Economic Development Authority | Small Busines Development Center
Commissioner of Higher Education recommends no to Bitterroot Valley Community College
The Commissioner of Higher Education recommends that the Bitterroot Community College be denied. In a draft 184 page report of the Bitterroot Valley Community College (BVCC) District Proposal ITEM 141-104-R1108 | OCHE Analysis of Proposed Bitterroot Valley Community College the Commissioner’s section 2.4 Conclusion reads in part:
It is important to recognize that the trustees-elect in Ravalli County have had to engage in these planning activities without two critical assets: the expertise of an administrative team of community college professionals directed to do this work and a budget to support environmental scanning and data-driven planning. Given the voluminous and detailed documents prepared by BVCC-E on this and a number of issues, it is not a lack of dedication or effort, but a lack of resources, that no doubt accounts for the
shortcomings in their assessments of need and demand. At this point, however, both the needs assessments and the enrollment projections fail to give the confidence and clarity needed for solid planning at the community level and for wise investment at the state level. These deficiencies can be remedied but not within the timeline required to inform the regents’ recommendation and probably not within the timeline required for a Fall 2009 start-up of the proposed new community college.
On Thursday, November 20, 2008 at The University of Montana-Missoula, University Center Ballroom, 3rd Floor University Center, beginning at 9:00 AM the report will be presented. Beginning at 10:15 AM public comment will be taken.
Call the RCEDA Office at 406.375.9416 or email RCEDA General Information
| Print article | This entry was posted by Julie Foster on November 17, 2008 at 10:33 am, and is filed under Entrepreneurship Center, Projects. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 4 years ago
Sirs/Madams of the MT House & Senate Education Committees:
I do not know how closely you are following events in the application by the Bitterroot Valley Community College (BVCC) people to establish a community college in the Bitterroot. I do not know if you have received, by e-mail the subject analysis of the proposal, to be considered by the Board of Regents at its meeting Nov. 20 in Missoula.
If not, the attachment, below, contains that analysis. As the analysis asserts, creation of a BVCC has implications for the state in funding another community college, and describes founding a BVCC as a “risk.” All in all, the analysis strikes, after many objections to a BVCC, a certain balance.
Among the points in the analysis are alternatives for you to consider, one of which is a higher education center in Hamilton, and outreach activities of the universities, the colleges, and the COTs. Whether you want an organizational spider web of Montana’s higher education system is up to you, and I’ve already stated my opinions about that, with charts for a more coherent, effective, organization regarding 2-year postsecondary education (2PE).
The Hamilton Higher Education Center (HHEC) and the lack of effort by UM-Missoula to establish a postsecondary institution in the Bitterroot has been well documented by the BVCC people. The analysis includes their argument. You must know, if you don’t already, that over the three or so years that this HHEC has existed, it has violated Guideline 1, in the Regents’ policy manual, namely, Policy 220 – Higher education centers. I quote: “A higher education center shall offer a structured, coherent educational program leading to a degree. It shall not be merely the physical location for occasional course offerings.” I submit that the so-called higher education center in Hamilton has never, and still does not, meet that guideline. Beyond that, Policy 220 does not define a higher education center as an institution as it exists in other states, and I’ve already commented on this. I submit that the Regents use the term, “higher education center” to mean whatever they want it to mean.
This brings me to my final and most important point: There is nothing in the current Regents’ Policy Manual that relates to establishing a community college. Policy 209.1 – Governance and Organization simply establishes the relationship between the Regents and an existing community college. What I’m saying, here, is that the conduct of the Commissioner of Higher Education (CHE) in requiring the BVCC people to go through hoops and hurdles in order to gain Regent approval is not based on any standing policy. In short, this entire examination, if you will, of the BVCC application and all that the BVCC people have had to go through has been conducted on an ad hoc basis. The BVCC people had no prior knowledge, until the CHE started asking and requiring, what was necessary, because there was no policy in place. It’s a miracle that in a short period of time the BVCC people have been able to supply the CHE with the information demanded, and even then the CHE has contested it with so-called “alternatives.”
It makes me wonder whether our current community colleges could have come into existence under this Montana University System.
The CHE’s analysis approaches the issue primarily as a funding issue.
It’s up to you whether or not to buy that. I believe the CHE is more concerned about the viability of the universities than about local needs for a postsecondary institution that fulfills a panoply of local educational needs. You must realize that the Bitterroot is on the cusp of exponential growth, a big issue there, now. It’s a quality of life issue for those people. And, you must know that as the Bitterroot prospers, which it will with a community college, so will Montana.
So, I’m saying to you, consider the subject analysis, consider the Regents’ recommendation when it comes to you, which you are not bound by, and most importantly, keep tuned to this BVCC issue, because it does raise the question for the future of 2PE in this state and what you can do about it.
David Werner