Board of Directors Meeting | ACTC

Leadership

Board of Directors Meeting

College Drive Campus-John & Pat Stewart Board Room
November 16, 2022
Minutes

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Rick Clark, Ben Collier, Amanda Collins, Millie DeBoard, Brooke Elswick-Robinson, Kathryn Lamp, Vicki McGinnis, Ramona Salyer, Jason Salyers

MEMBERS ABSENT:

ALSO PRESENT:

Taylor Alexander, Kellie Allen, Karen Blevins, Mike Blevins, Todd Brand, Larry Ferguson, Steve Flouhouse, Pam Miller, John Pancake, Brooke Seasor

CALL TO ORDER

Board Chair, Rick Clark, called the meeting to order at 8:33 a.m. A quorum was present.  

APPROVAL OF PREVIOUS MINUTES

Members reviewed the minutes of the August 24, 2022, meeting (copy attached).  Kathryn Lamp made a motion to accept the minutes as written. Brooke Elswick-Robinson seconded the motion. All voted to approve the minutes.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Dr. Larry Ferguson used a PowerPoint presentation to update members (copy attached).  Under Institutional Leadership/Management he discussed the new strategic plan focusing on people, process and partners, tying it in with ACTC’s use of The 4DX Disciples of Execution Operating System. He updated members on enrollment, M&O projects, and the budget. Regarding Educational Leadership/Internal Relations the president reported on the continued work of the 3-year Comprehensive Program Review Process. Regarding External Relations, Dr. Ferguson reported continued progress with various partners-Economic/Workforce, Secondary Education.  In addition, Dr. Ferguson announced that Dean Flouhouse is leading a Perkins Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment which will involve community and education partners. Relating to External Relations he updated BOD members on fundraising successes thus far this fiscal year.

He used a PowerPoint presentation to update members (copy attached). Regarding Institutional Leadership/Management Dr. Ferguson mentioned recent activities involving students and CABINET UPDATES

STRATEGIC NEEDS ANALYSIS

President Ferguson led the Board through ACTC’s proposed Six-Year Capital Plan-Strategic Needs Analysis, discussing each item. KCTCS must give approval of ACTC’s proposed plan.

RECOGNITION

Dr. Ferguson presented a plaque to retiring Board member, Ramona Salyer.  He thanked her for her service to Ashland Community and Technical College as a Board member since 2006.  

FACULTY UPDATE

  • Vicki McGinnis, faculty representative to the Board of Directors reported:
    • Faculty are busy wrapping up their semesters with students!
  • From Jon Joy, English Professor:
    1. My podcast was recently featured by the School Library Journal, a monthly magazine that contains reviews and articles for librarians, especially librarians who work with kids. 
    2. My ENG 100 students improved a full 15 percentage points on a Fall 2022 grammar diagnostic that assesses writing skills at both the beginning and end of term. 
    3. Former ACTC student and ACTC New Play Festival playwright Noel McDavid got a job writing for Queer Kentucky.
    4. Former ACTC student Nic Cavins has his artwork on display in downtown Huntington, as a part of a senior capstone project at Marshall University.
    5. Former ACTC student and award winning ACTC New Play Festival playwright Chelsea Grace is having a lot of success with her Midnight Cookie Society small business.  (The cookies are delicious, too!)
  • From Coy Hall, History Professor:
    • I signed contracts to release three books in 2023.
      1. The Promise of Plague Wolves (September 2023) -- a novel set in 1686 Austria during a smallpox epidemic.
      2. The Spanish translation of my first book Grimoire of the Four Impostors will release in October 2023
      3. A Seance for Wicked King Death (November 2023) -- a crime novel set in 1956 Huntington, WV.
      4. I also collaborated with the ACTC library for the 3rd Annual Spooky Story Time collaboration—the video has 172 views so far on the ACTC Library Facebook page
    • From Vicki McGinnis, Dual Credit Coordinator:
      • Fall Comparisons
        • Fall 2019  426 Students  1,787 Student Credit Hours
        • Fall 2020  487 Students  2,433 Student Credit Hours
        • Fall 2021  674 Students  3,102 Student Credit Hours
        • Fall 2022  722 Students  3,539 Student Credit Hours 
      • F22 Dual Credit Student Enrollment Data 
        • Dual Credit students enrolled in Fall 22 Gen Ed courses (Some are taking multiple courses): 764; 2,326 total credit hours of Gen Ed enrollment
        • Dual Credit students enrolled in Fall 22 CTE courses (Some are taking multiple courses): 409; 1,213 total credit hours of CTE enrollment
      • Comments:
        • Most of the ATC course are year-long, so the ATC courses will not be a huge boost to spring enrollment as it was fall enrollment.
        • We are doing school visits to Area Technology Centers during fall and spring with program faculty. We are also doing targeted tours bringing high school students interested in health sciences, business, auto/diesel, and the TDC programs to campus on different days to tour these programs. 
        • There are 11 Holy Family students who are juniors and seniors enrolled in Fall 22 courses. They count as a part of our total number of dual credit students. 

