Meeting Recap for April 15, 2013

Members for our club and guests were greeted by lively piano music skillfully provided by Dick Wertz and a wine reception graciously donated by Pete Little.  We learned that Pete, after 21 years of service with our club, is retiring to South Carolina.  We wish you well Pete.  The Thought of the Day was provided by Katrina Salazar and Dick Osen led us in the singing of America The Beautiful.

John Lemmon gave us a nice presentation of the good work our Projects and Priorities committee did this year in selecting local charities to support.

We were privileged to hear Dr. Brice Harris, recently appointed Chancellor of the California Community College ("CCC") system, address our club this past Monday.  The CCC Board of Governors recently appointed Dr. Harris, a longtime community college leader, to become the 15th chancellor of the statewide higher education system.  He now oversees the system's 112 colleges enrolling nearly 2.4 million students annually.  Dr. Harris succeeded Jack Scott, who previously addressed our club on several occasions. Our own Diane Woodruff held this important position as well and Dr. Harris thanked Diane for the good work she did as chancellor.

Dr. Harris comes to his new post no stranger to the system.  He previously served as the chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District, which serves around 85,000 local students annually.  Before that he was president of Fresno City College.  He started his community college career four decades ago, in 1972, as a faculty member in Kansas City Missouri.  He appears to be the right person at the right time to head up our CCC program.

Dr. Harris shared with us his vision for the future under a two pronged approach.  He wishes to emphasize and increase "access" coupled with "success."  In other words, he will strive to make the colleges "bigger and better" at the same time, without compromising existing quality and high standards.  He freely conceded with will be a challenge in the current economic climate, but he is dedicated, and appears to have the drive and energy to see it through. 

As to the goal of better access, he noted the recent budget cuts have lead to a reduction in overall enrollment.  He is hopeful that as more funds become available, he can channel those back into more classes -- but emphasized that the added courses will be geared towards meeting the requirements of an eventual BA or BS degree from a 4 year college or university.  And that is where his goal of added success comes in -- he wants to provide a better academic and social environment to keep more students enrolled and more eventually obtaining their bachelors degrees.

Dr. Harris’s presentation was bright and articulate with a clear sense of purpose.    We wish him all the best, and thank him for taking the time to address our club.