement knows there are ways to deal with that outcome without being heavy handed. Lot of conflict avoidance.
Courageous conversations
Imp to have someone willing to listen to views of deans as well as on up, if there is a conflict it should be transparent, with respect them.
Someone who understands our value and is willing to live it.
Building creative cooperative environment.
We are one college, there is when it comes to the money it is “mine” rather than the one college.
What is right for the students
Flatten the organization
Look at how we do things, maybe there are still ongoing continuous improvement things that could be changed, someone who can think out of the box
But not too quickly.
No reorg first 3-4 months.
Listen, learn take some time before jumping in
Entrepreneurship
Don’t want someone to change things quickly but someone not afraid to make changes, don’t want the its not broken don’t fix attitude, someone who has different lenses. To get that completion rate we do have to look at things.
You can’t do too much there needs to be a balance, with a certain amount of deliberation so that it is effective.
Solid planner
Not just coming up with idea, making should it could be delivered and sustained.
Getting input collegewide be on the same page looking forward is important
Someone that canhelpthe college set priorities, if it doesn’t fit into our priorities we probably shouldn’t be doing. Everyone needs to be at the same point at the end of hill, leaves us wandering around sometimes
Consensus building
Not with Student success too motherhooding,
Need to be clear what does student success means to us, hard to make progress have to educate and recreate.

4. anything

Feel strongly vp needs to have the same interests, passion, commitment to Lawrence that they have to Haverhil..lot of administration happens in Haverhill. Not as present in Haverhill. Faculty member teaching something in lawrecne has difff exp in Lawrence than Haverhill, different supplies, etc. if we say we are a college not that we are Haverhill, vp needs to say I really care about Lawrence. Even psychologically not having an office people can go to in lawrence says something. Also CPAC diff in law ,more advisors here than here. People feel if you are in Lawrence you are not as important. Employees at Lawrence are very sensitive to that.
Lawrence is a potential goldmine, population, students, energy, motivation, lot of untapped created energy.
Community relationship building in Lawrence we do have relationships but feel a lot of it happens in Haverhill, this person has to work to build more community relationships in Lawrence.
Bilingual would be good, what if they spoke Spanish!
Possibly Latino
Suggestion to have that preferred posting
**********
Search committee could take a look at.
Important to have a well rounded person, teaching, admin, dean’s level for a few years. As many years in a college as possible and outside the college. Someone with real world experience.
Critical person has good sense of humor and humility
Open to hearing feedback rather consult with others.
Someone who could make hard decisions preferable experience with budgets in these hard times, dwindling resources, someone who is good a layoffs.

During the next 1-5 years, what are some of the most important leadership/collaboration opportunities and challenges for the next Academic Vice President at NECC?

Needs to be a balance, we have too many things we are involved in, no time to focus or talk about the things we are doing. Too many initiatives.
We are transitioning out of ATD as we transition out of it and find new initiatives like that how will we keep up , sustainability and funding. New person has new ideas, will these old ideas get dropped. Will we share what we keep and what we drop? So that cresencdo we have been building won’t go by the wayside, we have put a lot into them in the past few years. Educating the new person about all this if person if from outside.
Priortizing what we keep and follow. Need someone to come in and decide.
Lack of coordination on committees, find out another committee has been set up and find they are doing the work that we are doing, part of the issue of leadership needs to be some discussion. We don’t know what is going on. Whether its all administrators and committees to see who is doing what.
Email about cutting Trio programs and also keep Pell the amount that it was last year, reduces it by 800$ per student. Looking at some serious issues of funding if that passes. What does that mean for PACE project also means staff, this person we get must be more involved with community leaders, team up with President for funding, not just start new initiatives as public funding is going down. Univ of Mass is raising their fees because times are tough this person is going to have to hit the ground running, donations, getting funding.

What professional qualifications (education, experience, etc.) do you think are most important?
Miniumphd or edd. Exp working with faculty and staff. Imp to know to understand the contracts, get along and be open minded, good listener.
Need to first of all have teaching experience important, certain amount of teaching in classroom to understand both sides of the coin, understand the rigor of the staff environment which is usually student affairs and what happens and what all the issues are, not just a big picture vision but the day to day, you can’t get there if you don’t walk, or take the steps to appropriately get there, You have to actually live it, time and commitment to actually realize that big picture is important.
Needs to be good listener, b oth sides, decisions can’t be made in vacuum needs understanding you know what is going to happen not a month later behind closed doors. More clarity in decisions that are made.
Need to have financing background to deal with financial issues, working in community college setting experience.
Student support in academic area is an area that to know what the role of support services and academic, lot of funding is grant funding, lots of precarious grants now, understanding grants and how grants work, reality that our funds are diminishing a little bit every year. Goal was to have 100 FT faculty, we literally with our grants have to count hours for staff.
Have to have strong record working with different unions and be able to talk about that.
What personal strengths will this person have, in order to be successful at NECC and help us continue to grow and improve student success.
Empathy needs someone with strong sense of empathy not just for the work but staff and students and everything that gets done. Good strong listening skillsListening and hearing two different things. Person needs to have both, strong sense of what a team is all about, decision making part, not just we are all involved in it when really we weren’t honestly, trulely a group effort, however ones that can be is heard and used not just yeah I am listening but this is what is what I am going to do.
Democratic leadership style and transparency in decision making if stakeholders are high you have to have that.
When I make decision are they getting supported.
Boo-Communication is important strength. Lot of planning but we never know what is next.
Humble person, someone who is willing to say I don’t know this area very well but willing to learn and spend time to know us, esp first advanced registration week.
Someone in the trenche.
Someones who will be present locally and regionally, Merrimack Valley need someone who is here and present, someone in state systems, gone thru Leadership Academy.
Lot of good people in the Mass system.
Growing your own – Leadership Academy growing your own was the whole idea. Try to grow from within. Mass politics is different from other places in the country.

