Spotlight on Community College Leaders:                                                             Richmond Community College Trustee Claudia Robinette

By Ashley Blizzard, NCACCP/NCACCT Communication Coordinator & Events Manager

A Richmond Community College (RCC) trustee since 1998, Claudia Robinette’s appreciation for the community colleges began when she saw how her mother’s job as a basic skills instructor at RCC improved the lives of students—both financially and professionally. In spite of her being aware of how community colleges could change lives for individuals, after becoming a trustee, she was surprised to learn the extent to which community colleges impact local communities. She realized that if it were not for the community colleges, a large group of people would not be educated or have the job skills necessary to provide for their families.

Robinette is extremely proud of the leadership and staff at RCC. She is impressed at how RCC attracts such quality people to teach and to be a part of RCC’s staff, stating that some even travel as far as two hours to get to work. She values the college’s ability to adjust to situations like the pandemic in order to produce the best results for the school’s students and community.

Her admiration for community college students seems to be similar to the pride she has for the RCC leadership and staff. When asked who she most admires, she said she had thought about that for a while and always came back to this response: “Every time I go to the community college and see the students who are working—many of whom have families—and are still going to the community college and trying to do something good for their families, they are who I most admire.” Robinette admits she does not know that she would be able to do that herself; it takes a lot of commitment.

At RCC, Robinette would like to see the college add more training space for students. “It’s important to look for things that are on the horizon that can keep the college, community and students moving with the times,” she says. She believes we need to be adaptable to the job market and ready for whatever the future holds in order for people to find better and higher-paying jobs. She also believes it is key to work and partner with private enterprise to create programs for training potential employees in shorter periods of time like community colleges can. “Companies realize that about community colleges,” says Robinette, which in turn, helps our economic development. She says that quick training benefits employees, employers and the community.

Robinette also praises the community colleges’ abilities to culturally enrich communities and to improve peoples’ qualities of life, citing events held at RCC’s Cole Auditorium. The college is an “identity for a community. It’s not just a school; it’s a source of pride for everyone,” says Robinette.

Like many of her fellow NCACCT executive board members, Robinette believes enrollment and funding are two of the biggest challenges for community colleges right now. When asked about advice she would give to newly appointed trustees, she first said to become educated on the community college system as much as possible and to be involved with the North Carolina Association of Community College Trustees. She also said, “Attend the conferences, read the literature, and keep up to speed with what’s going on in the community colleges. You have an obligation to be involved and to support the local community college by attending things like graduations and other functions. It means a lot to staff and students.” Additionally, Robinette reminds trustees to realize the role of a trustee and the role of the president. “Don’t be a micromanager,” says Robinette.

Robinette and her husband of 36 years, Kenneth, own C.F. Smith Property Group, a commercial real estate firm with properties primarily throughout the Carolinas. Her family is what she is most proud of in life. The Robinettes have an adult son, Neil, who lives in Pinehurst with his wife, Catherine, and their two children, Claudia and Beverly. The Robinettes’ daughter, Gabrielle Goodwin, lives in Waxhaw with her husband, Matt, and their two children, Madelyn and Grey.

In her free time, Robinette enjoys traveling, reading, walking at the mountains and the beach (her two favorite places to relax) and spending time with family and friends. Since Robinette enjoys traveling, she says she would really like to visit some of her family’s ancestors in Scotland and Ireland and see where they lived. Additionally, although she has visited many of the 50 states in the United States, she would like to visit them all. Finally on her bucket list, she says she wants to learn how to ride a horse so she can do that with her family and not be awkward like when she tried to do some trail riding recently in Blowing Rock!

A couple of interesting facts about Robinette include that she lived in Colombia, South America for about a year and a half after enjoying living there while interning with a pharmaceutical company. She returned to Colombia after her internship and taught English at a learning center. The other interesting item to note about Robinette is that she flew a plane at the age of 15. Her father flew a plane, so Robinette also wanted to learn to fly. She took flying lessons and soloed before she was ever able to drive a car! However, her interest in flying waned when a cross wind came up during a landing one day. She said she would not do it now again for anything!

