KCTCS hosts dedication at its new headquarters

Community Colleges Struggle to Foster 'Engagement,' Survey Finds

Editorial: Make Kentucky more competitive

KCTCS hosts dedication at its new headquarters

"In a year or two, people in the community and across the state of Kentucky and the nation will realize what a major deal this is, and what an accomplishment for Versailles and Woodford County," said Versailles Mayor Fred Siegelman during the Nov. 19 dedication of the newly-renovated headquarters at 300 North Main Street.

Earlier, Midway College President Dr. William Drake applauded KCTCS for its willingness to collaborate with his institution in degree-completion programs so students in all parts of Kentucky can return to the classroom to earn undergraduate degrees.

"KCTCS is about changing lives, and this new system office will do just that," said Andy Meko, KCTCS Foundation secretary. "It is more than a building. It is a symbol of Kentucky's commitment to excellence in postsecondary education and training."

"We know that today we (in Woodford County) are the envy of 119 other counties, and we're glad of that," said County Magistrate Carl Rollins (Dist. 1).

KCTCS Board of Regents Vice-Chair Richard Bean said the public-private partnership between the City of Versailles and KCTCS to renovate the former Texas Instruments building was a win-win situation that saved the Commonwealth millions of dollars during tight budgetary times.

He termed the "partnership that brought revitalization to an empty manufacturing facility in the heart of a small historic community" as remarkable. And he described the relocation as "a major economic accomplishment for the City of Versailles, KCTCS, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky," while also representing a milestone for KCTCS on its journey toward meeting the lifelong educational needs of Kentuckians.

Bean said the hiring of Dr. Michael B. McCall as the founding president of KCTCS was the greatest achievement of the board of regents during the past six years.

"His vision to make KCTCS the best community and technical college system in the nation, and his leadership which has carried us to national prominence in six brief years has brought us to this hour of celebration," Bean said.

But Brian Call, deputy secretary under Governor Ernie Fletcher said, "This (relocation) is not the crowning achievement of KCTCS. This is, if you will, another small step in a series of achievements and accomplishments.

"We dedicate a building today. But more importantly, we rededicate ourselves to the building of opportunity - educational and technical - for the citizens of the Commonwealth."

KCTCS has been searching for a permanent home for its system office staff since its creation in 1997 by the state's Postsecondary Education Improvement Act.

"Little did we realize six years ago that our vision of KCTCS to be the best in the nation would align with the City of Versailles," McCall said.

When Texas Instruments closed its doors in 2001, the company agreed to donate the 125,000 square-foot - approximately the size of two football fields - manufacturing facility to the City of Versailles, which in turn proposed a lease-purchase agreement with KCTCS in August 2002.

Over the next two decades, KCTCS will reimburse the City of Versailles for the costs associated with the $6 million renovation, which houses administrative offices, conference spaces and training facilities.

"So, today this facility now has a new purpose," said McCall. "One that provides an open and warm environment as you walk through it, one that supports creativity, one that supports the community, and one that also encourages us to work as teams with one another."

The KCTCS headquarters incorporates 3-D imagery in virtual-reality learning rooms, a distance learning center and 300-seat conference center. Its 200 employees serve faculty and staff on 65 community and technical college campuses across the Commonwealth.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
December 3, 2004

Community Colleges Struggle to Foster 'Engagement,' Survey Finds

Most community-college students are not meeting their educational goals, according to a national survey released this week.

Twenty-seven percent of two-year-college students say that completing a certificate program is their primary goal, while 59 percent cite obtaining an associate degree, according to results from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement.

That means some 86 percent of students hope to complete a degree or certificate program. Yet only 25 percent of students nationwide who had enrolled in either kind of program in the 1995-96 academic year had earned one within six years, according to data that the survey's authors culled from the American Council on Education and the U.S. Education Department. Some 53 percent of the survey's respondents said transferring to a four-year institution was their primary goal, but only 25 percent of community-college students typically do so.

Now in its fourth year, the survey, known as "Cessie" after its abbreviation, CCSSE, covered more than 92,000 students at 152 colleges in 30 states -- or 1.5 percent of the student population at the nation's 1,200 community colleges. The study is modeled after the National Survey of Student Engagement, or NSSE, which surveyed students at four-year institutions and released the results of its most recent survey in November (The Chronicle, November 26).

The dismal success rates may not be surprising given that the survey also found that 64 percent of two-year-college students are enrolled part time, 60 percent work more than 20 hours per week, 34 percent spend 11 or more hours per week caring for dependents, and 20 percent spend six to 20 hours per week commuting to and from class.

"These students are multitasking to a very significant degree," says Kay M. McClenney, director of the survey and a professor in the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin. The survey was founded on the belief that a student's level of engagement with his college plays a large role in student success. "Which means that colleges must be very intentional about engaging their students during the limited amount of time that they are on campus. Engagement is not going to happen by accident," she says.

Supporting Engagement

The survey's results indicate that colleges may not be doing enough to promote student engagement.

