Former Ohio resident, college dean traveled 800 miles to support president’s office
By Rachel Kimbrough
A position that has been vacant for nearly four and a half years was filled via presidential appointment early this year.
Richard France left Cleveland, Ohio, to take his position here as vice president of Strategic Initiatives and special assistant to the president after 33 years of service at Cayuga Community College. He started in early January.
France said his primary roles will be to support the office of the president via working with the Board of Trustees and continuing college president Terry Calaway’s work in reaching out to members of the community.
“We’re anxious to tell our story about what we’re doing here in terms of our programs and students,” France said. “So in the long run that’s another way to help students and bring resources to the college.”
France’s role is one Calaway calls “significantly independent” like other cabinet-level positions on campus.
“What I needed in this role was someone I can delegate responsibilities to,” Calaway said. “We have regular weekly meetings and we probably see each other a half a dozen other times. The one thing I don’t need is someone shadowing me.”
Calaway said he and France knew each other from working together at Cayuga where France had held multiple positions, including assistant to the president, executive director of the Foundation and dean of the evening-weekend program. Calaway reached out to France after a faculty member at the college declined the position.
“If you’re going to have a position like this, you need to know someone and the way that they work,” Calaway said. “I take hiring very seriously. I was the one who reached out to Richard like I did to the other faculty member. That’s not the only time I’ve done that.”
While France’s position was not posted like most other vacant positions, France did fill out an application and was interviewed by Calaway, said Judy Korb, executive vice president of Human Resources.
“It’s our practice. We post positions,” Korb said. “But the president does have the authority to appoint people to positions. Richard is not the first person to be appointed to his position. [Calaway] has appointed others of us to our positions versus posting it. He does have the authority to do that but typically we don’t.”
Korb said France’s position is funded by a vacancy pool. When employees leave, the money designated for their salary falls under one organization code in the budget. The accumulation of money there allows some plasticity for ventures like funding France’s position, Korb said.
“There’s enough people coming and going that we usually have some salary contingency money that was budgeted for salaries and is not spent,” Korb said. “It gives us a little bit of flexibility to be able to do this kind of thing. And usually there are enough positions that are vacant for a period of time during the year, so you never need that money. It’s timing.”
France said the jarring 800-mile transition from Cleveland to Johnson County has been eased by the welcoming attitude of people on campus.
“I’ve prepared, I’ve trained for this, and I’ve done similar work at a major community college,” France said. “I’m happy to be here, glad to be part of the team. There’s a lot of fine people here.”
Contact Rachel Kimbrough, editor-in-chief, at rkimbrou@jccc.edu.