Tuesday’s Barton Community College Board of Trustees meeting featured positive presentations about the accreditation team’s recent visit to the campus, the 2022 Community Report, and institutional effectiveness overall.
HLC update
The Higher Learning Commission has completed its on-site inspection of Barton Community College as part of the ongoing accreditation process. At Tuesday’s board of trustees meeting, Myrna Perkins, the college’s chief accreditation officer, reported on her observations of comments by the visiting team.
“They thanked Barton for being prepared for the visit,” she said. Employees, students and trustees told Barton’s story, and the visiting team reported that “students really connect with Barton,” and spoke glowingly of the quality of education and the caring teachers. Faculty expressed appreciation for the support they receive from the administration.
“Barton displays a culture of assessment,” Perkins said, continuing to share team observations. “There is a culture of continuous quality improvement ... and a genuine commitment to students and the community.
“We put ‘community’ in community college and they thought that was top-notch,” Perkins continued. No areas of concern were noted. A report should be done in two weeks and after it is shared with the president’s office the report will go before a board for action. “We’re cautiously optimistic with the outcome.”
Board of Trustees Chairman Mike Johnson said he enjoyed being involved in the team visit. The team members’ comments reflect what trustees see every day, he said. “It’s good they saw the same thing.”
“I am not a bit surprised at how the HLC visit turned out,” said board member Gary Burke.
2022 Community Report
Chief Communications Officer Maggie Harris presented the final draft of the 2022 Community Report. As stated on its cover page, this annual document “highlights the college’s progress in meeting the direction provided by your elected board.”
It starts with the mission statement: “Barton Community College offers exceptional and affordable learning opportunities supporting student, community, and employee needs.”
Readers are invited to “visit transparency.bartonccc.edu for data that paints a real-time picture of how the institution is doing.” A link to the 2022 Community Report and previous reports can also be found at that link.
The report looks at the eight “ENDS,” which are the principle goals that guide the policies set by the trustees. Each month there is a monitoring report on one “END.”
Workforce Preparedness
Tuesday’s report was on END 2 - Work Preparedness and was presented by Dr. Kathy Kottas, dean of Workforce Training & Community Education. One goal of END 2 is that “students will have the skills and knowledge required for successful entry into the workplace.”
Kottas reported that the Workforce Training and Career & Technical Education divisions at Barton have over 750 industry partners, with 129 new partnerships added in 2022. There are 19 advisory boards to help educators teach skills that are relevant to the various industries/jobs.
“We couldn’t do what we do in Workforce Preparedness education without our partners,” Kottas said.
Last year, the Pharmacy Tech and Medical Assistant programs saw 100% of their students pass state boards on the first attempt. The overall pass rate for health-care programs was 84% and eight of 11 programs had a pass rate greater than 80%.
Kottas noted that these pass rates only reflect students’ first attempt at the state tests. “If we could report the second-time pass rate, most of those would be 100%,” she said.
The overall pass rate for Trades & Technology certifications was 88%. All 13 certifications had a pass rate above 80% and seven certifications were 100%.
Institutional Effectiveness
Todd Mobray, Barton’s director of Institutional Effectiveness, reported on strategic planning and on Return On Investment (ROI). For ROI, he referred to the summary of a recent Docking Institute Study commissioned by the college:
• College Revenue - The three-year average from 2019-2021 shows that for every $1 of revenue from Barton County taxes, $2.61 of additional revenue comes from various other sources. “The ROI from the Barton County taxes when considering Barton Community College as a whole is 261% or 27.7% of total revenue.”
• Return On Investment - When total college expenditures are considered (including capital building and non-public source pass-through funds incurred by BCC), the three-year average shows that for every $1 of revenue derived from the county tax, $2.05 is spent in Barton County. The ROI from the Barton County taxes considering all the direct impact of Barton Community College on Barton County is 205%.
New personnel
In other business, the board heard an update on the Faculty Council from its chair, Amanda Alliband, and approved new personnel: Kiah Rainbolt, Campus Safety Officer; Eugene Dixon, Student and Residence Life Assistant; Tana Yellowwolf, Coordinator of Adult Healthcare; Courtney Leibl, Digital Content Specialist; and Nicholas Larmer, Assistant Director of Emergency Medical Services Education. All will work on the Barton county campus.
