State Listening Tour comes to VGCC
Vance-Granville Community College welcomed top officials from the state community college system to its main campus on April 29 as part of a “listening tour” that seeks input from colleges across North Carolina. The delegation was led by North Carolina Community Colleges Senior Vice President/Chief Academic Officer Dr. Sharon Morrissey, Vice President/Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Haygood and Dr. G. Thomas Houlihan, a member of the State Board of Community Colleges and chairman of the board’s strategic planning committee. Houlihan is a resident of Oxford, a former member of the VGCC Board of Trustees and a former superintendent of Granville County Schools.
The listening tour is part of the state board’s “ SuccessNC ” planning initiative. The goal of SuccessNC is to facilitate the sharing of best practices, initiate statewide policies to foster student success while removing those that inhibit student success, and develop new performance-based student success measures between now and 2013, the year of the state community college system’s 50th anniversary.
“I hope this strategic plan will be the way we move forward and the way we evaluate the success of our community colleges across the state,” said Houlihan, who added that it was “great to be back with friends and neighbors.”
Morrissey said she wanted to hear success stories from VGCC but also suggestions for state policy changes that could help the college and students to be even more successful. VGCC President Randy Parker and other college administrators presented various statistics and highlighted several initiatives. Director of Joint High School Programs Lyndon Hall discussed VGCC’s four Early College High Schools, which are operated in partnership with the four local school systems. Dr. Angela Ballentine, the college’s vice president of instruction, talked about VGCC partnerships that provide education and training for inmates of federal and state correctional institutions, and about the partnership with Maria Parham Medical Center in Henderson that allows students in several college programs to train in a state-of-the-art simulation center at the hospital. Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Endowment Director Jo Anna Jones discussed the college’s planning process.
Above: As North Carolina Community Colleges Senior Vice President/Chief Academic Officer Dr. Sharon Morrissey (left) listens, State Board of Community Colleges member Dr. G. Thomas Houlihan of Oxford (standing) addresses VGCC faculty and staff members at the beginning of a “listening tour” session in the VGCC Civic Center on April 29. (VGCC photo)
