Southwestern Community College
The Southwestern Community College Board agenda Feb. 14 included an action item to set a public hearing for review and approval of the college’s fiscal year 2024 budget. Southwestern President Dr. Marge McGuire-Welch asked the board to postpone the action item due to ongoing conversations at the state level regarding Senate File 181, which is related to tax valuations for the upcoming fiscal year. Board President Dr. Tony Cass agreed to postpone the item until the March board meeting.
The board then discussed the annual CEO evaluation. Cass said McGuire-Welch had asked for her evaluation to be moved to later in the year due to her start date being in the summer. Cass responded he would like to establish a committee of board members to determine the best way to proceed with the CEO evaluation. Following discussion, it was determined the committee will be Cass; Fred Shearer of Corning, vice president of the board; Zach Gunsolley of Diagonal; and Jerry Smith of Osceola.
Vice President of Instruction Lindsay Stoaks spoke to the board regarding a necessary informed consent conflict waiver related to the $1 million Career Academy Incentive Fund grant from the Iowa Department of Education for programming at the prospective GOLD (Ringgold) Center in Mount Ayr. During this process, college staff drafted a memorandum of understanding and requested the assistance of Ahlers & Cooney, PC, of Des Moines, in reviewing the memorandum.
Stoaks said prior to the review it was learned the five public school districts involved in the partnership; Bedford, Central Decatur, Diagonal, Mount Ayr and Lamoni and SWCC are all represented by Ahlers & Cooney. Stoaks said, “Because we are all clients of Ahlers & Cooney, we have to go through additional steps [before the MOU can be reviewed].” Following Stoaks’ explanation, the board approved the Informed Consent Conflict Waiver Form as presented. The process will continue with Ahlers & Cooney.
In personnel, the board approved the early retirement request of Jeanine Adkins, housekeeping. Adkins worked at the college for 16 years. Her last day at SWCC will be March 3.
Cass appointed Nichole Tucker, SWCC chief financial officer, as the board treasurer. Tucker began in the CFO position Jan. 17.
During the discussion of the monitoring process, Smith asked about the allocation of COVID funds and whether SWCC still had COVID funds available. McGuire-Welch said each year the college is seeing less and less of these funds.
Cass asked about the facility planning meeting held on campus with architects from INVISION Architecture, as mentioned in the monitoring report. McGuire-Welch said these were the same architects the college had met with regarding the proposed student hub, but this time discussion focused on completing the construction of the student hub in stages.
Dean of Student Services Kim Bishop presented the spring 2023 enrollment report. Bishop said as of the college’s census date, headcount was up 3.9 % from spring 2022, for a total of 1,562 students. She said removing high school numbers from the equation, college enrollment was up 6.99 %. Looking at high school numbers alone, Bishop said high school enrollment itself is up .9 %.
According to Bishop, credit hours are at 14,498 for spring 2023, which is a 5.9 % increase from spring 2022. Student housing is also looking good at the college with 208 students residing on campus for the spring semester.
Board member Smith, and Community Colleges for Iowa representative, gave a brief report on the group’s January board meeting. He mentioned the redraw of community college districts is underway and will be interesting to follow. He said once the redraws are complete, the college will have the right to approve it; but if the college were to request a second redraw, the college would be bound to the new drawing.
Smith also spoke briefly about the shift of 260 E/F programs at the state level to the Department of Economic Development. Smith said overall he does not foresee any major changes in the programs following the move. The board then adjourned to move into an exempt collective bargaining strategy session.