Mr. Chairman; members of the committee; ladies and gentlemen: good afternoon.

I frequently remind people that our community colleges have had no better partner in its 46-year history than the General Assembly.

We are grateful for that as well as today’s opportunity to discuss how we can leverage that partnership and the introduced budget to meet a goal that we all share: helping more Virginians earn a college credential.

You know, when Governor McDonnell signed the T-J-21 bill into law last year, he said it was creating 6,000 new slots for Virginia college students. And he said 4,000 of those were at Virginia’s Community Colleges.

While that is a small anecdote, it is a telling one – emblematic of the role our community colleges must play if Virginia is to succeed.

You can also see that what our community colleges accomplish:

• In the four years leading up to last May, your community colleges were responsible for nearly one out of every three college degrees awarded by a Virginia public institution;

• Last year, Virginia’s Community College graduates accounted more than one-third of all the science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees earned at Virginia’s public higher ed institutions; and

• Your community colleges leveraged the $3 million investment you made last year in Workforce Development instruction into job training for 75,000 Virginians and service for 8,000 Virginia employers.

We maintain a public pledge to keep our tuition and fees at less than half of the same charges at Virginia’s public universities. We’re currently just over one-third. Given that, and the results I just mentioned, it’s easy to see how we are helping a lot of people get ahead while saving them – and taxpayers – a lot of money along the way.

Similarly, Senator Hanger has introduced legislation that would make it easier for middle-income families to benefit from the state’s Two Year College Transfer Grant program. We support that legislation and believe it could help hundreds of families every year.

INTRODUCED BUDGET
In general, we are supportive of the introduced budget and grateful for the priority it places on higher education in general and community colleges in particular.

To date, the introduced budget has earned formal resolutions of support from the State Board for Community Colleges as well as the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education – two esteemed panels that include some of Virginia’s most respected community-focused business and industry leaders.

The introduced budget continues moving our partnership in the right direction following some dire years of public funding.

In the four-year period that began in 2008, Virginia’s Community Colleges lost $95 million dollars in General Fund support. At the same time, we enrolled 50,000 additional students.

To offer a broader perspective, Mr. Chairman, since the fall of 2007, Virginia’s Community Colleges have accounted for 69% of the undergraduate enrollment growth at Virginia’s public colleges and universities.

We are proud of that record.

Our colleges were created in a spirit of innovation to address Virginia’s unmet higher educational and workforce needs.

When the chips are down, families use our community colleges as their personal economic recovery plan.

Even in the most challenging times, we are there for them.

Virginia’s Community Colleges are in the second year of an innovative reengineering initiative that is exploring everything we do and asking how can we do it better?

That honest, open process is earning attention across the Commonwealth and across the country. And it is one more reminder of that innovative spirit that gave rise to our colleges.

MOVING FORWARD
In that spirit, Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer just a few thoughts about priorities that support the goal of an additional 100,000 college graduates but are not in the introduced budget:

Capital Outlay remains a challenge for our institutions and the four-year universities, especially as they ramp-up our offerings in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and healthcare.

Across Virginia, we are serving students at our community colleges in buildings that are 40 to 45 years old but were built with a life expectancy of only 25 to 30 years.

Nor were those campuses built with 21st century community college students in mind.

Increasingly, our student enrollments are younger and much more likely to attend full-time – remaining on campus from eight or nine in the morning until five in the evening. They are expecting things we just can’t offer right now, like someplace to study between classes other than the inside of their car.

Virginia’s Community College struggle with finding the right balance of full-time and part-time faculty members.

Over the past decade or so, while balancing funding challenges with the need to remain affordable, we have backed-into a place where the majority of our instructors are part-time employees.

I don’t question the quality of instruction those people bring to the table.  We need more full-time faculty members, however. Our work to improve student retention and student success depends on people who spend their entire day on-campus. We cannot count on that from our adjunct instructors who owe most of their time and attention to their other, primary job.

I must also mention our faculty and staff salaries, which, as you know, have remained stagnant for more than four years now.

As I previously mentioned, we have added more than 50,000 students over the last four years while losing $95 million in General Fund support. The resources simply have not existed to ramp-up our faculty and staff in the same dramatic fashion that our enrollment has.

Forgive the cliché, but in very tangible ways, our people have been doing a lot more with less.

I would hope that the time is drawing near that we can honor that work with even just a modest cost of living salary adjustment.

And finally, Mr. Chairman, I believe a state investment in the VCCS Career Coach program would payoff in our shared pursuit of more college graduates.