When questioned about the best advice she has ever received, Robinette had a few she wanted to share. First she said her father always said, “Give me the bad news because the good news will never hurt you.” He also said, “The best money earned is the money that you save.” Finally, Robinette’s own personal advice: Always read the instructions before you start doing something.

Finally, Robinette wanted to share that she believes that our future is definitely going to be dependent upon our community colleges, especially now. “People don’t have to have a four-year degree to necessarily be successful,” she says. “I think the stigma is gradually going away.” Robinette is also on the board at Wingate University, so she sees higher education from both the community college and the university perspectives. She says the agreements between the community colleges for students to transfer to universities helps make the higher education process seamless. The possibilities for students are “exciting,” says Robinette.

An Evaluation of Boards of Trustees—During and After the Pandemic

By Dr. Joseph Barwick and Dr. Michael Taylor – Executive Leadership Associates, LLP

In its almost 60-year history, the North Carolina Community College System has faced some significant challenges beyond the normal ups and downs associated with enrollments and budgets. For example, in 1990, Operation Desert Storm took many of its military students out of the classroom. Hurricanes that play havoc with the coast almost every fall have also disrupted the schedules of community colleges over the years, including Hugo in 1989 and Florence in 2018. The great recession of 2008-2009 saw budgets cut and enrollments spike.

Yet it is safe to say nothing has impacted the entire system, or the entire world for that matter, as COVID-19. When Governor Roy Cooper announced on March 14, 2020, that North Carolina public schools were closing, it was obvious community colleges would soon follow. Just four days later, then system’s president Peter Hans made it official: almost all instruction would move online.

A system that prides itself on being able to nimbly deliver education quickly to individuals, business, and industry had to totally change directions. It goes without saying, nobody had a Global Pandemic Emergency Plan in the files. For a system with 58 colleges serving approximately 700,000 students, March 2020 created a whole new ball game.

A significant portion of community college instruction was already online prior to campuses closing, but almost of all of those students were taking online instruction by choice. By necessity, online instruction became not a choice, but a requirement to stay enrolled.

As the role of the student changed dramatically, so did the role of the community college trustee. Most trustee orientations do not include a seminar on how to support a college president during a global pandemic. Additionally, it is likely that at the start of the pandemic, many trustees were not familiar with virtual meetings.

However, the broad role of the trustee remains the same: to hire and support a president; and to serve both a fiduciary and a policy-making function at the college. But during this pandemic, that role has become more challenging. Some examples of issues trustees have had to address are further explained below.

–The board has always had a responsibility for the fiscal well-being of the institution. This past year, the trustees also assumed a responsibility for the physical well-being of students, faculty, and staff at the college.

–A trustee board should always work as a unit. Trustees’ power is collective in nature, not vested in individual trustees. Under the new “rules of engagement,” meetings became virtual.  Board unity was more important than ever, but also more difficult to achieve.

–The role of hiring and evaluating a president became more difficult. During the hiring process, Zoom interviews sometimes took the place of in-person conversations and campus visits.  Evaluating the college chief executive also depends on interpersonal interaction with the president, but that too became problematic.

–North Carolina Session Law 115D, which governs community colleges, including how trustees are appointed, stipulates in section 12(b) that trustees must reside in the administrative area of the college. Clearly, the intent is that Boards of Trustees not only represent the college in the community it serves, but they also have a duty to bring the community’s needs, challenges and opportunities to the college. Trustees are required to approve ALL new programs as an assurance that college programming addresses only the needs of the community it serves. Now is a good time for Boards to do a serious self-assessment as to how well they maintained that link between college and community during this disruption. For example, did the Board exchange pandemic information shared by the governor and department of public health that changed daily? Did the Board share information in terms of how these mandates would impact the college and ways the college might respond as a community resource?

