The Board of Trustees meeting on August 20 began with a tribute to late Mayor Mike Copeland of Olathe. After this, honors and awards were given to multiple people of the college. Among those awards was the 2019 Innovation of the Year. This award was given to Tara Karaim, Nellie Schuckman, Maria Martinez and Ana Page for their work on reimagining the Honors Program.
“Under the leadership of these four women, the Johnson County Community College Honors Program tripled its enrollment over the last four years because of the numerous hard changes they have made,” Mike Mussil, chairman, said.
Chris Rosell spoke during the open forum to address his request that JCCC does more than required by law, and make sure that JCCC is doing the best they can do for the social responsibility of voting.
“Why not involve our marketing, our social media, political science teachers and students to develop and test the best messages we can,” Rosell said.
Musil said JCCC is doing more than the minimum with voter registration and voter turnout in response to Rosell.
“forty-five point five percent is not a passing grade in colleges, but it is in the 90-percentile higher of community colleges nationally [for voter registration],” Musil said.
The Faculty Association board report was given by Doctor John Leiker who said that with no regular traditions like the all staff breakfast it is a bittersweet beginning of the year, but the faculty and staff are ready for this semester and have worked all Summer planning for the first day.
“It was really driven home for me this week because for the first time since I was six…going back to school meant not having to leave my house,” Leiker said.
For an update on the Some Enchanted Evening Annual Gala, the Some Enchanted Opportunity campaign has launched, and the platform allows for anyone, from anywhere to participate in the multi month campaign.
The public hearing for the budget began, but no person of the public registered to speak at the hearing. The proposed budget from this meeting is the same as the management budget that the adopted-on May 14 which was prior to the July 1 fiscal year and the administration was not asking for any changes currently.
The concern of tuition with virtual classes Trustee Angeliina Lawson asks the question if we are looking at how to decrease the expenses for the virtual learning, since the budget has not been changed.
“I’m seeing the same budget that rolled out last year and regardless to any of the concerns that I have.” Lawson said. “Regardless of the concerns of the people that have repetitively emailed in and regardless of the concerns of COVID right now and regardless of the concerns that I hear from faculty, I’m not seeing any change whatsoever.”
Musil responded and said that was a concern for policy changes and not about the budget.
The budget was adopted as proposed and presented with a six to one majority vote with Lawson voting no.
For the full audio of the August meeting click here.
For the board packet for the August meeting click here.
By Gracyn Shulista