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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


The start of fall classes is just around the corner, which means that All College Days on Aug. 27- 28 is coming on even more quickly. This year’s speaker for our Thursday program is the President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, Dr. Walter Bumphus. Walter joined AACC in 2011 and brought a new energy and sense of direction to this organization, which represents the interests of our sector as the “voice of community colleges” in Washington, DC, and among leading funders and policy makers.

Under Walter’s leadership, AACC has embraced its role in advocating for our colleges and our students (who now account for almost half of all undergraduates). The organization recently released “Empowering Community Colleges to Build the Nation’s Future,” a companion piece to the Report of the 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges “Reclaiming the American Dream – Community Colleges and the Nation’s Future.” Both are defining documents for community colleges.

“Empowering Community Colleges” outlines specific actions our institutions can take to increase student success. These recommendations align closely with the inspiring work we do every day at MCC. And, let’s not gloss it over: four words are central to this sentence: “work,” “we,” “every,” and “day.” We know (and “Empowering Community Colleges” makes plain) that only purposeful, sustained, informed, and shared actions will drive real change in student outcomes. Nothing that we do comes easy nor does it happen overnight.

For example, for the past few years, MCC has been weaving initiatives through the “ready—start—succeed—complete” framework, building a strong structure for student achievement. We’ve committed to the belief that successful students are ready to learn, start strong, persist through challenge as well as success, and graduate ready for career or transfer. When we consider new projects and programs, we look for them both to support our mission and strategic goals and to be linked to one of these key concepts. READY: P-TECH, ACE Summer Bridge, Hall of Justice GED. START: the “Inspiring every day” campaign, Express Enrollment days, Career Coach. SUCCEED: Academies Program, First-Year Experience, Undergraduate Research. COMPLETE: Complete to Compete, Accelerated Precision Machining Program, 30% increase in scholarships. And, the list could grow from there.

If you read through the “Empowering Community Colleges” report, you may see a framework that sounds quite similar. AACC’s version is “Connection—Entry—Progress—Completion” (it’s page 12 if you’re looking). The names are different but the intention is the same. MCC has put in place the structure that our experience shows (and research and evidence tells us) leads to student success. A review of each recommendation in the report should trigger you to say, “Oh, we’re doing that.” or “We’re planning that.” or even “Wow, we’ve done that for years.”

We are a dynamic college, so much is going on in each office and classroom that sometimes we forget to pause and celebrate the spirit of innovation, commitment to excellence, and continuing leadership in service of our students that we demonstrate every day. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be turning over this weekly message to members of President’s Staff so they can do just that. We are not just inspiring, we are empowering our college to build a better future for our students and our community. We are MCC.

I look forward to seeing all of you at All College Days! Please share your thoughts on the blog.

    Anne M. Kress
    Office of the President
    08/20/2014