–Our system was designed to allow the local college to address local needs. As the pandemic progressed, community colleges responded with different approaches designed by the local president and implemented by the staff. Was the Board in agreement that the local approach was the best for the community within the resources available? Was the Board listening to the local business community in order to support the president as the college had to rethink and revamp how it delivered workforce training, small business support, and even programs preparing essential workers, such as nurses, EMTs and CNAs? Is the Board knowledgeable enough to legislatively advocate for the college so the college is held harmless for the impact on enrollment? Regardless of whether Boards “meet” monthly or quarterly, Board connection with both their college and the community is constant. There has never been a better time for Boards to take that “big picture” look at how strong and effective that link is now.

–As normal systems of instructional delivery changed, ensuring the college had a plan to monitor institutional effectiveness became even more important this past year. Do trustees know how this massive shift from in-person, in-class instruction to mostly online instruction impacted the effectiveness of their college?

Hopefully, the pandemic is grinding to a laborious demise. However, the college and the community it serves now have to start picking up the pieces. This means accelerated workforce training and preparing the campuses for what is hopefully, an influx of students. Remember, students have been working in isolation and juggling family and personal responsibilities in preeminent ways. An essential question to ask now is: How did we do as a Board? That question leads to the next big question: Where do we go from here?

Part of a trustees’ responsibility is to be a visionary for their college. If ever there was a time to be that visionary, it is now.

Dr. Joseph Barwick and Dr. Michael Taylor are two of the partners in Executive Leadership Associates, LLP, and former NC community college presidents (Carteret CC and Stanly CC respectively).  Dr. Barwick was also interim president at A-B Tech when the pandemic hit.  Visit www.executiveleaders.net to learn more.

Registration is now open for the VIRTUAL 2021 NCACCT Law/Legislative Seminar.  The seminar will be held online on Friday, April 23

Click here for more information.

Spotlight on Community College Leaders:                                                              Piedmont Community College Trustee James Woody

By Ashley Blizzard, NCACCP/NCACCT Communication Coordinator & Events Manager

James Woody, trustee at Piedmont Community College (PCC), has simple, but sound advice for new trustees: 1) Get to know your fellow board members; 2) Work together for what is best for the students; 3) Support the college by participating in school and foundation-sponsored events; and 4) Be involved in the community.

Woody has been a trustee for five years and has been on PCC’s foundation board for 30 years. His interest in community colleges began when he became an adjunct professor for Durham Technical Community College in the 60s; he taught blueprint reading in the evenings. At that same time, he was teaching drafting and basic electricity in the public school system. However, he later left the teaching profession and moved into the construction business.

The dedicated professors at the community colleges have been an inspiration to Woody. He says he appreciates seeing “people give so much of their lives to their local schools.”

Concerns Woody has right now for the North Carolina Community Colleges are the need for salary increases for our instructors and staff and being able to continue to offer first-class programs with limited face-to-face contact due to Covid-19. He stated there are certain areas of instruction that need practical, face-to-face experience like nursing, welding and construction; those are difficult to do online.

The community college is important to Woody because of Dallas Herring’s statement about how we “take people from where they are to where they want to go.” Woody states that community colleges offer a wide range of educational opportunities—from obtaining GEDs to associate’s degrees to moving onto universities. “Today’s time is different from so many years ago,” says Woody. “A person needs more than just a high school education. You can’t do it unless you have the training and education. We are here to offer them those services,” says Woody.

Woody is most proud of how his community respects PCC and the fact that PCC is so adaptable. “People in the two counties we serve realize they have a gem in this school,” says Woody. He is also proud of how quickly the college adapts to changing needs. When a new industry comes into the area, he appreciates how the college finds out what type of education that industry requires and then has the people who can serve those educational needs. He says PCC’s ability to adjust to shifting demands is “exemplary,” especially during the pandemic.

Two advancements Woody would like to see at PCC are first, an increase in salary for their employees. Second, he stated that as a low-income area with limited access to funds, his school has a difficult time raising money to build new buildings or to even maintain existing facilities. He would like for that to change.

