Office of the President

Message from the President

Photo of Dr Ollee

January 29, 2007

Greetings Everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope all of you enjoyed your well-deserved break. Students are back on campus and as a community we are bustling with activity again. I spent most of last week in Albuquerque with Seattle Central’s "Achieving the Dream" team. We had a productive and well-coordinated institute filled with good information and collaboration with our coaches and the other 85 colleges around the nation. In the next "Communiqué" I'll have more details on that meeting.

New Faculty Hires
It's nice to begin the New Year with good news. I have authorized the hiring of 13 full-time faculty positions for 2007. As you recall, last year was a time of budget cuts and sacrifice. It was a difficult time for all, and I am relieved that we were able to make cuts with the loss of only one half-time position. Thanks to our hard work last year, I am now able to re-direct funding to instruction. Our goal is to fill these positions permanently in 2007. The state budget appears, at this time, to support this action. I will keep you informed.

College Council
I am pleased to announce the members of our 2007 College Council. This group (formerly the College Planning Council) exists to provide advice to the president and the President's Cabinet on matters that are of the highest importance to the college. They provide great value to the college, and I am grateful to have such a qualified group working on our behalf.

There are nine new members among the 2007 council. The composition of the College Council is designed to reflect all constituencies of Seattle Central; I am pleased with the broad representation of this council.

Members of the 2007 College Council are:

Mark Ainsworth, (administrative) Science/Math
*Ana Ambion, (classified) Continuing Education
*Janet Barker, (administrative) Administrative Services
Carol Kallfelz, (administrative) Planning & Research
*Lubna Mahadeen, (classified) Student Activity Center
*Kelley McHenry, (faculty) Library
*Bruce McKenna, (faculty) Humanities/Social Sciences
Michael O'Neill, (faculty) BITCA
Marlene Palazzo, (faculty) BITCA
Carole Schmidt, (classified) Science/Math
*Milton Smith, (classified) Administrative Services
*Yilin Sun, (faculty) Basic Studies
*JanWsest, (administrative) Health/Human Services
*Audrey Wright, (administrative) Humanities/Social Sciences
Maryse Meye, student
Misha Zaitzevsky, student
Loris Blue, chair

*new members

Legislative Update
I was in Olympia last week and will continue to lobby our legislators for funding to support our faculty and to update our classrooms with new equipment. The State Board has requested a biennium freeze on tuition while they develop policy recommendations for tuition and financial aid. They asked for $30 million to back-fill foregone tuition revenue during the course of their study based on a 5% tuition increase each year of the biennium. We are also working to increase part-time faculty salaries.

  • For the 2007-09 biennium, the two-year colleges requested $11.9 million to increase part-time faculty salaries. The governor proposed $7.5 million.
  • The two-year colleges requested $7.5 million for increments for full- and part-time faculty for the 2007-09 biennium.
  • The two-year colleges have requested $200,000 to conduct a comprehensive salary study in order to develop long-term funding solutions, including funding targets and decision-making systems to achieve those targets.

As a District, we hosted a successful dinner event in Olympia on Jan. 21 with our trustees and six of our state legislators. It was a nice, informal evening with much meaningful discussion.

Seattle Central Foundation Scholarships
Thanks to the dedicated work of our Foundation office, we have about $500,000 in scholarships to award to eligible students this year. Annie Norberg in our Foundation office is in charge of procuring those funds. Because of her hard work, we have more funding to offer our students this year than in any past years. Please encourage students to apply for one of these scholarships - the application deadline is April 13.