In the beginning of 2013,  the college asked employees to imagine what Clark would look like in 2020. The college community answered this question with thoughtful responses. That feedback was used to create the Vision 2020 Themes, which in turn were used to focus in on the central theme of the new Strategic Plan: student learning.

On Opening Day fall 2013, the college divided into small groups to discuss student learning and had follow-up meetings on the subjects of Access, Environment, Engagement and Commitment to Learn. Those ideas and feedback were reviewed by Taskforce 2 and reports have been generated to be used as one of the tools Taskforce 3 will use to create the mission, vision and core themes for the next strategic plan.

Taskforce 3 will convene in June and will complete their work in fall 2014. All the individual input and small-group participation gathered since Opening Day 2013 is being used as a tool to create the framework that will determine how the college allocates resources and makes future decisions.

Once the core themes are drafted, we will share the work of Taskforce 3 and solicit feedback. Then, we will seek more volunteers to draft the goals around each of the core themes during fall quarter 2014. During winter quarter 2015, we will revise and finalize the strategic plan based on feedback gathered from the college. The final Clark College 2015-2020 Strategic Plan will be voted on by the Clark College Board of Trustees during spring quarter 2015.

Thank you for all of your hard work and for keeping the college focused on student learning.

This article submitted by the college’s Strategic Plan Taskforce 1

Clark College announced today the purchase of land that will become the location of a new campus serving the northern portion of the college’s service district.

The purchase was made possible with the strong partnership of the Clark College Foundation, which finalized the purchase of nearly 60 acres through a generous $3.1 million gift from the Boschma Family LLC. Additionally, the foundation will pay $6 million for the land. The acreage is located in Ridgefield on the east side of North 65th Avenue, north of Pioneer Street and northeast of the Interstate 5 and Pioneer Street interchange.

The leadership gift from the Boschma family was key in being able to move forward on this project. In making the more than $3.1 million gift, Hank and Bernice Boschma said they were excited to be a part of expanding educational opportunities for students in the region, including first-generation and immigrant students.

In April, the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges prioritized building projects for the upcoming biennium. According to that prioritization, the North County Campus building will receive design funding in the 2017-2019 budget, and likely receive construction funding in the 2019-2021 budget.

The gift and acquisition help realize the long-term vision for the growth anticipated at Clark College. The college’s 2007 Facilities Master Plan identified North County as a growth area based on projections from regional economists, and the most recent update of the Facilities Master Plan reinforced the need for a facility in this part of Clark’s service area.

Director of Change Management Jane Beatty

Let’s continue to explore some of the aspects of what will change when we go live on ctcLink in May 2015. Some of us here at the college don’t use the legacy systems (PPMS, SMS or FMS). But even in those cases, ctcLink will improve our work lives. All employees will have access to a new self-service online portal, where you can change basic information–things like your address or phone number–without hunting down the right contact person or form.

There will be separate areas in the portal designed for Clark employees, students, and faculty, to adjust to their different needs. But if you’re both a student and an employee at Clark, good news! Your information will be automatically updated throughout the system–no more having to submit the same update to multiple systems.

Here is an example of an employee self-service screen shot–this is a mockup, but shows an example of what will be available in ctcLink self-service centers.

For those people at the college who use the legacy systems every day, the improvements will be more dramatic. Staff in Corporate & Continuing Education, for example, anticipate a significant change. CCE has been using a separate student management system for over six years; with ctcLink, they will all be using the same system the rest of the college uses, making everything from class management to student management much more streamlined and easily managed.

Faculty, meanwhile, can look forward to having a system that can apply a prerequisite screen for students’ registration after grades are submitted. Currently, faculty often wind up spending a lot of the first day of classes checking the prerequisites for each student, because students who passed the prerequisite class registered before the preceding quarter’s grade was submitted. Often faculty don’t even know students lack the prerequisite for the class, so they have to identify those students and find a way of speaking privately with them the first day. This just adds to the number of overwhelming tasks associated with the first week.

These are just a few examples of the changes that the new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system will bring to Clark College. Stay tuned for more examples and information on this change that Clark College, and all 34 community and technical colleges in Washington, will experience.

For more information on Clark’s adoption of ctcLink, visit the Change Management area on Clark’s intranet (login required).

Photo: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Vice President of Instruction Dr. Tim Cook welcomes members of the college’s advisory committees.