When he is not participating in school or community activities, Mr. Woody may be found at home working in his yard or tinkering with his (rather large) model train. (It is approximately 26 feet wide by 18 feet long.) He and his wife also enjoy spending time at their condominium in North Myrtle Beach. As president of the Homeowners’ Association there, he utilizes his construction background to assist with some of the construction the condominiums are going through now.

A time in his life he would love to repeat was when he was on the State Board and was selected to be a part of a study group that was studying the government-run community college system in Thailand. Woody said he enjoyed traveling the country, observing the people and wildlife, observing the different cultures, and getting involved with local trustees and elected officials. He described the experience as “awe-inspiring.”

As for a bucket list, Woody says his bucket his full. However, he still enjoys traveling and appreciates he was able to do that during his time working for Chandler Concrete Company.

You may be surprised to learn a few things about Woody. First, he was born and raised in a funeral home. His father was the funeral home director, and the family lived upstairs over the business. In those days, most births occurred at home. Second, Woody officially did not graduate from college (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) until he was in his early 70s. Knowing he had almost completed his requirements to graduate at UNC-CH, his wife encouraged him to finish. He completed the requirements and received his Bachelor of Arts in Geography in the mail. (However, his major was in Geology—not Geography.) UNC corrected the mistake, and Woody returned the Geography diploma. Woody jokes he should have kept it so he could claim he had earned two diplomas from Chapel Hill.

Woody is proud of his family, school and church. He and his wife, Darcus, have two adopted children, Deanne (husband, Rob and granddaughter, Hayleigh) and James III (wife, Heather and grandson, Campbell). The best advice he has ever received: “Be yourself. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”

Spotlight on Community College Leaders:                                                                Surry Community College Trustee Gene Rees

By Ashley Blizzard, NCACCP/NCACCT Communication Coordinator & Events Manager

“Having a successful and vibrant community college…[is] one of the required building blocks for a county to move forward, just like a hospital, public schools, [a] healthy downtown, livability and amenities,” says Gene Rees, a 15-year trustee at Surry Community College (SCC). Following in his father’s footsteps, at least when it comes to community college involvement, Rees says his father had also served as a trustee at Surry from its earliest days. Similarly, both Gene and his father had close personal and professional relationships with college leadership, which helped build a special affection and love for Surry Community College and the work it does.

Rees is a second-generation clothing store owner, has an industrial uniform laundry business and is involved in historic preservation redevelopment. He says he looks at community colleges through the eyes of a business owner. According to Rees, SCC’s efforts to produce well-trained, successful professionals has paid off, which Rees knows first-hand after having hired at least a dozen SCC accounting majors over the years. Most all of those he hired went on to get their CPA or other, more-advanced training. Rees says other employers could say the same for jobs in nursing, mechatronics, welding, viticulture/enology, etc. Surry Community College produces well-trained graduates and certificate holders. “Our businesses would not survive or would have to relocate without the SCC employee-training pipeline,” said Rees.

As an SCC trustee, Rees has been impressed how a board of 15 trustees, each with very different life experiences and skill sets, as well as different political persuasions, can work together as one.  “It’s what makes a great board and a great college,” says Rees, which is something he feels they have at Surry Community College. He went on to say, “We all understand that our role as trustee requires a single-minded focus on what is best for the students, and we each try to bring our individual skills to help in that regard.”

Rees is clearly appreciative of the SCC faculty and staff. He is very proud of their president, Dr. David Shockley, and his entire leadership team, and like so many of his fellow NCACCT Executive Board members have said, he is equally proud of the groundskeepers and the facilities, food service and security staff. “These folks are unheralded,” he said, “but they make Surry Community look good and enticing for prospective students every day of the year. They are the unsung heroes at our school.”

