Rotary Club of Eureka, California

Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
June 3, 2012

This was the 42^nd meeting of the Rotary Year 2012-2013.  President Nance Dean reminded us that her tenure as President is quickly winding down…but, I’ve got to comment, she’s been doing a wonderful job of keeping us on track. Well done Nancy!

Flag Salute was briskly handled by Paul Brisso, 1987 Paul Harris Fellow, and the invocation was gracefully led by our own Craig Hansen.

We had no visiting Rotarians this week, but we did have two guests of Rotarians.  Carlton Nielsen introduced us to Craig Wruck, VP University Advancement at HAS, and Dick Storre brought his lovely wife Debbie.

As with visiting Rotarians, we had no guest students, but we did see our Exchange Students, Larissa Toelke and Bibiana Fabri.  Last weekend, in preparation of the rapidly approaching departure for home, they celebrated and said goodbyes to all the dear friends they’ve met and shared this exchange season with a sleep over at the Gym at the Eureka High.

We were extremely proud to also learn that our Lost Coast Rotaract won the Rotaract of the Year.  Way to go!! You guys are awesome!!!

As we do each week, we paused and acknowledged the birthday of our brethren. Rob McLaughlin and Wayne Wilson both had birthdays on June 3^rd, and Keith Crossley celebrates his on June 9^th.  Wayne let slip that this was his 75^th birthday, which we all gave a hearty applause to.  Also, sitting at the head table for their birthday month, we had Wayne Wilson (June 3^rd), Greg Seiler (June 15^th) and Bruce Rupp (June 22^nd).

This was a busy week for Wedding Anniversary announcements – Chris & Diana Freeman (June 3^rd), Tim & Marilyn Gallagher (June 3^rd), Dan & Karen Price (June 5^th), Terry Dickinson & Wendy Purnell (June 6^th), Don & Barbara Leonard (June 7^th), and Jim & Shirley Davis (June 9^th , and this was their 57^th anniversary, well worth a standing ovation!!).

We should also mention our Membership Anniversaries – Jay Hockaday (June 3, 2002), Jim Hunter (June 5, 2006), and Jill MacDonald (June 9, 2003).

We had four announcements this week.  

First, and most important, Gregg Gardiner reviewed our venue/lunch options, reminding us that we have a committee that has explored various options available to the club, and this has been narrowed down to three options: (1) stay where we are, which will result in our costs increasing by about 50% (which includes our subsidizing over $4600 in uneaten meals), (2) move to the Ingomar club which would require a change in lunch day and  result in costs increasing to the $18,000 to $30,000 per year range, or (3) move to the Elks Lodge, which would eliminate over $10,000 in facility rent per year, reduce meal costs from $17 per person to $14.50 per person, and reduce our commitment to the caterer from 60 minimum meals to only 20.  Our plan is to try out the Elks Lodge for lunch next Monday, June 10^th, and then the following Monday, June 17^th, to have a vote on the options mentioned above.  This is an extremely important decision, so we hope as many of you as possible can join us the next two week for this significant decision.

Second, the Backpacks for Kids fundraiser was announced. The winner will be selected on August 30^th.  Tickets are $10 each, or packs of 12 tickets can be bought for $100.  The grand prize is a $3500 Vacation Getaway! Come on down and get ticket…better yet, come on down and get a pack or two of tickets…this is for an extremely good cause.

Third, Matthew Owens announced a BBQ to help raise money for our Outbound Rotaract group.  It’s being held this Friday, June 7^th, at the Bayside Grange at 5:30pm. Tickets are $30.

Fourth, if you want new photographs of yourself in the Roster, please get them to Nancy right away. Also, if there are any final changes of information, please get that to her immediately.

Next, we had three Recognitions we want to re-acknowledge.  Jason Eads and his team (which included Hal Joiner and James Brown) won 1^st Place in a Long Beach BBQ eating contest! This included all kinds of BBQ, including pork shoulders, briskets, BBQ chicken and more.  What a way to go Jason!!  

Dale Warmuth announced that the local Boy & Girls Club was recently named the winner of Safeco’s Heroes of Community award.  This is a $5000 award, so it’s a huge help for the local club, and a wonderful acknowledgement of all they bring to the community.  Thank you Dale…very awesome!!  