STAFF UPDATE

Jason Salyers, Staff representative to the BOD, provided a printed report to members and highlighted the following events:  YWL-500 girls, Program & Career Fairs for high schools students, Career Fair, Cultural events, Marketing awards.  

STUDENT UPDATE

Millie DeBoard, Student representative to the BOD, reported several activities enhancing student engagement held this fall:  Party on the Lawn, Comedy Show, Fall Festival and Trunk or Treat. She informed the BOD that several future events are coming as well.  She said it feels like we are progressing in engaging students after the pandemic.

CABINET UPDATES

Taylor Alexander, Director of Marketing & Public Relations, gave the following update to Board Members:

  • Statwax – Search Engine Marketing - July 1, 2022 to November 9, 2022
    • Fall 2022 Credit Hours Enrolled – 413
    • Spring 2023 Credit Hours Enrolled – 317
    • Expense - $11,480.56
    • Tuition Dollars - $121,379.44
    • ROI – 1,057.26%
  • Billboards around tri-state area
    • General Awareness
    • Medical Assisting
  • Annual Report Video – Coming soon!
  • Continuing Pathfinder Campaign
  • Podcast – season one ending in December
  • Magazine launches in January
  • NCMPR Award Winners – Marketing Department

Kellie Allen, Director of Human Resources, had no report.

Karen Blevins, Dean of Business Affairs, had no report.

Dr. Todd Brand, Dean of Academic Affairs, reported the following:

  • Once again ACTC will be teaching a Winter Term for classes.  Welding and technical mathematics will be held on campus at our TDC.
  • I want to update concerning CPE’s Kentucky Graduate Profile Academy.  ACTC has had a team involved with this project since its inception last year.  Our team has sought to create a plan to show evidence of students mastering CPE’s list of 10 Essential Workplace Skills to all graduates.  The list of skills has been presented to faculty previously.  Our team presented its plan to a visiting team form CPE last month.  It involves a partnership with a vendor, Accredible, which will allow ACTC to use badging to award students microcredentials as they master each of the 10 skills in their progression of their credential plan.  An alternate transcript will also be available through Accredible which should translate work based skill sets of graduates directly to employers.  

    ACTC’s next steps are to involve all faculty in the process.  Janna Vice, who is Provost Emerita at EKU and a Senior Fellow at CPE for Policy Development is heading up the project.  She will be meeting soon with Program Coordinator’s and Our Associate Deans and will be working with you on a survey called an employability scan.  

