Each day we inch a bit closer to the anticipated legislative vote on the bonding resolution that supports our new downtown campus, which is likely to occur on December 11. As I've mentioned before—now is the time for the college community to voice its support for the move to Kodak. If you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than our remarkable student leaders, who are speaking up for the new campus in front of the Monroe County Legislature and in a letter to the Democrat and Chronicle to be published this Saturday. Our students are also launching their own ad hoc marketing campaign around a simple, but meaningful slogan: “It’s Time to Move.”
And, after twenty years in what was planned as a temporary location, it is indeed time to move. The quality of the faculty, staff and programming at Damon is of the highest order, and the State Street location will provide our students with a college campus that matches this quality. The new downtown campus also reflects MCC’s four strategic directions:
· It puts Learning First by providing a learning environment designed to facilitate high-impact teaching practices and co-curricular programming, to promote collaboration and engagement, and to support innovative curriculum and expanded student services.
· It promotes Workforce Education and Career Pathways by allowing MCC to—for the first time—bring all of workforce education under one roof, allowing the college to meet evolving employee and employer needs, to add a small business incubator, and to co-locate with partners like Rochester Works!
· It supports enhancing and expanding MCC’s many Partnerships by providing the room to grow strategic alliances, especially the much-needed pre-collegiate and community-based organization partnerships that help our students succeed.
· It increases the Effectiveness, Efficiency and Accountability of our downtown programs, proving a strategic investment in a facility and in technologies that offer extraordinary opportunities for fulfilling our access and success mission. (Not to mention that the robust process behind the selection of the State Street site was a model of evidence-based decision-making.)
For these reasons—and more than 3,000 others—it is Time to Move. The voters agree: the pre-election Voice of the Voter poll found overwhelming public support for MCC’s move to State Street. If you agree, I hope you will sign MCC’s online petition, and if you really agree, I hope you will consider sending the link on to others. Our students deserve our support … and a new downtown campus.
I welcome your thoughts on the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President
11/14/2012 |