On January 21, 2014, nearly 40 people attended Clark College’s Advisory Committee Chairperson Training. Clark College has 25 advisory committees, 15 of which were represented by a chair and/or vice-chair at this training session. Others who attended the training included faculty and administrators.

Vice President of Instruction Dr. Tim Cook opened up the session by welcoming the attendees and discussing the importance of advisory committees to the college and the role they will play in the future. Advisory committees are groups of industry and business experts who help ensure that the college’s career and technical programs are aligned correctly with the region’s workforce needs.

Dedra Daehn, Director of Academic Services, conducted the training.  Topics of the session included ways to engage advisory committee members, work plan development, basic parliamentary procedure and effectively leading committees. A time of questions and discussion followed the training session.

This training, which was first offered last year, is an ongoing commitment of the college to support and enhance advisory committees.

Dedra Daehn contributed this article.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

As Clark College’s Director of Change Management, one of my goals is to increase awareness of the Community and Technical Link (ctcLink) project at our college. This project will change our working environment in a big–but positive–way. Please read below for more information. If you have any questions about the project, I am always available to help answer them for you.

What is it ctcLink

ctcLink is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project that will modernize, centralize, and standardize the Washington Community & Technical Colleges’ administrative systems. Our current legacy systems (Student Management, Financial Management, Payroll & Personnel Management, and Financial Aid) will be replaced by Oracle Peoplesoft applications.

Why do we need to replace our current systems?

Our current administrative system is over 30 years old. As most of you have experienced, it is usually offline for several hours each night, and it has very little flexibility or support for modern technologies and needs, such as mobile device support or 24/7 access for students and employees. If you have stories you’d like to share regarding the current system and its limitations, please send them to me. I’d love to share with everyone next month how some of these limitations can be resolved with ctcLink.

When is all this happening?

This changeover will take place in May 2015, but we have a lot to do before that happens: Cleaning up all of our current data from the old system, convert that data for the new system, and understanding how the new software will change how we do business at the college. In August 2014 (yes, just seven months away!) the SBCTC and Ciber (a vendor helping us implement the changeover) will arrive at Clark College and start taking us through a plethora of activities to get us ready. Between now and then, we have a lot of work to do to better understand the software’s functionality and to make sure our data will move over to the new system successfully. The timeline below gives a clear idea of how the change will be structured.

Who will be affected?

The short answer is: everyone! Everyone who accesses and/or administers any part of our current systems (including class, employee, financial, procurement, and student systems) will be affected. Once the ctcLink project is completed, you will be using entirely new systems. (Don’t worry: There will be training available for everyone. Training needs and schedules will vary depending on your role at the college.)

Additional Information and Resources

The Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges (SBCTC) has a dedicated ctcLink website with lots of resources and information.

Clark College also has an intranet web area for Change Management and ctcLink (ClarkNet login required). You can go to this website to find out more information and links to further information. This website also contains the names of many people who have been working diligently to help get some foundational decisions made regarding the overall architecture and infrastructure of how the system must work to comply with regulations and college policies. These are our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). You can find someone in the area in which you work.

Thanks,

Jane Beatty
Directory of Change Management
X2903
jbeatty@clark.edu

President Robert K. Knight pauses for a moment in his 2014 State of the College address.

At 80 years old, Clark College still has plenty to learn–that was the message Clark College President Robert K. Knight conveyed in his annual State of the College address.

Knight took a moment to acknowledge that the college was in the midst of celebrating its 80th anniversary, but then said that, rather than focusing on the past, “I have been … thinking about what steps we can continue to take to ensure that Clark College at 100 is the vibrant and important place that it is today.”

Knight said that he thought the college was “on the right path” in that respect, pointing to recent accomplishments such as a very successful accreditation visit by representatives of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, during which the commission acknowledged the improvements Clark has made in the area of shared governance.

Presidential Coin recipient and Automotive Technology professor Mike Godson, right, with Dick Hannah representative Gary Schuler. Godson and Schuler worked together to help create a partnership that allows aspiring automotive technicians to take classes at Clark College and work at Dick Hannah simultaneously.