    So far, as CPE has seen what ACTC is already doing with our current curriculum, our Career Services department, with our new platform Handshake, with 4DX, and with our QEP, they have been very impressed.  We are ahead of all of the other KCTCS teams and light years ahead of the four year universities in the commonwealth.  This is again in regards to how we do three things:
    (A) How we infuse the workplace skills already into our curriculum and co-curricular activities.
    (B) How we communicate with employers
    (C) How we link students with employers for jobs

    CPE has already decided that there will be a second Kentucky Graduate Profile Academy, and it will be made up of the other 12 KCTCS colleges that were not a part of this one.  They have also asked our team to help lead the initiative.  I would be remiss if I did not thank Dr. Sara Brown, Ashley Vanderpool, and Professor Dale Queen for their efforts on our ACTC Kentucky Graduate Profile Academy Team.  I also want to thank you, for once again proving that we have an outstanding group of faculty at our institution, which is allowing us to be a leader in the commonwealth.    
  • I am happy to report that both of our new academic programs in health care got their approval from our accreditor, SACS COC.  We begin classes with our medical assisting program in the spring semester and are very excited about it.  We have renovated one of the nursing labs and converted it to a med assisting lab, and have ordered equipment to begin classes.  Additionally, our program coordinator, Kellie Cyrus, has begun work on our accreditation with MAERB, which is the Gold Standard in accreditation of med assisting programs.  All of our health science programs are accredited by CAHEP approved accreditors in addition to SACSCOC to ensure that we meet industry certification requirements for licensure for our graduates in all of our health science fields.
  • Work continues on our Radiography program, as our new coordinator has been working to lay the groundwork for our accreditation with JCERT, which is the accrediting body for Rad Tech programs.  Our Rad tech program will begin in the fall of next year; however, students can begin taking pre-requisite courses in the spring in anticipation of that.
  • The college recently had a very successful career fair.  We host two of these each year along with the Ashland Alliance.  We have now decided to have a separate career fair in the spring on college drive for our health science students.  144 students served at our most recent.  
  • The Chancellor of KCTCS has announced that due to the continued shortage of nursing educators in the commonwealth, a new agreement has been signed with NKU to allow for nurse educators to attain an MSN at a reduced rate in an accelerated format.  KCTCS will be providing a scholarship for one nurse educator per school this year.  We currently have a nurse in that spot, and our goal is to achieve a 100% rate of our nurse educators possessing a masters in nursing.  
  • Nursing gives us a good segue to announce a minor change in the way we are scheduling our bridge program.  When I arrived at ACTC in 2019, we began building and implementing a new hybrid PN to RN bridge program. We have found with that group that they have better success rates than their traditional ADN peers, so we have enlarged that class in the past two years.  Terri Ratliff, our AD of Health Sciences and I have also been working on getting the students out faster, and we now have the schedule fixed so that our students will be able to bridge in one calendar year.  This will allow us to graduate three bridge classes in a 36 month time period instead of 2 as had been the case.  
  • Speaking of scheduling, we had our fourth annual Schedule Summit this semester.  Our focus was on in-person scheduling and striking the right balance in scheduling different modes of instruction.  Several topics were discussed:
    • Online classes vs. hybrid vs. hyflex
    • Ways to capitalize on 12 week scheduling
    • Winter term scheduling
    • Bi-term scheduling
    • Class times in scheduling in-person classes     MORE TO COME

Steve Flouhouse, Dean of Institutional Effectiveness & Grants, had no report.

Brooke Seasor, Director of Resource Development, announced November 29 as On-Line Giving Day.  Each one in attendance received a reminder card.  She also invited everyone to join the CTCFA this Friday, November 18, for ACTC’s Celebration of Philanthropy breakfast.  She also informed members that she would be sending reminder emails out regarding the On-Line Giving Day and the Women, Wine, Jewels and More event.

BOARD CHAIR COMMENTS

In closing remarks, Chair Rick Clark commented on a some of the updates given:

  • He said ACTC’s retention rate numbers were impressive!  
  • He also noted that the news of the blue building showed great insight by ACTC.  
  • He complimented the 29% increase in fundraising as well.  

In closing, Chair Clark mentioned that the February meeting may be online since he plans to be in Florida at that time. He wished everyone Happy Holidays.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 9:37 a.m. by Chair Rick Clark.

Respectfully submitted,
Pam Miller, Recorder