Rees wants SCC to continue to reach more people and to be included in every dinner table discussion about improving one’s personal or professional life. To a large degree, he believes this narrative will determine Surry Community Colleges’ future success and growth, as well as the economic growth of the community. Rees jokes that he still has chats with Dr. Shockley that they need a campus in Mount Airy, which is where most of the county’s residents live but is geographically located in the corner of the county. Logistically, he says it is challenging to operate multiple locations, but the question remains, as it does at numerous North Carolina community colleges: How do we make the college most convenient for most of our population?

His advice to new trustees is this: Attend as many state and national meetings and seminars as you can, and listen a lot during the first few meetings. He says it is important to “place great value” on board dynamics, to respect fellow trustees, and to be cordial and respectful to your college president and staff. A sense of humor is important, as well as “bringing in a big dose of trustee humility to each meeting,” he says. Lastly, Rees says, “Remember that board dysfunction equals college dysfunction.”

During the pandemic, Rees wants to remind new trustees that once meetings are in person, being a trustee will be a lot more fun. “We have all done the Zoom and phone meetings, and they are a poor substitute for the face-to-face meetings, but we have to do them,” he says. But he says to be patient until the in-person meetings begin again. Rees is thankful that SCC’s board recently had its first in-person meeting in the school’s huge viticulture center. The trustees across from him looked really small because they were about 70 feet away, but Rees said it was great to be able to at least see each other in person.

Two challenges Rees believes NC community colleges have to contend with right now are relevance and preservation of the smallest community colleges in our most rural counties. On the subject of relevance, Rees asked several questions concerning continuing education like, “How can we design a certificate or degree program that perfectly overlays job opportunities in our community? Are our classes tailored well enough for out-of-the-gate student success in the job market? Do we supplement con-ed programs with necessary soft skills with things like how to interview, punctuality, workplace professionalism, customer/client/patient focus?” Academically, Rees stated that even with the articulation agreements in place between the community college and university systems, our academic rigor must equal or exceed the four-year schools. “We know our transfer students hold a higher GPA and have a higher graduation rate than the conventional university students, but the community college stigma will only go away when our academic rigor is widely perceived to equal that of the university system,” he says. Additionally, he says community colleges cannot just be less expensive; they must be on academic parity with the university system.

Regarding preserving the smallest community colleges in our most rural counties, Rees notes that it is a well-known fact our state has numerous small colleges in which the full-time equivalent (FTE) is costly, and some would say, inefficient. From a statewide or systemwide point of view, some think it makes economic sense to consolidate some of the smallest schools to larger, neighboring schools. However, Rees says the economic viability of these small towns is inextricably linked to the presence of a healthy community college. As he puts it, these small-town community colleges are an “economic lifeline to our smallest communities.” This is a matter that Rees believes needs thoughtful study and consideration.

Outside of work and his community college involvement, Rees likes to play at charity golf tournaments a few times a year. He says he grew up near a golf course and was relatively good at it until he was about 12 years old, at which point he “continued to get worse” until he all but gave it up around the age of 35. Additionally, until a couple of years ago, he was a very active distance runner. However, a knee injury shifted his running to biking around the mountains near Mount Airy. Rees also has an affinity for snow skiing. “Every vacation is the best vacation,” he says. However, the best part of a vacation for him is when he gets to walk up a snow-covered, knife-edge ridge at 13,000 feet or so on a clear day, strapping on his skis and heading down untouched snow. He also says that while he has seen many beautiful places all over the world, he never tires of driving along the New River in Alleghany County, especially in the fall.

Rees says he really does not have a bucket list. After some health issues a few years ago, he said he contemplated one. However, he realized he wanted to do what he had been doing up until that point in his life, which was working hard, making new friends and making a difference in their little community. Rees says he is pretty content.

There are two things of which Rees is truly proud. The first is his wife, to whom he has been married for 20 years. The second is his historic preservation redevelopment work, particularly in Mount Airy. He is proud to have been able to play a small role in the economic vitality of Mount Airy for the next generation.

