As HCC success and potential grows, so should its board of trustees
Some community members have asked about my thoughts on the recent legislative changes and proposals in Howard County, one of which is the bill from the Howard County Delegation to the Maryland General Assembly to expand our board membership.
I enthusiastically support and applaud this measure. HCC prides itself on innovation, collaboration, and service to our students and community members. This initiative and others reflect the college's mission and commitment to Howard County's future.
Howard County Delegate Courtney Watson recently wrote on social media about her father, Edward Cochran, as HCC's first board chair. She lovingly recounts his work at the institution and throughout his career in making Howard County one of America's greatest places to live and work.
She follows marvelously in his footsteps as a former HCC trustee and a revered civil servant in her own right. Her family is an example of what generational support looks like for neighbors and families who love this institution.
Cochran and Watson are two members of a great legacy of leadership at the college, which, along with our county and our campus, is evolving. Three of our recently departed trustees testified recently on the need to grow HCC's board with "diverse and competent" leadership to ensure its future prosperity.
Having worked with former chairs Keller and Christopher Marasco and former vice chair M. Shafeeq Ahmed, I know how much they value diversity. Their testimony reflects their desire to see change for a board that, records indicate, has welcomed 48 trustees over HCC's history and 16 persons of color. It is a board seeking to reduce the gender gap in leadership, with 30 men compared to 18 women having served.
All of them have been willing to take on the difficult task of college executive oversight. HCC is the second institution at which I've been privileged to serve as president, where trustees are appointed rather than elected. This makes a big difference in each member's approach to the board's work of representing the interests of students, employees, community members, industry partners, and legislative stakeholders.
In the former trustees' shared testimony, former Chair Keller outlined some of the challenges of service. He described obstacles such as the immense amount of reading required to understand board materials and regular attendance at the board's monthly meetings on campus as reasons why more members are needed.
Reading and attendance are expected for all members regardless of how many are appointed, but more members committed to doing this vital work would affirm the institution's trajectory of success by expanding the view of the college's strengths, weaknesses, and growth objectives.
Before leaving the college, the former trustees consistently advocated for HCC's significant growth over the last three years. A review of board minutes over the previous three years reveals their regular and enthusiastic praise of our administration for increasing enrollment, improving campus infrastructure, and advocating for new and reintroduced systems of student support, most notably, our securing more than $42 million in gifts and public funds for the county's first workforce development and skilled trades center and reopening the Children's Learning Center.
This success has built consensus around the campus regarding additional trustees. I agree with HCC Professor Guy Bunyard, who testified during the same hearing:
"We look forward to having a board that wants to foster a positive relationship with the faculty at Howard Community College, one that wants to partner with faculty in moving the college forward in its initiatives.”
Former Chair Keller and former trustees Marasco and Ahmed were central voices in the board's support of HCC's full-time faculty being certified as a unionized entity for collective bargaining in August 2023. I am pleased that we are all united on how new trustees will work with this administration to maintain the institutional successes we've experienced over the last three years. We want to maintain our ability to provide merit and cost of living salary increases for all employees, record fundraising for student scholarship and program development, and practical legislative lobbying to protect jobs and student services on our campus.
Nationally, higher education faces challenges that will require unity around HCC to continue meeting our students where they dream. Budget adjustments are looming at state and county levels. Enrollment in Howard County Public Schools is expected to drop over the next decade, which will require us to be innovative in attracting, recruiting, and retaining students from our region.
Board governance will be critical for HCC these next few years, and we’re grateful that our trustees are firmly committed to their roles. They are active in the Association of Community College Trustees and fully immerse themselves in regular training on board-president relations and building skills in challenging our administration in a spirit of accountability and partnership.
The expansion of HCC’s board will grow this commitment and, simultaneously, group us with sister institutions in Maryland with larger trustee boards, like Anne Arundel Community College and the College of Southern Maryland.
I am grateful to our senators for their leadership on this legislative proposal. I also thank the County Delegation for its public compassion in honoring trustees for years of good service. We should all advocate for trustees who will honor our great history by making the time to read, attend meetings, and cheerlead our work in the coming years.
We look forward to our best work with our state and county elected officials to develop a board rooted in its history and forward-thinking about HCC as a national model for two-year education and workforce capacity building.