Finally, Chris Freeman was duly acknowledged for his grand effort to show the visiting GSE team from France the Korbel Mill, and especially having the guests experience the “Owl Feed” in the forest – they actually got to see this happen twice!! Great job Chris!   Nancy duly awarded all of them rain sticks. Thank you Nancy!

We had two winners for the Spengler “Science Fair” Raffle Tickets:  $10 went to Ziggy Ziegenfuss and $10 went to Jim Davis.

Don’t forget, next week we are having our lunch at the Elks Club, where Patrick Cleary will be our guest speaker.  The week following that we’ll be voting on our new lunch venue – bring sharpened pencils and no erasers!!  

Our guest speaker was introduced by President Dean – Kathryn Smith, President of College of the Redwoods.  Kathryn Smith began as the new President/Superintendent of College of the Redwoods on May 14, 2012. Prior to coming to College of the Redwoods, Kathryn served at Mendocino College in Ukiah, California. There she was the Vice President of Academic Affairs for two years and served as the President/Superintendent of the college from 2005 to May 2012. Prior to coming to Mendocino College, our speaker worked for 11 years in various capacities at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, Colorado.   Our speaker earned a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting at the University of Kansas and a Master of Business Administration at the University of New Mexico.  

Our guest started by sharing a number of interesting statistics about CR. It currently serves over 9000 full-time students and 2500 part-time students.  56% are female and 44% are male. The average age of their students is about 28 years old, and 48% of their students are in the 18-28 age range. 70% of the students come to classes in Eureka, and 25% take classes online.  They currently have 6 locations, with facilities in Eureka, Del Norte, Mendocino (Fort Bragg), Klamath-Trinity, Downtown Eureka and Garberville.  They currently offer 39 different degrees, 31 Certificates of Completion, and 16 Certificates of Recognition.

In the last few years there have been several challenges.

First, the Obama administration has introduced a new funding model that calls for 5 million more college graduates, and based on population California is targeted to increase her graduates by 1 million. Further, this new model calls for a change in educational focus such that avocational classes like PE, Music, Art and other “personal enrichment” classes be reduced and greater focus be made on training for skills needed for jobs now and that basic classes needed for transfer to 4 year colleges. The challenge is that these avocational classes are popular, but with decreased funding, and new funding requiring a reduction in these classes, it’s difficult to satisfy these competing demands.

Second, our guest explained that Bond Measure Q, which local voters approved to generate $40 million in funds to upgrade existing facilities can’t be used as planned because the upgrades won’t address seismic concerns required for K-14 buildings. The end result of this is that the best that can be done with many of the existing buildings is to rent them out to commercial users.  The college can, however, get access to state bonds in the amount of $45 million to design and build new buildings, but this will dramatically extend the timelines originally envisioned.

Third, and most significantly, CR President Kathryn Smith indicated that her biggest challenge has been the threat of the school possibly losing accreditation.  This is serious. There are normally three levels of notification in the process of losing accreditation:  warning, probation and show cause.  Show cause is the most severe notification, and it typically has very strict remedies it requires and a short timeline to achieve them.  Essentially the “show cause” notification challenges the college to show why it should remain accredited.  College of the Redwood received a “show cause” notification in 2011.  The resulting “show cause” review that was started after President Smith was hired came up with 8 recommendations that CR should implement to retain its accreditation. Some of these included a change in student learning objectives, integrations of planning & budgeting, and others were around CR’s Board of Trustees. One result of this is that CR needed to hire an outside non-board member, Tom Henry, who was given oversight and authority to overrule the board.  Another result of those actions is that a subsequent review will happen later this year which President Smith believes will result in the college being removed from “show cause” notice to a lesser or no notice status.

The final challenge is budgeting challenges. Colleges like CR are normally expected to have budget reserves of at least 5%, and many colleges have double digit reserves.  CR reserve at year-end 2012 was 2.6%, which is dangerously low.  To address these issues CR has increase furloughs by 8.7% and is now in the process of eliminating 39 positions so that it can balance its 2013-2014 budget. 

None of these challenges is easy, and all of them combined make for a very sober evaluation. It sounds like a lot of tough decisions have been made, but there are sure to be more in the months and years ahead.  More funding can solve some of these problems, and careful management can solve others.  It will require careful watching and support from all of us.

The presentation went a bit long and there was not much time for questions and answers, but we all appreciate the speaker’s effort and her presentation.

Presented in Rotary Service by Bruce Smith