Career Coaches are community college employees, who work in high schools with students, helping them carve out customized career and college plans – a task that even guidance counselors will tell you that they lack the time to do. With your help, we could continue expanding this proven and effective strategy to every high school, influencing more and more young people whose vocabulary doesn’t even include the word, “College.”

CLOSING
You know, the first year we opened for business, we served 7,500 students at two colleges.

This year, when you add together our academic and workforce development efforts, we will be serving more than 400,000 Virginians.

We could not have that kind of impact on Virginia without the partnership that we share with you. Thank you. We are grateful for that.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Gov. Bob McDonnell stated that with more than 260,000 Virginians out of a work, job creation must become a top priority.

“The more we can do at the state level to put in place measures that help private sector job creators, rather than hinder their ability to start or grow, the better off Virginia will be in the future.”

Workforce development makes noncredit and occupational courses available at community colleges. The goal is to make the college a place for where employees can develop tangible, cutting edge skills—that will allow them to do their job better.

A video of the announcement in its entirety can be found here

Posted by Katherine Coates

“I have taken care to focus the Commonwealth’s government back to core services and to align existing agencies, boards, and commissions with related missions, all with as little impact to state employees as possible. In the coming months, I look forward to advocating for these reforms before the General Assembly and, ultimately, to implementing them during my term in office.”

Although none of the mergers will affect The Virginia Community College System directly, they will alter the current structure of the Department of Correctional Education and the Department of Rehabilitative Services. Both agencies work frequently in partnership with our Workforce Development Services.

McDonnell’s plan in its entirety can be viewed here.

Posted by Katherine Coates

With Tidewater Community College as the coordinating college, a consortium of all 23 Virginia Community Colleges received the second-highest grant amount of $24.1 million and what may be the biggest single competitive grant award for community colleges in Virginia.

Virginia’s project will be targeted to strategies that will help realize the goals of the Achieve 2015 strategic plan to increase the numbers of students graduating, transferring or completing a workforce credential. The project includes partnering with employers and working with the Workforce Investment Boards across the state.

Specific targets of Virginia’s projects include:

• Creating a new network of adult career coaches at one-stops and community colleges throughout Virginia that will follow students through their programs all the way to job acquisition;
• A new Health Sciences Career Studies Certificate that will demonstrate integrating strategies;
• Completing redesign of developmental education curriculums, including provision for significant faculty professional development;
• Expanding information on Virginia Education Wizard for course planning, including more noncredit workforce offerings; and
• Implementing an automated early advising warning system promoting “active outreach” to students at all colleges.

The grants come through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant program and are a successor to the American Graduation Initiative. For an look at the national picture, see today’s Inside Higher Education about the competitive nature of the funds.

The Department of Labor also has a news release that shows state by state disbursements.

This three-year award will help Virginia’s Community Colleges train adults for good paying jobs and play a significant role in reengineering efforts.

And it’s no small boost for Achieve 2015′s Resources goal  – to bring in $550 million in outside funds by 2015 –  as well.

The article quotes Chancellor DuBois as warning of his “perfect storm” as he initiated the reengineering process to allow the system to “become smarter in how it invested in people, talent and technology, as well as do a better job of taking advantage of its size and resources.” 

With a national price tag of $2 billion, remedial education is a key area for reform. ”We’ve thrown out the assumption that all students need the same math curriculum,” the Chronicle quotes DuBois.

A new module approach is already being piloted at Northern Virginia Community College, with students and teachers discussing the benefits in the Chronicle story. The focus is on preparing students quickly for college level courses by concentrating on areas where they need the most help. The cycle of spending too long in preparatory courses before ever getting college credit is broken.

“While other community colleges have taken a similar approach to revamping developmental education, none have attempted to do it at the speed and scale of the Virginia system. The new curriculum will be adopted simultaneously at all of its 23 colleges,” the Chronicle article says.

As Michael Lawrence Collins, associate vice president of Jobs for the Future, says in the article:

There is a risk….But there is also power in being that bold.

Reengineering in developmental education was not the only topic to get some national press this week.

Workforce efforts were highlighted in CNN Money, with NVCC President Robert G. Templin talking about close collaboration between the college and the corporate world in health education.

That article also quotes Anthony Carnevale, an upcoming speaker at the Chancellor’s Annual Planning Retreat:

“Employers are turning to community colleges because those lining up at the door aren’t qualified,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “The skills requirement has gone up and employers don’t train entry-level workers anymore.”

Working more closely with community colleges benefits local industry, Templin said:

“They are helping to grow the future workforce they know they’ll need,” Templin said. “It’s a bottom-line business issue. They won’t be competitive if they don’t have the workers.”

posted by Susan Hayden

A single mother who had lost her job to company downsizing, she expressed her gratitude for the financial and educational assistance she had received from the local center. A high-achieving student at Danville Community College, Moore was among several individuals to give their testimony of the value the One Stop offered to them. Michael Duncan, General Manager at EIT South, LLC shared with visitors the success he has had working with the One Stop to identify and train a workforce in the skills that his company needed.