A few things you may be surprised to learn about Rees are: 1) If you happen to be shorter than him, you wouldn’t know that he is “pretty bald on top.” 2) His wife has eight cats, and 3) He’s never taken a single puff from a cigarette.

Finally, when asked what the best advice he has ever received was, Rees said, “Understand the concept of compound interest at a very young age.” Prudent advice from a great businessman.

To Vote or Not to Vote . . . In Open Session

By: Q. Shanté Martin, Of Counsel

After years of representing and advising various public boards, including the State Board of Community Colleges and local community college boards of trustees, I have repeatedly witnessed a very common mistake – voting on a closed session topic in open session when it’s not required or when it’s a violation of another law.  The common mantra is, “All votes must take place in open session,” but there are only two scenarios where the Open Meetings Law requires local community college boards of trustees to vote in open session.

Open Session Voting Not Required

Of the exclusive statutory list of ten reasons local community college boards of trustees are permitted to go into closed session, only two of those ten statutes require voting in open session:

1. Economic Development: S. 143-318.11(a)(4) provides that “Any action approving the signing of an economic development contract or commitment, or the action authorizing the payment of economic development expenditures, shall be taken in open session.”

2. Appointments, Discharge, or Removal: S. 143-318.11(a)(6) provides that “Final action making an appointment or discharge or removal by a public body having final authority for the appointment or discharge or removal shall be taken in an open meeting.”

Since only G.S. 143-318.11(a)(4) and (a)(6) require public bodies to vote in open session, unless a local community college board is voting on an economic development related issue or voting on an appointment, discharge, or removal of an employee if it’s the final action, then nothing requires the board to vote on that closed session item in open session.  Additionally, G.S. 143-318.11(a)(3) explicitly authorizes a public body to vote to approve a settlement in closed session thereby invalidating the idea that “All votes must take place in open session.”

Closed Session Voting Possibly Required

Community college boards may want to vote on some matters in closed session.

Election of Community College Presidents:

G.S. 143-318.11(a)(6) provides that, “Final action making an appointment or discharge or removal by a public body having final authority . . . shall be taken in an open meeting.”  This means that actions that are not final and actions that are not taken by the final authority are not required to be voted on in open session.  For example, per G.S. 115D-20(1), local community college boards of trustees have the authority to “elect a president . . . of the institution” “subject to the approval of the State Board of Community Colleges.”  As such, a community college board of trustees’ election of a community college president is not the final action, and the community college board is not the “public body having final authority” to hire a community college president.  Thus, local community college boards are permitted to vote on that election in closed session.  While there may be reasons why a local community college board may want to vote on the election of a new president in open session, I just want to make clear that the Open Meetings Law does not require local community college boards to vote on the election of a community college president in open session.

Community College Committee Actions:

Also, board committees often err by voting on a closed session topic in open session.  For example, after closed session discussion, the personnel committee may vote to recommend a personnel hire in open session because of the belief that all votes must take place in open session.  However, board committees are not the “final authority” making the “final action” to hire an employee, so board committees are not required to vote on personnel recommendations in open session.  In fact, committees should refrain from voting on personnel recommendations in open session because that would violate G.S. 115D-27 and G.S. 115D-29 which makes information related to an individual’s application for employment confidential personnel file information.  Given the confidentiality of the applicant’s status at the time the committee makes its recommendation to the board, the committee should vote on the recommendation in closed session to protect confidentiality.

Conclusion

Local community college boards of trustees should dispel the idea that all votes must take place in open session because there are only two instances where local community college boards of trustees are required to vote in open session.  For questions related to voting in closed session, I encourage boards to consult with legal counsel to refrain from violating other laws in an effort to comply with the Open Meetings Law.

**********************************************************************************************

Q. Shanté Martin is an attorney with Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog LLP, a North Carolina-based law firm and NCACCT Business Partner.   Founded in 1992, CSH Law advises and represents clients in all stages of litigation before federal and state courts in North Carolina, as well as select administrative agencies.  For more information please visit: www.cshlaw.com