The college’s Board of Trustees and Presidential Search Committee narrowed down the search for the next president to three finalists including Evon Walters, Flavius R.W. Lilly and Rai Kathuria.
The three presented during separate open forums last week about future opportunities and potential improvements for student success, and community members could ask questions and provide feedback.
Evon Walters
Walters is the vice president of strategic initiatives and community engagement at Community College of Alleghney County.
Walter said when developing a plan or strategies over the next few years, it has to be an “overarching vision,” so he came up with the statement, “where learners rise, employers thrive, and ultimately where our communities prosper.”
“My hope is that if I’m afforded this opportunity, it’s not what I want to be in three years, this is something to extend beyond to build upon the excellent legacy that you guys have here today,” he said.
Walters talked about institutional insight, which is what the college has done over the past few years in terms of its data, assessments, initiatives and that it’s aspiring to be, and external influences at the local, state and federal levels such as funding, demographics and the labor market.
“What this means for us strategically is that it’s an opportunity as we look to expand pathways, particularly for some of the high demand occupations that are out there, and as it relates to us having a stronger relationship with the K-12 sector and encouraging students to consider a post-secondary route,” he said.
Two strategic goals, Walters said, is enhancing the completion rates and accelerating credential attainment, and look at how they can elevate the historically underserved populations in the community. Within those, he talked about pushing for short-term credentials, funding, improving retention rates, offering more bachelor’s degrees, and expanding capacity and customizing support resources for non-traditional aged students.
“That’s going to be our beckoning call. It’s an economic and a moral imperative that we prepare ourselves to be able to respond to that,” he said. “These are the two strategic opportunities that if offered this opportunity, I would definitely champion.”
Moving forward, Walters said he sees room for opportunities in having deep seeded partnerships with community-based organizations to continue doing “big work” that the college is already doing, pursing alternative funding,
“The president is the one who sets the tone in terms of creating an environment where everyone feels empowered, valued, respected, where they can work collectively in a way that ensures that we are moving forward in advancing the strategic priorities of the institution and the region,” he said.
Flavius R.W. Lilly
Lilly is the provost at McDaniel College in Maryland.
He said in his preparation for the forum, he realized the college is “doing everything really well” and wondered how he was going to talk about opportunities, but that allowed him to focus in on the first few years if he’s selected as president.
“To me that sort of the upward trajectory that Clark State has enjoyed both in terms of its performance and securing funding from the state and its momentum with enrollment and retention led me fairly quickly to the idea that my first (few years) here would look a lot like scaling up strategies that have already been quite successful for the college,” he said.
Lilly talked about five opportunities where he thinks he can scale up momentum and strategic vision that’s already been happening at the college, including scaling up opportunities for strengthening workforce partnerships, strengthening student retention and completion, growing enrollment and strengthening pipelines, strengthening transfer partnerships and enhancing student belonging.
With several sectors experiencing workforce growth such as advanced manufacturing, IT and healthcare, Lilly said they can use those partnerships and put more emphasis on outcomes after college, which in turn can get the college more funding if graduates are employed at good wages after leaving, and work to create and maintain credentials that have labor market value to be relevant to workforce needs. He said there’s also an opportunity to broaden apprenticeships and earn while you lean programs.
“Clark State is just very well positioned to be a workforce engine for the region if not beyond the region,” he said.
“I would love to see Clark State become known as the top workforce partner in this region because that kind of workforce development and partnership in which you work with industry to co-design credentials, apprenticeships, and other upskilling pathways, is what’s going to help supply the talent that the region needs to meet those workforce demands.”
Lilly talked about needing to re-engage adult learners, which is “going to be important as these demographics change” and working with special populations such as immigrants and veteran populations; the college being a strong transfer institution but working to keep track of lost credentials for those who may transfer but don’t finish their degree; working to close equity and inclusion gaps related to achievement and eligibility; expanding trauma-informed practices; and having mentoring and support networks.
Rai Kathuria
Kathuria is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Empire State University.
He started by talking about how to accelerate student success and workforce impact at the college.
While in his research lab working with students at a previous university, Kathuria said he found that students had four foundational things motivating them to go to that college, which are things he uses as his foundation.
They wanted: to go from where they currently are in their life to a future state and make sure their journey allows them to increase their earning potential, a better quality of life, to get to the other side to the future state as quickly as possible because they don’t want to spend time and money doing things that may not count towards their degree, and a maximum return on investment or graduating debt free.
“These are the philosophies that laid my foundation as an administrator and everything that I do towards student success. This is what is the undercurrent that I want to meet for my students and all future students,” he said.
The next three years are going to be “extremely critical for us,” Kathuria said, explaining he will work to raise the retention and completion rates and transfer success, strengthen high wage workforce pathways and use data-drive culture to improve teaching.
“If we are going to move the needle the fastest for our students, I believe these are the three areas where we should be focusing and making a big difference. Once we focus on these three areas, I believe we will be expanding opportunity and transforming lives at scale for the communities that we serve at Clark State,” Kathuria said.
Kathuria talked about the enrollment decline, trying to increase work-based learning and labor market outcomes, building on the work of the strategic plan, engaging internal and external stakeholders, and reengaging alumni.
“As the number of students keeps going down, the challenge is we have to up our game. We have to showcase that we are excellent at doing what we are saying we will do because then and only then will students choose us because the competition is really, really intense,” he said. “Since the enrollment decline has happened, excellence is going to be what we have to demonstrate to the communities we serve, to the prospective students and to employers so that we remain viable.”
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