{"id":16520,"date":"2018-01-16T09:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T14:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news-new\/?page_id=16520"},"modified":"2025-10-13T15:48:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:48:41","slug":"envisioning-excellence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/envisioning-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Envisioning Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
\"Community<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This article was published in January 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decades ago a high school diploma was good enough to get a job that paid wages to support a family in North Carolina. Not so today, when 65 percent of newly created jobs in the state require more than a diploma, but not necessarily a four-year degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With such changing economic and social conditions, the skills required of community college presidents today are substantially different than those required even 10 years ago, says Bob Templin, Professor of the Practice in the NC State College of Education and a Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community college leaders today must leverage fewer dollars and resources, ensure access for nontraditional and underrepresented students, and maintain enrollments, he says. They also must find better ways of reaching students to ensure completion and strong postgraduate outcomes \u2013 as measured by the students\u2019 ability to secure well-paying jobs or transfer to a four-year institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a capable leader at these \u201cgateway institutions\u201d is paramount to achieve that level of student success, says Pamela Senegal \u201911 EDD, President of Piedmont Community College.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWe are reaching a point where presidential change is occurring nationally at the rate of about one per day.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the area of higher education that needs the absolute, best leadership possible,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to be deliberate about how we\u2019re preparing people for the kinds of situations that we will have to handle \u2013 how to interpret regional and state data to know how that\u2019s going to affect our institutions, how to fundraise, how to build coalitions. Those are the skills of a modern community college president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heeding the call, the NC State College of Education has transformed the way it prepares community college presidents and supports the North Carolina Community College System. Simultaneously, the college is creating a pipeline of community college leaders that will help address another challenge: Half of the state\u2019s 58 community colleges presidents are expected to step down by 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are reaching a point where presidential change is occurring nationally at the rate of about one per day, and it\u2019s likely to be this way \u2013 although maybe not at the exact same rate \u2013 for the next 10 years,\u201d says Templin.  <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

Half of the state\u2019s 58 community colleges presidents are expected to step down by 2019.<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnvisioning Excellence Pushes Us Forward\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For years the college\u2019s Doctor of Education program designed for community college leaders was more focused on traditional research, says Audrey Jaeger, Ph.D., Professor of Higher Education and Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor at NC State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd traditional research is important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what was missing, she adds, was \u201chow that research translates for those who are on the ground, already doing the work in North Carolina\u2019s community colleges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in 2015 the college started the Envisioning Excellence for Community College Leadership Program<\/a>, which the John M. Belk Endowment funded and for which Jaeger, Dean Mary Ann Danowitz and Associate Professor James Bartlett serve as the principal investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n