Open questions:

Somone who is visible on campus not afraid to be known in a positive way as a way of caring and engaging faculty and staff.
Strong background in conflict resolution and be able to use it always going to be a need for that
Someone who can work well with Lane and MEA
Students are going to be more online and on phone we need to think where we are going, diversity will be greater even in age, people returning, AA VP should have a good handle on diversity issues, look at Degree Works and technology where the future is going is really key.
We still need face to face.
More alternative communication rather than face to face, skype, texting.
NEXt AAVP being able to be in control of AA and being able to free up Lane.
Someone who is genuine who attends events, actually show up and be present. Symbolic high visibility.
Phd or edd at the start of the job.
You cannot be effective if you don’t have these qualities, you will be floating, sounds idealistic but critical for the position. Personality and interviews need to match up.
A fit is something we really look at, we fine people we like but may not be a fit.
Will any of what we say go back and look at posting and possibly edit it.

Search for New VP of Academic Affairs Meeting Minutes

Lawrence Campus, Room244

Tuesday, February 15th 3:00-4:00 PM

Meeting open to all NECC Faculty and Staff.

Attended: Judith Kamber, Mary Ellen Ashley, NiurkaAybar, Trish Butler (note-taker)

(Est.)Projected Timeline for Hiring Process:

Search committee put together
a posting by February 25th
Screening by mid-March
Interviews by April
College meeting finalists
A recommendation to the Board by May 4th or June 1st (the latest)
(Optimistically) new VP begins in July

Comments

Estimate might be too fast. May need to post for at least a month so both screenings and interviews may happen in April. Maybe unrealistic to expect the person to begin in July (may need more time, especially if out of state, need to move family etc).

During the next 1-5 years, what are some of the most important leadership/collaborationopportunities and challenges for the next Academic Vice President at NECC?

The staffing and budgeting for the new Allied Health Building opening in Lawrence in 2013.
This person would need to get on board (and very quickly) with all that is going on simultaneously within the college: Lawrence Riverwalk, new Allied Health Building, Princeton Review project (they’ll be beyond the pilots at that point).
Person will need to maintain, nurture connections with the Lawrence Community. Being very community-oriented is a must.
Leadership, financial entrepreneurship needed to fund what’s needed in Academic Affairs. Someone with experience in doing exactly this – versus merely experience with the standard (waiting for state support). Innovative entrepreneurship is needed.
More communication and integration among all the campuses is needed.
Deans – leadership succession will have to be handled (some deans retiring and/or moving on).

What professional qualifications (education, experience, etc.) do you think are mostimportant?

Strong managerial and entrepreneurial experience. Need to view Higher Education as a business (with all the challenges with funding). Experience and knowledge in this area is very important.
A “people-person” able to manage different personalities, backgrounds, education.
Strong organizational skills
Ph.D. requirement or its equivalent
At least 5-10 years of community college experience:
ideally experience in more than 1 college and preferably in different states – proof of their ability to adjust to different experiences and think outside the box.
A teaching background important, although exclusive and/or long-term teaching experience is not necessary.
Consulting experience with the ability to get a quick picture of a place and come up with a plan.
With both a new president and a (eventually) a new CFO this person will need to understand what a Vice President position entails. A “quick-study” capable of hitting the floor running. Someone who does not need a lot of mentoring and capable of supporting Lane in his new role as President.

What personal strengths will this person have, in order to be successful at NECC and help us continue to grow and improve student success?

Open to change and with a positive outlook (as there will be many challenges with all of the changes going on)
A very collaborative person, a team builder, team “meet-er”!
Someone with a great deal of integrity, able to reflect NECC values
With both a new president and a (eventually) a new CFO this person will need to understand what a Vice President position entails. A “quick-study” capable of hitting the floor running. Someone who does not need a lot of mentoring and capable of supporting Lane in his new role as President.
With changing demographics in the area (and country) - a woman and/or (particularly) someone from a minority group. Diversity at a high level!

Additional thoughts:

Someone who understands Appreciative Inquiry and a strengths-based approach to planning, change.
Being Bilingual would be an excellent asset, especially for community interaction.
Someone familiar with Learning Outcomes, General Education, Core Academic skills assessment - areas NEASC has highlighted consistently in reports. Note 5-year Interim report will be coming up.
Someone who can adapt to the rapid increase in technology being integrated into the classroom and the development of online degrees.
What college are they coming from? (preferably NOT solely from a very traditional liberal arts college)

Suggestions on getting additional feedback on the process

People can email Maggie Lucey their thoughts.
Meeting notes could be sent to faculty as a way to encourage additional input from them (what’s missing? what hasn’t been addressed?).