Download the notebook handout from the retreat in PDF format by clicking here. Click the links in the table of contents below to find articles and audio from specific sessions during the retreat.
To view articles and posts about the Chancellor's Annual Planning Retreat 2011, click here.
Watch this space over the next few days for blogs, reports, presentations and photos related to the Chancellor’s Planning Retreat 2012.
If you’d like to listen in, below are audio files for Chancellor Glenn DuBois’ presentation on Tuesday, Aug. 7 and presentations from U.S. Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter and Virginia Secretary of Education Laura Fornash.
Photos from the retreat are on the VCCS flickr site.
Stay tuned!
By Anne Dunham, Virginia Highlands Community College
Special Correspondent
Building on the momentum of the 2012 Summer Olympics, Chancellor Glenn DuBois likened the race for gold medals to what happens every day within the classrooms of Virginia’s Community Colleges.
“This year’s event has a simple theme: Strive. Compete. Achieve,” DuBois told more than 250 gathered at his annual Planning Retreat. “We are witnessing some of the finest athletes in the world doing that in London. But, on a more tangible scale, on perhaps a more meaningful scale, we see people doing just that with their lives – and we… Click here to read more…
By Michael Zitz-Beckham, Germanna Community College
Special Correspondent
Educators across America are faced with a paradox, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, a keynote speaker at the 2012 Chancellor’s Planning Retreat told a crowd of 200 at the at Wyndham Virginia Crossings Hotel & Conference Center.
Funding limitations make change seem risky, she said. But the greatest risk for our students, for our institutions themselves and for our nation would be a failure to change, to experiment, to innovate.
Higher education is in serious need of redesign, she said.
“Our biggest battle is the status quo,” Kanter said.… Click here to read more…
By Michael Zitz Beckham, Germanna Community College
Special Correspondent
Virginia’s Community Colleges were founded nearly 50 years ago on the principle that closing the opportunity divide opens new doors.
Year Up was founded only a decade ago based on precisely the same idea.
It provides low income 18-to-24-year-olds with intensive training and internships that lead to college credit and good jobs. In New York City, where it was conceived, many of those jobs have been with Fortune 500 companies. Eighty-five percent of Year Up graduates are employed or full-time college students within four months of completing the program.
Richard Sebastian, director of teaching and learning technologies for Virginia’s Community Colleges, assembled an OER “dream team” to discuss open educational resources at the recent Chancellor’s Annual Planning Retreat 2012.
They included Nicole Allen, affordable textbooks advocate with the Student PIRGs organization; Jim Groom, director of the division of teaching and learning technologies at the University of Mary Washington; Mirta Martin, dean of the Reginald F. Lewis School of Business at Virginia State University; and David Wiley, associate professor of instructional psychology and technology at Brigham Young University.
The overwhelming chorus:
keep educational resources open and affordable.
Textbook… Click here to read more…
By Kris Landrum, Patrick Henry Community College
Special Correspondent
The Honorable Gerald Baliles, 65th governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1986-1990) and currently Director and CEO of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, held the audience of several hundred VCCS presidents, vice presidents, and other senior administrators in rapt attention as he delivered the closing keynote for the 2012 Chancellor’s Planning Retreat.
His message, true to the theme of “Strive, Compete, Achieve,” was one that challenges community colleges, business and industry leaders, and legislative bodies to help the state meet the completion agenda by increasing numbers of degree-holding… Click here to read more…
By Steve Vehorn, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
Special Correspondent
Virginia Secretary of Education Laura Fornash recently served as a keynote speaker at the 2012 Chancellor’s Planning Retreat at the Wyndham Virginia Crossings Hotel & Conference Center. Fornash congratulated the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) and its leadership on successfully tackling some of the toughest issues related to higher education the commonwealth has ever faced. But she also challenged the system to continue the momentum into this next academic year and beyond.
“Through your strategic plan – Achieve 2015 and through the reengineering… Click here to read more…
By Steve Vehorn, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
Special Correspondent
At the 2012 Chancellor’s Annual Planning Retreat, I had the opportunity to attend a session entitled “Strengthening Veteran Affairs.” While I figured from the title the session would cover the responsibilities community colleges have assisting veterans that are going back to college, I quickly learned of the hard work and collaboration that is under way to ensure veterans are getting their due reward for their training and service.
Currently the commonwealth ranks seventh in the nation with more than 823,000 veterans, 45 percent of whom have seen service during the Gulf Wars.… Click here to read more…
By Amanda Christopher, Workforce Development Services, Virginia’s Community Colleges
Reaching underrepresented populations is not easy – it takes time, trust, building community partnerships, listening and understanding needs, and the acceptance that one organization cannot do it alone.
Northern Virginia Community College realized this eight years ago and began to develop partnerships with community based organizations who did job and skills training. Their goal was to reach individuals who did not view themselves, or their future, as having a place within the college system.
Today, NVCC has seven partners with models of collaboration between community college and community based non-profits. Individuals get basic… Click here to read more…
By Amanda Christopher, VCCS Workforce Services
Still new to the worlds of workforce and higher education, I had the privilege of receiving a crash course in the two subjects from one of the field’s most revolutionary thinkers and doers.
Martin L. Scaglione, president of the Workforce Development Division for ACT, spoke to a crowded room at the 2012 Virginia Community College Chancellor’s Annual Planning Retreat about complex workforce issues facing the country, and the innovative ways ACT is combating these challenges.
WorkKeys has been in the marketplace for 20 years, 42 states are currently offering the National Career Readiness… Click here to read more…
By Anne Dunham, Virginia Highlands Community College
Special Correspondent
Non-academic factors, mobile student populations, application and fee policies, and inconsistencies in collecting and maintaining student data are among the factors that have kept thousands of Americans – hundreds of them from Virginia’s Community Colleges – from earning associate degrees.
And that’s a critical issue at a time when competition for jobs is fierce and the nation is committed to producing more college graduates, said Clifford Adelman, senior associate for the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
“These are not hello-goodbye people,” Adelman said. “We all know hello-goodbye people, but here… Click here to read more…
On August 7, 2012, Dr. Glenn DuBois gave his annual Chancellor’s Address during the 2012 Chancellor’s Planning Retreat.
Click the right-facing arrow below to listen to the address, or click the file name to download the MP3 to your computer.
On August 7, 2012, we were pleased to welcome The Honorable Martha Kanter, Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education as our keynote speaker.
Click the right-facing arrow below to listen to the address, or click the file name to download the MP3 to your computer.
During the afternoon Plenary Session on August 7, 2012, we were pleased to welcome an address by The Honorable Laura Fornash, the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Click the right-facing arrow below to listen to the address, or click the file name to download the MP3 to your computer.
Below are many of the presentations from the 2012 Chancellor’s Planning Retreat, held in Glen Allen, Virginia on Aug. 7-8, along with any blog summaries or audio available.
Chancellor’s Opening Address
Opening Keynote – U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter
Plenary Session – Virginia Secretary of Education Laura Fornash
Plenary Session – Ms. Lisette Nieves, National Director of Strategic Program Pilots, Year Up
Closing Keynote – The Honorable Gerald Baliles…
Click here to read more…