Other recent accomplishments Knight noted included:

• Receiving funding for a new building on the main campus dedicated to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), scheduled to break ground in summer 2014;
• Recent state approval for a $35 million satellite location in northern Clark County at a site still to be determined;
• The success of the Clark College Foundation’s “Ensuring a Bright Future” fundraising campaign, which is predicted to reach its goal of $20 million in spring 2014;
• The introduction of a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Dental Hygiene, the first bachelor’s degree to be offered by the college;
• A statewide record in the number of online courses certified by Quality Matters;
• The opening of a Veterans Resource Center on the main campus to help the college’s estimated 800 student veterans;
• The continued development of a new Strategic Plan for the years 2015-2020;
• Clark’s leadership role in transitioning to ctcLink;
• New programs and opportunities for students to participate in cutting-edge learning in the automotive, aeronautics, and bioscience fields;
• National awards won by Phoenix, Clark’s journal of arts and literature;
• Increased enrollment in Clark’s Honors Program.

Knight acknowledged that Clark’s enrollment has decreased for the first time in recent years. “We expected that,” he said. “It’s a good thing, because it means that people are finding jobs. We expect enrollment to continue to go down a little bit.”

President Knight with Che’yna Shotwell. Shotwell, a junior at Mountain View High School, is part of the Penguin Promise partnership between Clark College and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington, which provides Clark College scholarships to those students who fulfill the program’s stringent academic requirements. She is on track to become the first student to receive such a scholarship from the program, which was announced at the 2013 State of the College address.

Knight explained that administration and staff were already discussing how to manage the college’s enrollment. “We have to determine what is the right size for Clark College,” he said. Then he added, “As we continue to be the most over-enrolled community college in Washington, we haven’t turned away students yet.”

Knight stressed that any decisions about the college’s future would need to be based on whether or not they helped students learn. “As long as I am president, we will never forget that the student comes first and is the only reason we have a job and the only reason we’re here,” he said.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

See more photos on our Flickr page.

View the entire speech on CVTV.

President Knight delivering the 2013 State of the College Address.

Clark College President Robert K. Knight will give the annual State of the College address on Thursday, Jan. 16. As the college celebrates its 80th anniversary, President Knight will update the college and members of the community in the address, which he says will focus on “Looking Forward at 80.”

Among the topics that President Knight will be discussing are the plans to break ground on the new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) building in the summer of 2014, the progress of strategic planning efforts at the college, and the role of new programs and partnerships.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 11 a.m. in Gaiser Student Center on the college’s main campus. Doors will open at 10:30 a.m. and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Clark College is located at 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver, Wash. Driving directions and parking maps are available at www.clark.edu/maps.

If you need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event, you should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP), or visit Gaiser Hall room 137, as soon as possible.

Photo: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Clark College Foundation President and CEO Lisa Gibert, center, gives new Director of Facilities Services Tim Petta, right, a warm welcome.

Incoming Director of Facilities Services Tim Petta was welcomed warmly by the Clark College community at a reception in the Baird rotunda on Friday, November 15. Petta joined the college on November 4.

Petta has extensive experience in facilities management at the University of California Los Angeles, where he was Senior Educational Facility Planner. As part of UCLA’s facilities management team, he was responsible for supporting 175 on-campus and 100 off-campus buildings. He has been involved in a number of large new construction projects–from design and document review to building and commissioning.

Director of Facilities Services holds his welcome-to-Clark gift of a framed photo of the Chime Tower.

Petta began his career early, working in construction while in high school and college. He studied computer science at California State University Northridge, but decided to instead go into plumbing. He quickly rose to a management position, and has taken management courses through Dale Carnegie Training, Fred Pryor Seminars, and other companies, as well as college courses in mechanical engineering.

As Director of Facilities Services, Petta oversees all capital projects at the Clark College, ranging from the soon-to-be-built STEM Building to minor repairs and improvements. He is also responsible for the maintenance, grounds, and custodial services provided to the college every day. His department includes more than 50 full- and part-time staff in all facilities trades, from maintenance mechanics to grounds specialists to custodians.

Vice President of Administrative Services Bob Williamson welcomed Petta with a framed photo of the Chime Tower and a bright orange Administrative Services T-shirt.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Among the many events organized by the Emergency Management Planning Committee was this evacuation drill held on May 9, 2013.

The Emergency Management for Higher Education (EMHE) federal grant period concluded Sept. 30, 2013. Over the three-year performance period, the $744,402 Department of Education grant successfully supported expansive steps to create a safer college environment for students, personnel and guests.