Their testimonies were part of an event, organized by the Danville One Stop and the Virginia Workforce Council, to spread awareness of how workforce development partners work together to identify and address needs in the community. Throughout the tour, Lucius Chandler, regional one stop systems oversight manager, demonstrated how various organizations such as the Virginia Employment Commission, Danville Community College, Department of Rehabilitative Services, Services for Seniors and Adult and Career Education were co-located at this One Stop to ensure a comprehensive and seamless delivery of services to customers.

Delegate Danny Marshall, a Virginia Workforce Council member, invited Delegate Merricks and Senator Stanley to join him in Tuesday’s event. Learn more about Virginia’s One Stop Centers and visit one in your area.

Posted by Lauren Von Herbulis 

“The Council is extremely pleased that Mr. Blake has agreed to return to SCHEV to direct the agency’s initiatives to help make Virginia’s colleges and universities affordable and accessible to all citizens,” said Council Chair Susan Magill, in a news release. The news was also published in the Times-Dispatch.

Taking on the responsibilities of interim vice chancellor for workforce development at the VCCS is Dr. Craig Herndon, who currently serves as Special Assistant to the Chancellor and provided significant leadership in the development of The Virginia Education Wizard.

Posted by Lauren Von Herbulis

“If we put this off, we are approaching financial Armageddon,” Warner said in an article published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today, noting that nothing is off the table in terms of spending cuts.  

Pairing this news with last week’s House of Representatives vote to eliminate $3.6 billion in Workforce Investment Act funding nationwide, workforce development professionals are paying close attention.

Last week, Senator Warner sat down with Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders, Martinsville Mayor and West Piedmont Workforce Investment Board Director, Kim Adkins and Laurie Moran, president of the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce and newly-elected president of the National Association of Workforce Boards to discuss how these cuts would affect workforce development in Virginia.

The Southside representatives asked tough questions about the House’s decision and shared the impact this cut would have on economic development, according to a blog article on Senator Warner’s website. 

“I support workforce development, and I value the work you perform, but our deficits and national debt have changed everything up here,” he said.

As the “Gang of Six” continue to fine tune their plan and incorporate their recommendations into a legislative package later this year, its clear that reform is on its way. What this means for workforce development professionals, Virginia’s workforce system and the individuals we serve is unclear. With a watchful eye on the commission’s progress, Virginia’s Community Colleges continue to deliver much-needed skill development, training and education to thousands of Virginians to build a better career and a better life.

Posted by Lauren Von Herbulis

• An additional $9.92 million from the general fund in FY 2012  to support the goals of the Governor’s Higher Education Commission of access, affordability, quality and increased degrees.  Of this amount, $5.4 million is included to improve the full-time faculty ratio by at least two percent, there is $2.65 million for operations and maintenance of new buildings and $1.87 million for base operating support.
• An additional $5.36 million in FY 2012 for student financial aid–a 20% increase.
• An additional $300,000 for two-year transfer grants for anticipated enrollment in the program.

The General Assembly also ratified and will be appropriating $3 million in FY 2012 for non-credit workforce funding.  This infusion of funding is based on recommendations from the Governor’s Commission on Economic Development and Jobs Creation.

Posted by Ellen Davenport

Diannia Belcher, PHCC

On February 9th, 2011 I had the chance to go to Richmond and visit the General Assembly, something you just don’t experience every day.

As a student of Patrick Henry Community College, the Virginia state legislators’ decisions for funding the Virginia Community College System has a lot to do with me. I felt it was very necessary for me to make a positive and personal appeal to each legislator for their support in continuing education for students of all ages, regardless of financial and background circumstances.

When I lost my job in textiles after 20 some years, I did not know what my next move was going to be. Textiles was all that I had ever done in my working career. I was sure that this was the job that I was going to retire from. I had raised two children, paid bills, and made a living from working in textiles since I was 19.

The state legislators were interested in the students and in what we had to say. As we each told our stories to these very busy lawmakers, their interest and sincerity was apparent. They care what happens to our education – to us – and they are fighting for the same things we went to Richmond to talk about.

Our concerns as students were their concerns as well, and they were both listening and hearing what we were saying to them. It showed me that we as students have a voice and that we are being listened to. It was an experience that I will always remember. To know that what I spoke about really made a difference to the possible future of our educational system:  PRICELESS.

Diannia Belcher
Patrick Henry Community College