It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the loss of Cinda Edwards, former chair of the Lincoln Land Community College Board of Trustees, and her husband, Frank Edwards, yesterday in a plane crash. Cinda and Frank were among LLCC’s biggest proponents and supporters.

Cinda was a proud graduate of our nursing program. She was elected to the LLCC Board of Trustees in 2007 and rose through the ranks as board secretary, vice chair, and finally chair of the board in 2011. She served as chair for two years, presiding over the opening of the Workforce Careers Center.

Cinda was known for her calm, decisive leadership and tireless support of our students, faculty and staff. Frank was her constant supporter and was so proud of her many accomplishments.

We extend our deepest sympathy to their son, Alex, an alum of LLCC, along with their extended families, countless associates and friends, and also to the family and friends of the third victim, John Evans.

Charlotte Warren, Ph.D.
President
Lincoln Land Community College

Every three years the college administers a climate survey to provide data on perceptions of the college environment and to help inform us on what we are doing well and what could be improved. We will be conducting such a survey, the Personal Assessment of the College Environment (PACE), this fall. It will open on Tuesday, Oct. 8 and be available through Friday, Nov. 1.

We are committed to a constant process of internal review and analysis to guide our continuous quality improvement. One significant way we can work to enhance our campus climate is to listen to and take action on your views regarding its various factors. The PACE helps us better understand our campus environment as it relates to institutional structure, supervisory relationships, teamwork and focus on students. It also provides a way for us to assess effectiveness of new initiatives and measure growth or change over a multi-year period.

I understand that honest communication can sometimes feel difficult to provide. That is why we work to ensure your anonymity. We have engaged the National Initiative for Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness (NILIE), an independent college survey specialist, to undertake our climate survey and provide the college aggregated results. So please be candid in answering these questions. Honest and constructive communication is critical in our process of identifying priority areas on which to focus.

You will receive an email invite from NILIE to participate in the PACE survey once it has opened. When the survey is completed and the data compiled, results will be reviewed by various groups and shared with the campus community.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete the survey. Your input is very much appreciated.

Charlotte Warren, Ph.D.
President, Lincoln Land Community College

As many of you know, we have had several administrative retirements in the last year or so that we have managed with temporary appointments.  That void has led to a great deal of speculation around the campus and sent the grapevine into overload.  Even so, it was important for us to take our time to step back and take a look at how our needs may have changed, and then plan for those needs.  We also wanted to make sure that all who would be affected by the changes would be able to have a conversation with their proposed supervisor before plans were made public.  This work has taken some time as there has been a fair bit of reshuffling.  As always, the intent is to find the best way to take care of our students.

As important for many of you has been knowing that although some will be sitting in different seats, everyone has a spot.  That has been my philosophy during difficult financial times, and it remains true.  Each person involved in the changes has had a discussion with the supervisor to whom they will report, and is aware of any change that directly affects them.

Faculty were informed of departmental restructuring before they left for the summer.  We have created seven academic departments where there were previously five.  By rearranging a bit, and realigning disciplines, we hope to help departments be better able to support students and faculty alike.  You can find the new academic departments, their deans and support staff in the Academic Services Organizational Chart.  As you take a look, you will note that some programs/departments previously under the VP for Workforce Development and Community Education are now supervised by the VP for Academic Services.  Dr. Jozaitis will be retiring in a few months, so her responsibilities have been redistributed.  We are making the shift as of July 1.  This allows transition/overlap for Judy’s remaining time so that we can prevent anything from falling through the cracks.

So, beyond the traditional academics, Dr. Lindquist will be responsible for all of the workforce programs, as well as Community Education and the Capital City Training Center.  The SBDC will report to Paula Luebbert.  The Adult Education program will be housed in Student Services, reporting to Dr. Lesley Frederick.  Additionally, with the retirement of Julie Rourke, we have lost important grant writing talent.  To remedy that, a grant writing position has been created and that will be housed within the Foundation reporting to Karen Sanders.  We are working on the remaining organizational charts to replace the ones posted under human resources.

You will also see some difference in the structure of student advising.  In fact our staff will have different titles, and are changing up the way services are offered.  In an effort to build stronger and increasingly supportive student/staff relationships, those staff have taken on the role of coaches.  This is not just a title change, but a change in approach.  We want to change from a transactional model to more of a relationship building model.  I won’t get into the specifics here, but just want you to be aware that things might not look quite the same.

The world of education is changing at a much faster pace than ever.  We are trying to find ways to not just keep up, but to continue to position ourselves for the students of today and tomorrow.  Lincoln Land Community College is fortunate to have such talented faculty and staff who step up, roll up their sleeves, and step in.

Charlotte Warren, Ph.D.
President

Dr. Charlotte Warren, president, was elected to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Board of Directors at the recent AACC convention in Orlando, Fla. Her three-year term begins July 1. AACC is governed by a 32-member Board of Directors. The 32-member board acts on behalf of the institutional members to create and maintain a vision for AACC and to determine and ensure that the organization adheres to appropriate standards of performance.

