What's Happening in the Rock

Arkansas Recovery and Reinvestment Act website

2009-03-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

Governor Mike Beebe’s office on Monday released the Arkansas Recovery and Reinvestment Act website.
“This Act is a great opportunity for Arkansas, and its implementation will be carried out with transparency, oversight, and accountability,” the governor said. “Keeping Arkansans at work and advancing projects and initiatives that will lay the groundwork for the future growth of Arkansas will be our guiding principles in this process.”
Visit the site at http://www.recovery.arkansas.gov/

Thoughts on the scholarship plan

2009-03-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Presented below are the comments of a two-year college president on the lottery scholarship draft bill as it stood early Tuesday morning, March 3.

While I appreciate the willingness of legislators working on the lottery scholarship bill to make technical corrections to the existing draft, I urge you to oppose the lottery scholarship bill as it currently exists in draft because of two fundamental flaws: (1) the disparity between the amounts received by two-year and four-year students and (2) the absence of a need-based component.

As the draft currently exists, two-year college students will receive a $1750 Academic Challenge scholarship while a student attending a four-year college will receive $2500. The rationale expressed to support the differing amounts—that university tuition is higher than two-year college tuition—ignores the fact that tuition represents only a portion of the cost of attendance and fails to take into account the realities of the typical community college student’s life. When a traditional college student goes off to attend a university, there are usually two parents who continue to work to pay not only the student’s tuition and fees but his room and board, two parents who continue to work to pay the light bill, the gas bill, the medical bills. When the typical community college student—more likely an older, non-traditional student—goes to college, he often has to give up his job to attend full time or cut back to part time employment. When the typical community college student goes to college, there are not two parents at home working to pay the bills. She is the parent, often a single parent, who must somehow manage to pay for a college education while keeping a roof over her and her children’s heads. Tuition cost is simply not an adequate measure of the cost of attending college, and the four-year college’s higher tuition is inadequate justification for a disparity in the amount of scholarships awarded.

As the draft currently exists, the state’s priorities are clear. The 18-year-old high school graduate is a high priority; the older student is not. The student who has parents who encouraged—probably compelled—her to take the Smart Core is a high priority; the student whose parents may have never attended college and did not encourage her to take the Smart Core is not a high priority. The student who attended a high school that adequately prepared him to take college courses, as evidenced by his ACT score of 19 or higher, is a high priority; the student whose high school did not adequately prepare him for a college education is not.

There are, of course, provisions in the draft for students to earn their way into a lottery scholarship—if the money is available. There are provisions for the non-traditional student—if the money is available. If the bill passes in its current form, the inevitable conclusion is that we have decided that an 18-year-old who goes directly from high school to college and obtains a bachelor’s degree is somehow more valuable to the state than a 27-year-old student who goes to college and obtains a bachelor’s degree. We have decided that a student who begins her education at a two-year college and ultimately obtains a bachelor’s degree is less valuable than a student who begins at the university. If the bill passes in its current form, we have defined in legislation those most likely to be served by two-year colleges as second-class citizens.

Currently two-year college students receive only 17 percent of the Academic Challenge scholarship dollars, 30 percent of the GO scholarship dollars, and 60 percent of the WIG scholarships. Because few of the changes to the Academic Challenge scholarships will drive new dollars to community college students and there is no need-based scholarship in the draft, this disparity in the state’s investment will not only continue. It will likely worsen.

One of the greatest social criticisms of lottery scholarships is that poor people buy a disproportionate share of the lottery tickets and wealthier students receive a disproportionate share of the scholarships—in a nutshell, poor people sending rich kids to college. The current lottery scholarship draft not only fails to address that issue; it exacerbates it.

I am convinced that was not the intention of anyone who participated in the creation of this draft, but I am just as convinced that I have accurately described the unintended consequences if the disparate scholarship amounts are not eliminated and a need-based component is not included.
- Dr. Steven Murray, Phillips Community College/University of Arkansas

NWACC's Capital requests

2009-02-26T05:33:00.000-08:00

Within the near future we all anticipate learning the status of individual legislators’ share of general improvement funds. Our top priority is funding the NWACC Shewmaker Global Business Development Center (GBDC), now under construction next to the Shewmaker Center for Workforce Technologies.

We are requesting $997,320 to complete this project, which once finished in fall 2010 will be a world-class facility where four new institutes of study aimed at meeting our region’s business needs and a University Partnership Center will be developed.

