ASHEBORO -- For many years, as enrollment has swelled and the state has increasingly counted on community college to help facilitate our economic and workforce development, we have served more and more students with fewer and fewer resources. This year alone, we are serving 16 percent more students with $900 less revenue per student.
We have always just buckled down, doubled up on our work, become increasingly innovative, and have done the job with wonderful results, even without adequate resources.
But recently, things have begun to take an ominous turn. At the conclusion of our SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) visit this past fall, the accrediting agency for community colleges and four-year universities wrote us up for one thing and demanded an adequate response. They said that we must hire more full-time faculty members and have faculty members teach fewer semester hours - 15 hours, preferably - in order to ensure quality of instruction.
I told the SACS team chairman that no community college in North Carolina is funded adequately to hire enough full-time faculty to assign them only 15 semester hours of teaching per semester, and that, in fact, with our funding formula, it was impossible to hire enough full-time faculty, even if they taught 18-21 hours per semester.
Therefore, the result of our financial reality is overloaded faculty teaching hours and a substantial reliance on adjunct faculty, both of which are strongly frowned upon by SACS.
This budget crisis is now far beyond an inconvenience, far beyond "tighten your belts," far beyond "cut the fluff and fat," and far beyond "just do more with less." It is now to the point that our very accreditation is at stake - and at the very time when the state needs us most!
This is an economic crisis, and the community colleges are the engine of our state's economic recovery. We've cut and cut, and served more and more students with less and less, until our very accreditation is at stake. It is imperative that we not be crippled by lack of funding at the very time when our mission is most critical to the state's economic and workforce recovery.
Our students continue to succeed when they transfer to the universities and when they enter the workforce. Our faculty and staff, among the lowest paid in the nation, continue to give their all because they believe in our mission. Our inadequate facilities await funding from our counties, which are financially broke. Our equipment budget is 52 percent less than it was in 2000, while our enrollment is up 40 percent. We are at the point of having to turn students away when they need us more than ever.
Meanwhile, we continue to be one of the most effective, productive, successful, respected community colleges in the nation. We're doing our very best for our communities and our state.
In terms of the budget, is the state doing their very best for us? Does it make sense to cripple your best instrument for economic recovery?
We're ready to get the job done, if given even half a chance!
Robert S. Shackleford is president of Randolph Community College.
