Dear colleagues,
April was a busy month with a lot of great events and happenings to report back to you on; see below.
The month started off with Spring In-Service April 5 with the annual employee awards and what I heard was a great presentation by Ted Hadzi-Antich, Jr. from Austin Community College. Efforts to enhance the Liberal Arts here at LB have been ongoing for the past two academic years with funding from the Teagle Foundation and the Cornerstone Project, and will continue. This year the Pastega Faculty award went to Cindy Falk and the Pastega Classified award was awarded to Kellie Sturgeon. Virginia Mallory was awarded the Distinguished Staff award and the Diversity Equity and Inclusion award went to Dr. Ramycia McGhee. Congratulations to all the winners!
On Sunday, April 7, Senator Jeff Merkley held his annual Linn County town hall in the Tripp theater. Prior to the event, the Senator hosted local elected officials to take part in a small group session. Staff had an opportunity to share with the Senator on the issues facing our students; food insecurity, higher costs for CTE programming and lack of affordable housing. A visit to Periwinkle Center was also included. Thank you to Advancement, Facilities and Public Safety for coming in on a Sunday to help with hosting.
We may not have been in the path of a total solar eclipse this year, but that did not stop a group of Roadrunners from making their way down to Texas to be a part of the scientific community viewing the event on April 9. Greg Mulder and Heather Hill led a group of students who we followed via informative - and amusing - email reports from Greg. I ran outside near Takena to catch a glimpse between meetings, but am certain that the view from Texas was a better one.
The Agriculture Education center project passed a major project milestone on April 9 when the Linn County Commissioners unanimously approved the permit request for a land use change. There was some media coverage on the next steps, and I will continue to share more about this project as we proceed; here is the most recent plan for our new facilities.
Recruitment Marketing hosted two different recruitment events in a week. Roadrunner for a Day brought hundreds of high school students to our Albany campus offering shortened class sessions and tours to familiarize our guests to LB. The following evening, our “Explore LB” open house offered future students and their families a chance to learn more about programs. This is a huge undertaking; thank you to everyone who was involved.
Over the past few years, CTE Signing Day led by Amy Burbee, Deron Fort and LeAnn Schamp has grown into a fantastic event with more students and employers getting involved each year. On April 18, 96 students signed their letter of intent to start in one of our CTE programs in the fall. Notably, 80% of the students who attended shared they had no plans to attend LB in the fall, if it had not been for the efforts made by LB faculty to educate and encourage them to be a part of the Signing Day. Also, new ATI President Rob Foster was the keynote speaker, and it was nice to welcome him to our campus. I want to commend everyone who participated in this memorable event for making it a special evening for students, families, faculty as well as our visiting industry partners.
I got to celebrate Earth Day with some of our smallest Roadrunners at the Periwinkle Child Development Center where the kids and I planted a tree together. Though that made the event a little messier than usual, it was wonderful to spend time with our child care kids. As usual, the AAWCC offered tree and flower planting. In the spirit of caring for our environment, I noted a staff initiative to set up carpools for staff from various locations in our service area; reach out to Irene Reed to learn more details.
Career Fair was back for its 44th year on April 24. With over 110 employers present and 10 LBCC departments represented, we greeted a record number of visitors, up more than 200 from last year! This event is a huge undertaking led by Marci Johnston and team, and it requires collaborative work across the entire college. I heard positive feedback from several employers. Thank you to everyone who pitched in to help show off our community spirit and help our students find good jobs.
The Foundation’s Scholarship Appreciation Reception was held in the Activities Center’s gym last week. The event celebrates our students who have received scholarships from the Foundation, inviting both students and donors to attend the event. We heard from two great student speakers, Quinlynn Ewing, a first year automotive student and Krystal Overvig who is about to start her 2nd year studying Business in the fall. It’s powerful for students to share their stories and donors get to hear first hand how their support benefits our students. The Foundation also honored Steve Carothers, class of 1972, as this year’s Distinguished Alumni recipient. Steve has had a tremendous impact on supporting and advocating for the LB Athletics department.
The Foundation team has been on a road show, serving up free pancake breakfasts at our various campuses this month. The team started off in Lebanon at the ATTC followed by the HOC a week later. Last week students at our Corvallis Campus enjoyed pancakes and had the opportunity to enter a drawing for a $500 scholarship courtesy of the Corvallis Knights. The grand finale will be on the LBCC Foundation’s Give Day, May 8 on the Albany campus. Offering our students these meals is in part to acknowledge the severity of food insecurity for our students. This year, the Foundation’s 5th Annual Give Day will continue to raise funds to help students with emergency funds and food insecurity. I’ll be flipping pancakes at 10:00am in the Courtyard on May 8, and Allison and I are making a Give Day donation. Please join us.
At the end of this busy month, I did a series of Community Presentations to share accomplishments, struggles and priority projects for LB. Last week, these included presentations at the Albany Chamber of Commerce, Albany Kiwanis, and the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce. In speaking with these 100+ audience members, I heard their robust support for LBCC as well as their questions on affordability and state funding. An underpinning of these community conversations was the celebration of Community College Month, and the importance of community colleges in the national education landscape. Many of the attendees had graduated from LBCC or have relatives currently attending, and I appreciated the chance to bring them up to date on our work providing Education for All.
Culinary Arts has re-opened the Santiam Room after a hiatus. The format has changed since before the pandemic, however, there is still the opportunity to enjoy the culinary treats. Reservations are not available at this time and you are asked for increased patience as the students adjust to this new format. I am looking forward to hosting visitors in the Santiam Room soon; the reconfigured space looks very inviting. Thanks, Culinary team, for continuing to adapt to the changing dining world!
I hosted my first campus Fireside Chats this week. It was nice to have an opportunity to connect and answer questions about national, regional and statewide issues in higher education. We’ll be arranging these monthly during the academic year; in May, the Fireside Chat dates are May 28 at 1:00pm via Zoom and May 30 at 2:00pm in-person (invitations are forthcoming).
Earlier this month, we kicked off the Strategic Planning process, and I was pleased to see such a good turnout for the first session on one of the rare beautiful sunny spring days. As you have seen over the past two weeks, this project is to set our course for the future of LB. The initiative is led by CampusWorks, an organization that specializes in higher education where they will lead us to explore our mission statement, student experience, our vision and our values in this broad strategic plan. There will be many ways to partake and we need to hear from everyone to get their input to make this an effective project; please reach out to me at any time with questions and feedback.
Looking ahead, we have a few upcoming events to make note of. I know from Leslie Hammond there are still opportunities to be a part of the marathon team to help with Commencement on Thursday, June 13. Whether or not you are a part of the planning group, please try to attend Commencement. It is an important milestone for our students, and a rewarding culmination of our hard work.
LB Grad Day @ The Corvallis Knights will be held on Sunday, June 16 with a game start of 1:05 PM at OSU’s Goss Stadium in Corvallis. LB students will get in free with a valid student ID; stay tuned for free staff tickets to the game from the Foundation shortly. This year, thanks to the generous support of donors and the Knights, we will be drawing nine $1,000 scholarships at the game. We’ll also host the Knights on July 10 for a home game at LBCC’s McClain Field.
At home, many of our evenings have been occupied by Ella’s South Albany High School softball games. It’s been nice to run into a number of Roadrunners at the games! Emily is getting ready for OSU’s Commencement and figuring out her post-college plans too. On Friday, Allison and I are heading to the Albany Rotary Club Wine Walk and the YMCA Donor event. It’s never dull at home …or at the office!
Thanks,
Lisa