Grant-funded activities were overseen by members of the Emergency Management Planning Committee. Key accomplishments include staff development, support and training; equipment and supply selection and acquisition; and creation of detailed plans such as the Emergency Operations Plan and Continuity of Operations Plan. During the grant period, the college accomplished all seven grant objectives. In its summation, the independent third-party evaluation team “found Clark College’s efforts to fulfill the intent and requirements of the EMHE grant to be exemplary. The college took its commitment to the Department of Education seriously and has found a way to overcome each obstacle that surfaced throughout the grant period. Not only did Clark College meet the goals and objectives of its integrated emergency program under the EMHE grant, in the opinion of the third-party evaluation team they exceeded them.”

A video entitled “Clark College: Development of a Community College Emergency Management Program (2010-2013)” was produced by emergency management staff. The project was developed as a “show-and-tell” piece for both contemporary and historical use and to share with other community and technical colleges. Key components of Clark College’s emergency program are featured in the 3:43 piece, which illustrates program building blocks, personnel contributions and the related college culture shift that has occurred. It is open-captioned for accessibility. EMHE grant-funding allowed staff to hire local government CVTV to film the video.

A new Emergency Response Guide was completed and distributed in October. The bright yellow, spiral-bound, 24-page guide serves as a detailed desk reference on college emergency procedures. The guide was revised and enhanced to reflect the content of the college’s Emergency Operations Plan. The cost was paid by the federal Emergency Management for Higher Education grant. Distribution was handled by Environmental Health and Safety staff and student employees, and includes all work sites throughout the college. An electronic version is also available on ClarkNet [login required], with a student version available on Clark’s website.

After the office of instruction showed their music video “Rock of All Ages” a flash mob started at the front of the gym. The flash mob enticed members of staff, faculty, students and even members of the Clark College board of trustees to get up and dance.

On September 11, Clark College employees gathered in the O’Connell Sports Center gymnasium to kick off another academic year. Opening Day festivities are an annual tradition at the college, a time to recognize employees’ accomplishments and to reinvigorate the college community for the coming year.

This year, the day began on a more somber note than normal, as President Bob Knight took a moment to acknowledge that Opening Day happened to fall on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He noted that he had been in the O’Connell gym 12 years ago, playing an early-morning game of basketball, when he first learned of the attacks. Knight then asked the gathered crowd to hold a moment of silence in memory of the victims of September 11.

Knight then mapped out some of the challenges and changes the college would face in the coming year. He noted that after years of skyrocketing enrollments, numbers are starting to slip downward again, requiring staff in many departments to focus on recruitment and retention. The college is also gearing up to adopt ctcLink, a new collection of online systems being phased into use at all 34 Washington state community and technical colleges. And while the 3-percent pay cut that affected most college employees has ended, the college is still facing some budget difficulties, partly due to decreased enrollment and partly due to being underfunding by the state. For instance, the college’s new STEM Building was funded by the state–but at $4.5 million less than originally planned.

“I am confident that you will face these challenges and overcome them, just as well as you have done in the past,” Knight said, adding that the college would continue to rely on private support gathered by the Clark College Foundation, which is ending its $20 million Ensuring a Bright Future campaign next June.

Associate Vice President for Planning and Effectiveness Shanda Diehl spoke about another upcoming challenge: crafting the college’s 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. “Since we will use the strategic plan as a tool to make decisions, we need all of your feedback during its development,” she said, mapping out how that would take place.

But along with the talk of challenges and policies, there was also time for fun and high jinks. Traditionally, Opening Day includes a music video about the college, and this year it fell to the Office of Instruction to create the video. Titled “Rock of All Ages,” it drew cheers and laughter from the gathered employees–and, afterward, sparked an impromptu dance party that lured to the floor faculty, staff, Student Ambassadors, and even the three trustees in attendance.

Clark President Robert K. Knight presents French professor Doug Mrazrek with an award for 35 years of service to Clark College.

The event also was occasion for President Knight to award Presidential Coins to five employees, and for Human Resources to announce the recipients of the 2013 Exceptional Classified Staff Awards and to present service-anniversary awards to employees who had worked at the college for five, ten, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years. One employee, French professor Doug Mrazrek, received an award for 35 years at the college–as well as a standing ovation from the crowd. The event was also an opportunity to present plaques to the recipients of the 2012-2013 Exceptional Faculty Awards, whose names were officially announced during Commencement.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

EDITED 9/30/13 to correct end date of Foundation campaign.