Our 2009 Capital Projects are contained in three bills.
HB1501 contains requests for
· Construction of the Global Business Development Center: $997,320
· Critical maintenance and energy conservation: $1,252,680
· Deferred maintenance: $100,000
· Replacement/renewal of equipment & library holdings: $75,000
SB372 by Sen. Kim Hendren contains a request pulled from HB1501 for:
· Critical maintenance and energy conservation: $1,252,680
SB288 is a re-appropriation of unfunded Capital Projects carried over from 2007 and 2005 for:
· Critical maintenance/equipment/library resources: $42,918
· Critical maintenance/equipment/library resources: $348,463
· Classroom multi-media equipment, etc. $746,113
· Technology infrastructure improvements: $1,200,000
· Renovation of Burns Hall $2,000,000
· Construction of a workforce technology center (GBDC) $1,000,000

Draft of lottery scholarships

2009-02-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

The ad-hoc House-Senate committee drafting the lottery scholarship bill shared its work with a couple hundred higher education folks in the Old Supreme Court room at the Capitol yesterday. The draft is 28-pages long. Let me know if you'd like a copy of the draft.

Joint Budget announces deadline to file appropriation bills

2009-02-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

Joint Budget Committee co-chair Sen. Gilbert announced today that the deadline to file appropriation bills is Monday, March 2. Sen. Gilbert would like members to have these filed no later than Thursday, Feb. 26.

NWACC student GPAs

2009-02-22T19:34:00.000-08:00

Some interesting stats concerning GPAs and the upcoming discussion of the Arkansas lottery scholarship programs:

NWACC Institutional Research Office reported to ADHE last week that 71.6% of our total students had a 2.5 or better cumulative grade point average for the fall 2008 semester.
The same office reports that 67.7% of our full-time students had a 2.5 or better cumulative grade point average for the fall 2008 semester.
The same office reports that 73.9% of our part-time students had a 2.5 or better cumulative grade point average for the fall 2008 semester.
More than half of all students had a 3.0 or better GPA - a credit our great faculty!!

Also worth noting are the comments by College President Dr. Becky Paneitz, who was quoted in the Sunday Morning News about possible co-mingling of scholarship funds. Read her comments at:
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/02/22/news/022209aslegforum.txt

Arkansas lottery draft bill

2009-02-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading the draft bill of the Arkansas lottery. Find it at:
http://www.arkansas.gov/house/MBM078.pdf

Our Appropriation Bill: HB1539

2009-02-19T09:59:00.001-08:00

The NWACC appropriation bill came out last night. Its HB1539. You can dial it up under the Quick View form at http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/R/Pages/Home.aspx.
I assume everybody knows that an appropriation bill is.

Capitol Visitors

2009-02-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

Ricky Tompkins, our Executive Director of Grants and IR, was at the Capitol this morning with the Leadership Benton County group. Ricky and I attended House Education Committee. We then visited with some of our legislators and others within the higher education community, which is well represented in the halls of the Capitol. It sure was nice having having Ricky here today!
(If you're coming to Little Rock any time soon, please plan to spend a little time with me here at the Capitol; I miss you guys.)
Also here today was Jim Walton of Bentonville. Mr. Walton spoke to a very large group of legislators and others who work the halls on behalf of the Third District Caucus. Mr. Walton spoke extensively about Act 35, the Arkansas Student Assessment and Educational Accountability Act.
His visit followed one Wednesday by Mr. John Tyson of Springdale, who had nice things to say about the job being done by Arkansas' community colleges.

Adult Ed Update

2009-02-18T19:33:00.000-08:00

Ben Aldama, Dean of NWACC Adult Education, shared the following facts with our legislators.
NWACC Adult Ed served 3,615 adults in 2007-2008; and 1,481 in ESL
NWACC Adult Ed has the largest Adult Education ESL program in Arkansas
NWACC Adult Ed had 430 pass the GED test (96%, state rate is 85%).
HB1257 includes some funding for Adult Education.
Ben can be reached at 479-986-6934.

President Clinton at the Arkansas Capitol

2009-02-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

Former President Bill Clinton, the 42nd Arkansas Governor and 42nd President, spoke to a joint session of the Arkansas 87th General Assembly on Wednesday. Pictured above is the view from the gallery.

Governor signs transfer legislation

2009-02-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe posed with presidents and chancellors Wednesday after signing the Roger Phillips Transfer Policy Act, creating a system for fully transferable credit hours from degrees in Associate of Arts, Science, Arts in Teaching. The bill is designed to eliminate obstacles to transfers of credits among public institutions of higher education in Arkansas by providing a seamless transfer of academic credits from a completed designated transfer degree program to a baccalaureate degree program without the loss of earned credits and without the receiving public institution of higher education requiring additional lower division credits.