Participating colleges have, for example, consistently been rated low on academic advisement during the survey's four years. This year 17 percent of students said they were undecided about whether they would return to college after the current semester -- such students are in need of advising, according to the report.

Yet 36 percent of students said they rarely or never use the college's academic-advising services. Nearly half -- 49 percent -- said they rarely or never use career-counseling services.

Some 25 percent of students use college tutoring services "often" or "very often" and only 22 percent have talked with an instructor about career plans "often" or "very often"; 34 percent say they have never done so. Less than a quarter, 22 percent, say the college helps them cope with nonacademic responsibilities.

Still, 68 percent of students said their college provides the support they need to succeed "quite a bit" or "very much."

The survey also found that professors may not be challenging students as much as they could be. Some 31 percent of students reported that they have read four or fewer textbooks, manuals, or other course books, and 29 percent report that they have written four or fewer papers in a semester.

"You have to ask yourself as a faculty member whether our expectations for student work are as high as they need to be," Ms. McClenney says.

Additionally, only 12 percent of full-time students said they spend 21 or more hours per week preparing for class; 68 percent of full-time students spend 10 or fewer hours per week studying.

By comparison, NSSE found that 11 percent of full-time students at four-year colleges study 25 hours per week and 40 percent study 10 or fewer hours. Some 71 percent of all students in the CCSSE survey said they came to class unprepared at least some of the time.

Still, 67 percent of students said their exams were relatively or extremely challenging, and 63 percent said their course work emphasized analytical thinking "very much" or "quite a bit."

The survey, perhaps surprisingly, found that remedial students -- those not prepared for college-level work -- are more engaged than their academically prepared peers.

Some 26 percent of remedial students said they talked about career plans with an instructor, compared with 19 percent of academically prepared students. Fifty-six percent prepared multiple drafts of a paper before turning it in, compared with 42 percent of their academically prepared peers. And 52 percent said they worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor's expectations, compared with 43 percent of nonremedial students.

The survey also found that:

• 63 percent of students often or very often asked questions in class or contributed to discussion.
• 44 percent often or very often worked with other students on projects during class.
• 21 percent often or very often worked with classmates outside of class to prepare assignments.
• 35 percent of students had used e-mail to communicate with an instructor often or very often; 29 percent had never done so.
• 56 percent said they got prompt feedback often or very often.
• 45 percent said their college encouraged contact among students from different economic, social, and racial or ethnic backgrounds.

A report on the survey, "Engagement by Design," is available online at http://www.ccsse.org, where each institution's performance on certain benchmarks is also available.

Kentucky Enquirer
November 24, 2004

Editorial: Make Kentucky more competitive

A new economic analysis of Kentucky's tax and spending policies is about more than just getting back a fairer share of taxes for Northern Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington.

Ultimately it's about making all of Kentucky more competitive, and University of Louisville economics professor Paul Coomes' study should be required reading for every Kentucky lawmaker.

Kentucky's outdated tax and spending policies are not aligned to attract the fast-growing industries and high-paying office jobs of the future. The state isn't investing enough in its urban growth centers where those jobs cluster almost exclusively, and in many cases Kentucky does just the opposite, still spending more heavily on education and highways in sparsely populated parts of the state.

Kentucky needs to move quickly to modernize its tax code to attract the professional higher-paying jobs of the new economy and generate the new revenue that can benefit all parts of the state.

Coomes' study shows that Kentucky has become a more urbanized state, with 2.4 million of the state's 4 million residents living in nine metro areas.

The wages and income earned from traditionally rural-based industries such as farming and coal mining now account for only about 3.5 percent of total wages and income from all industries. But the state has not mobilized to attract high-paying professional jobs of the knowledge-based economy. Kentucky ranks near the bottom nationally (46th) with only 514 such jobs per 10,000 residents.

Kentucky imposes a higher tax burden on such urban professionals than their counterparts face in other states, and the relative tax disadvantage has even gotten worse over the past decade.

"The primary culprit is Kentucky individual income tax," Coomes writes. It makes the state a tough sell to chief executive officers scouting business sites. "We should lower the income tax from 6 to 5 percent," he told the Enquirer Editorial Board.

"We have a huge personal income tax burden," said Bob Elliston, chairman of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and president of Turfway Park.

Coomes' study was funded by Northern Kentucky's Tri-County Economic Development Foundation, Lexington Urban County Government and Greater Louisville Inc. Louisville was found the big loser, getting back less than 60 cents on the dollar for revenues paid in to the state. Northern Kentucky's return rate was almost as bad, about 64 cents on the dollar, and its donor status especially hurt in education funding, from K-12 districts to colleges.

Elliston and other Chamber officials plan to continue to lobby hard for chronically underfunded Northern Kentucky University and Gateway Community and Technical College. Those higher education institutions turn out the educated work force that can fill the higher-paying jobs that Kentucky needs to attract.

Penalizing urban growth centers is no way to become more competitive and attractive to fast-growth industries. Kentucky should correct its tax code and enlarge the economic pie for all.