Editorial published October 27, 2002
Views on ATC-ACC consolidation sought
The consolidation of Ashland Community College and Ashland Technical College is a fact of life that, at this point, is likely irreversible. It already has received the support of faculty and staff at both schools, from area legislators and its own board of regents.
Thus, on the face of it, it would seem to be rather late in the game to gather public input on the merger. Nevertheless, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System will conduct a public forum Tuesday to hear what John Q. Public thinks about the consolidation. The forum will be at 6:30 p.m. in the American Electric Power building.
More than changing the course of consolidation, the forum likely will be an opportunity to become more informed about what it means for postsecondary education in Northeastern Kentucky.
The eventual consolidation of the two schools became almost a certainty with the passage of the Kentucky Postsecondary Improvement Act in 1997. That law separated the community colleges from the University of Kentucky and placed both the community colleges and technical schools under the newly created KCTCS. Since then, the issue of consolidation has been more of a question of when, instead of if.
Nevertheless, local residents still have questions about consolidation. Among them:
While ATC and ACC are consolidating, they are not moving toward one campus. Instead, ATC is building a new campus at EastPark, more than 10 miles from the ACC campus.
Change is afoot at ACC and ATC, but the once skeptical faculties at the two schools apparently have been convinced that it is. Local residents now have an opportunity to be better informed and to express their views on whether consolidation is an improvement.
October 27, 2002
Interviews to start for education post
Council on Postsecondary Education
seeks president
A Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education committee has scheduled its first interviews this weekend with candidates who want the council's top job.
The council was created under the state's 1997 higher education reform law to better coordinate state higher education policy. The council's presidential screening committee planned to interview about 10 candidates for its presidency today and tomorrow, said Walter Baker, a council member and chairman of the screening committee.
Baker said there are five ''very, very strong candidates with the qualifications that we want for the next president.''
''Until we actually meet with the candidates, none of us actually knows how that chemistry will work, and that will be a key component, especially with the situation Kentucky now finds itself in,'' Baker said.
Asked for clarification, Baker said he was referring to the fact that the government is operating without a budget approved by the General Assembly and that Gov. Paul Patton's leadership has been ''diminished'' as a result of a sex scandal.
Baker wouldn't release the names of the candidates to be interviewed. But Jim Ramsey, Patton's budget director and the acting president of the University of Louisville, acknowledged he had been asked to interview.
''I think the CPE job is a very important job,'' Ramsey said, ''and I had expressed an interest.''
The council is seeking a president after refusing in June to renew the contract of Gordon Davies, who was hired in 1998 as its first president.
Davies was charged with implementing the reform law, which was designed to increase the number of students attending Kentucky colleges, improve the quality of the state's eight public universities, and minimize the turf battles among the institutions.
The law gives the council authority to recommend to the governor how much money each of the eight universities gets each year and to encourage them to make changes to boost enrollment and student retention rates -- for example, by providing additional funding from a special pool of money.
Davies lost the support of Patton and the council earlier this year after several university presidents worked with legislators from their districts to increase their budgets in legislation that never ultimately became law. Davies argued against the action of the universities and the legislators.
The council, at Patton's urging, let Davies' contract expire June 15 without renewing it.
Because of the conflict last spring over the budget, Baker said it's important for the next council president to be able to work with Patton and the person who succeeds him, the General Assembly and the university presidents.
He said that after the interviews today and tomorrow, the screening committee will narrow the field to as many as four finalists.
He said he expects the 14member council to schedule a meeting for mid-November to interview the finalists. He said the council is also trying to find a way for the finalists to meet Patton, General Assembly leaders, university presidents and others.
Some of those to be interviewed today and tomorrow have been university presidents, Baker said, while others have run state systems of higher education. He said he could not recall whether any of them came from outside higher education, but he emphasized that the council president must have the respect of the state's university presidents, and that means having some background in higher education.
''My hope is we'll be able to attract someone with demonstrable success at the system level,'' said Jim Votruba, president of Northern Kentucky University. ''This is not the time for on-the-job training.''
Jan Greenwood, vice president for education at A.T. Kearney in Alexandria, Va., and the consultant assisting the council in its presidential search, said in a recent interview that some candidates had expressed concern over Patton's ability to lead the state while being accused by nursing home owner Tina Conner of retaliating against her after she broke off their sexual affair.
But Baker said all of the people asked to interview with the screening committee agreed to do so, and none had backed away because of the PattonConner scandal.
October 28, 2002
Modesto Del Castillo has been a one-man show in the Elizabethtown Community College biology department. He's the only microbiology teacher ECC has ever had.
A graduate of the University of New Mexico, Castillo came to ECC in 1966 when the school had just one building. He was scheduled to leave to fight in Vietnam, but was thankful for the opportunity at ECC, which kept him in the states.
"I had no idea what a community college was," Castillo said.
But he came anyway.
After creating the biology program at ECC, he looked for a new challenge in the early 1980s. He found he could develop his own computer software to enhance the way he taught biology.
"I came here as a chalk teacher, but I can do more things with computers," he said.
He was paid by IBM to develop software in 1987. He went to many states and countries afterwards to talk about his software, which focused on viruses.
"They are using the software all over the place, using it in Israel, and there are even some illegal copies in India," he said jokingly.
Castillo experienced a setback in 1998 when he underwent heart bypass surgery. But he took advantage of the surgery, and had the doctors at Hardin Memorial Hospital videotaped the procedure. Castillo now uses that videotape in his classes.
Some of his previous students were doctors and nurses at HMH, where he underwent a colonoscopy a couple of years later.
"I just have photo stills for that one," he said.
Castillo hopes to teach for another five years, before retiring to write more computer software.
"I just want to stay creative and not burn out," he said.