I am pleased to inform you that on Feb. 27, 2019, the LLCC Board of Trustees approved collective bargaining agreements for full-time and part-time faculty. With the new agreements in place, the college is moving forward with salary and insurance adjustments for administrators, classified staff and professional staff retroactive to July 1, 2018.

The college has increased the annual amount it contributes toward health insurance coverage from $10,400 to $10,920 for plan year 2019. On March 15, a premium refund will be issued for those covered under the Open Access Plan and a health savings account deposit or premium adjustment will occur for those covered under the High Deductible Plan.

On March 31, salaries will be adjusted to reflect a 3.97 percent increase retroactive to July 1, 2018 with a retroactive payment. Please note that salaries were already increased by 2 percent, so the adjustment will be for an additional 1.97 percent. Those employees who started on or after January 1, 2018 are only eligible for ½ of the overall increase. Only current, active employees are eligible for these adjustments. The Human Resources office will send individual correspondence with additional details.

Charlotte Warren, Ph.D.
President

Dear Lincoln Land Community College Faculty and Staff:

On Professional Development Day, I will take the opportunity for 15-20 minutes to fill you in on some brainstorming efforts that have been taking place for the past three months considering how we might better organize our team/committee structure on campus.

It was clear from our systems portfolio feedback in the fall that our current methodology has resulted in gaps in some of the areas that we need to address. After taking some time to examine that report, and analyzing our current structure from a quality initiative lens, I asked representatives from Shared Governance Council, the Faculty Senate, and the AQIP Steering Team to assist in rethinking how we might be more effective while making good use of faculty/staff time.

I plan to do a brief roll out of the outcome of that work at 1 p.m. immediately following the LEAGUE activities. I will repeat this presentation at the beginning of the faculty meeting later in the day, just prior to Dr. Lindquist’s comments. This roll out will briefly introduce the group’s work in preparation for opportunities for campus wide feedback later this week.

Dr. Charlotte Warren
President, Lincoln Land Community College

LLCC is mid-cycle in our Reaffirmation of Accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). For an AQIP pathway institution, this means submitting a Systems Portfolio for review. The year-three portfolio is formative for the college, designed to provide feedback on which of our improvement efforts have been effective and which need more attention prior to submitting the year-seven portfolio. Feedback on our Systems Portfolio comes to us in the form of a Systems Appraisal Feedback Report, a byproduct of the Systems Appraisal process. In the appraisal, a peer review team (1) looks for evidence that the Criteria for Accreditation and the core components are met and (2) verifies the continuing improvement efforts at the College via review of the six AQIP Pathway Categories. A copy of our portfolio and the appraisal feedback report can be found on the LLCC Employee Portal.

Overall, the College received strong remarks for all the core components of Criterion One – Mission and Criterion Two – Integrity. Our response to Criterion Three – Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement was found to be a mix of strong and sufficient ratings. The peer review team did express concern with our response to one specific core component of Criterion Four – Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement, and this finding led to an unclear rating for one core component of Criterion Five – Resources, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness. This means that college wide we need to give more attention to making data informed decisions and systematically documenting that process. It also means that we need to greatly speed up implementation of the academic assessment program, and we must have more faculty and programs involved in that process. These concerns are highlighted in the Strategic Challenges sections of the Systems Appraisal Feedback Report with additional comments provided in Appendices B and C.

The Systems Appraisal process is intended to foster institutional improvement, but it is not prescriptive about what actions we take. We will begin our next steps on Institutional Improvement Day, Friday, October 6. It is important that each member of the college community spend some time reviewing both the Systems Portfolio and the Appraisal Feedback Report. The entire college community will need to work together over the next four years to insure we are prepared for our next Systems Portfolio in 2021 and Reaffirmation of Accreditation in 2022.

Charlotte Warren, Ph.D., president of LLCC, was recently honored with the Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction by Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society.

Phi Theta Kappa is the leading academic honor society for students at two-year colleges. LLCC’s Alpha Epsilon Kappa chapter of Phi Theta Kappa consistently maintains a five-star status, the highest a chapter can achieve. LLCC students with grade point averages of 3.5 or above are eligible for membership.

Dr. Warren received the award at Phi Theta Kappa’s 99^th Annual Convention April 7 in Nashville, Tenn., which was also attended by LLCC Phi Theta Kappa student officers and advisors.

College presidents and chief executive officers are selected for the award based on outstanding efforts in promoting the goals of Phi Theta Kappa.

Dr. Warren, president of LLCC since 2006, is a Colonel, Retired and Honorary Brigadier General from the Georgia Army National Guard. She represents LLCC in impressive leadership positions within the community, state and nation. She has served as a national spokesperson on the subject of nursing education and is a member of the Reserve Forces Policy Board, an advising committee within the office of the Secretary of Defense, along with several boards of the American Association of Community Colleges. She is past president of the Illinois Council of Community College Presidents. Locally, she serves on the board of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce and chairs the Mid-Illinois Medical District. She is past chair of United Way of Central Illinois.