Trustee Hamilton: How do you anticipate addressing the foretasted labor shortage in mill workers (machinists?)

VP Bente discusses surveys

VP Kartje: discusses the Automotive prorgam and notes that other colleges in the area have certificates that go beyond the first degree.

Hamilton: What about welding and other AA degrees, do we work with companies who contact us about training workers?

Short answer: yes.

Hamilton asks about certificate and degrees in the works that lead to employment.

VP Kartje: The state mandated process for greenlighting new degrees and certificates includes providing fact based evidence that the new programs fill needs and are not useless. She mentions how involved faculty are involved in program review, how active they are in professional development how they go conferences and bring back best practices (my term) to our classrooms.

VP Bente points out that a student who earns an AA in Auto technology has to go to SIU for a BA should be able to get a BA here.

Hamilton argues that offering BA’s will hurt our college.

VP Bente agrees, but says he doesn’t speak for Dr. Breuder.

Trustee Svoboda: AS a board we have not discussed the proposed move to a BA granting institution. DR. Breuder has stepped out of the room,

Trustee Savage: What does a BA in Automotive Tech or Fire Science look like? What are the requirements?

VP Kartje: we don’t know at this point, but we will look into it.

(Dr Breuder has come back in the room.)

VP Currier: There isn’t a good avenue for technical or vocational BAs (he did graduate level work on this subject.)

Trustee Hamiliton: We need to beware of not only mission creep but price creep. We are already the highest priced community college in the state, if we start offering higher level degrees our costs will rise. If we’re going to be looking seriously at this change we need to be prepared with more information.

Trustee Bente: We have several options including variable tution like we do in Nursing.

Trustee Svoboda: We need to have more imput into this issue and she hopes that while it’s listed as an opportunity it shouldn’t become a goal without careful discussion and thought.

Trustee McGuire: speaks in general about the postie possibilities of a 4 year college. She says that while they did not discuss this as a board prior to Dr. Breuder’s announcement they should consider the issue. We need to have consensus around the table. The Board, the administration and the faculty all need to be behind this, this should be a collaborative effort.

Trustee Birt: It sounds like this would be an appropriate way to go, but we need more information before we say no.

Trustee Bente: the BA is not a SWAT, it’s a NOC.

Bente: In relation to the high cost of our college, we have the highest salaries in the state as well. Our average faculty cost is $101,000