HCC original Q&A with Baltimore Banner
The Baltimore Banner has today published a long-form article detailing changes and perceptions of Howard Community College’s leadership and HCC’s institutional success. The article, compiled over more than two months of review by the Banner, omits and misrepresents a great number of facts and context provided in an in-person interview with HCC President Daria J. Willis, and an email Q&A.
For context, HCC is providing the full and unedited response to questions provided to the administration by reporters Jess Nocera and Brenna Smith. All Banner questions and HCC responses (in bold) have not been changed, and a PDF of that response can be accessed here.
From: Carter, Jarrett <jcarter2@howardcc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2024 4:10 PM
To: Jess Nocera <jess.nocera@thebaltimorebanner.com>
Cc: Brenna Smith <brenna.smith@thebaltimorebanner.com>
Subject: Re: Baltimore Banner request
Please find responses in red (bold for this post), and corresponding attachments of employee recharge room photos (taken this afternoon), the 2024 YESS student survey, and the PERB ruling.
All quotes are attributable to Jarrett Carter Sr., vice president of external affairs, communication and advancement.
The Board of Trustees and Dr. Willis are extremely proud of the work they have accomplished together in just three years. We successfully raised $42 million in less than nine months funding to build a workforce development and skilled trades center that HCC's first president said in 1980 would be essential to the college's success. We have reopened a campus childcare center claimed by the financial and public health crisis created by covid, bringing much-needed childcare resources back to our students and neighbors. We have established programs to alleviate food insecurity, supported students seeking housing, and provided pathways to success for young people impacted by the criminal justice system. We have become an international model for institutional capacity building for student-parent college access, cybersecurity workforce development, and community youth engagement with our partnership with the Boys & Girls Club. We have set records for fundraising and federal grantmaking.
By every measure, this is a successful administration and an era of progress for the college. And the best is yet to come.
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Some staff and faculty have alleged retaliatory firings and firings without reason.
This is false.
We found that 240 employees including 22 in the president’s office have left during Willis’ tenure. Some have told us that turnover is high, and we found that it exceeded during the pandemic in 2021.
We went through the HCC board material’s separation announcements from January 2021- August 2024. The 240 number is based on separations since Jan 2022, when President Willis joined HCC. We calculated based on calendar year, not the school year. The breakdown by year is as follows:
2021: 70
2022: 87
2023: 100
2024* so far: 53
I am struggling with this question. First, it does not appropriately contextualize the universe of reasons why employees would leave an organization, which would include finding other employment, retirement, desiring remote work following the pandemic, sickness, or resignation to be a caretaker and, more specifically, just one year removed from the Great Resignation labor phenomenon. https://www.fastcompany.com/90932493/the-professor-who-coined-the-term-the-great-resignation-says-it-is-finally-over
Second, from the framing of the question in a three-year total with four years to review, it would appear that you are comparing those three years collectively to a single year of employee departures (2021). What would be a more appropriate analysis is the year-to-year turnover rate, which is as follows:
2021: 70
2022: 87 (+17)
2023: 100 (+13)
2024* so far: 53 (-47)
So, from a year-over-year perspective, beginning with Dr. Willis' first full calendar year of leadership (2022), total departures for any reason have declined. Not coincidentally, the improved employee retention parallels annual salary increases delivered by this administration, which are as follows:
FY21 - No increase
FY22* 2%; merit was a one-time bonus of $1500 for FT employees and an additional $500 for FT employees with a level
FY23 7%
FY24 6.5%
FY25 3% COLA; 1% merit for all employees
Does Willis agree that is high and is she doing anything to slow turnover, or does she see that turnover as a positive?
I take issue with the question of "does Dr. Willis agree that this is high?" There is no universal metric of "high" or "low" applied to this particular data set, and certainly not one for an institution with more than 2,200 employees. I am also assuming that this data you've presented reflects only full-time employees, as departures of adjunct faculty, temporary full-time, and part-time staff would greatly skew these numbers just by the nature of these positions.
If you consider that Dr. Willis physically arrived on campus in January 2022 after beginning virtually in December 2021, what percentage do these departures represent from a total full and part-time base of 2,200+ employees?
According to my calculations:
2021: 70 (3.1 percent)
2022: 87 (3.9 percent)
2023: 100 (4.5 percent)
2024* so far: 53 (2.4 percent)
It is worth noting that the 2021 numbers reflect former HCC President Kate Hetherington's tenure, which ended in October 2021. So, does that year's figure belong to her? Is this a "high" number of departures? Are those departures all related to employee dissatisfaction with her leadership?
Finally, the context of departures would also require the value of the number of hires over the same period to make a case for any real view of institutional performance or employee attitudes about working at the college. If the arbitrary metric for "some" is dissatisfaction, then how many people hired by the institution would express satisfaction in wanting and being selected to work at HCC?
Under Willis, the upper ranks have grown. There were four vice presidents and six associate vice presidents before her and now there are seven VP roles (one vacant) and 10 AVP roles. What’s behind this growth and is it intentional?
It is beyond reasonable for HCC, one of the higher performing community colleges in the state, to be comparable in leadership profile with its sister institutions, which, since not referenced in your question, I have provided below:
The average cabinet size of all Maryland community colleges is roughly 7.6 members, but this is skewed given how different campuses count and qualify their executive cabinets. Therefore, the question is not if HCC leadership positions increased but if they caught up to the rest of the state. The intentionality behind that catching up is realized in our historic gains in enrollment, fundraising, program growth and development, legislative lobbying, and fiscal management.
Willis has broken with tradition to appoint VPs and associate VPs with internal committees. Additionally, some have told us staff and faculty are no longer participating in hiring and other big decisions being made by Willis, a change from the previous president. What’s behind this decision to change how hiring takes place?
This is false. The most recent tradition of executive appointments was the hiring of Dr. Kate Hetherington, who, according to college records, was appointed by the HCC Board of Trustees following the tenure of Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan without a formal search or campus-wide search committee. Under the Willis Administration, only two senior leaders have been appointed without a campus-wide search committee. You'll note this process is outlined in the Board-approved HCC policy on selection of faculty and staff https://www.howardcc.edu/about-us/policies-procedures/chapter-63/63-02/63-02-03/ a policy which also includes the following language:
Selection of vice president positions are typically made through the search committee process, and also may be made by appointment at the discretion of the college president. When the search committee process is used, campus-wide interviews of top candidates are held to provide an opportunity for all constituency groups to learn about applicants and offer feedback.
Dr. Willis has always followed college policy and continues to welcome campus participation at all levels of interviewing and selection of candidates, as well as all decisions and strategic initiatives, as reflected in HCC Forward. One example is our Accelerated Pathways seven-week course development, which has been discussed at HCC since 2019. The American Federation of Teachers, representing unionized full-time faculty at HCC, made an unfair labor practice claim against this development, which was adjudicated in a recent Public Employee Relations Board ruling in favor of the administration.
Some have told us that what they see as high turnover has eroded student services and some staff operations such as adjunct payroll. We have been told that the new adjunct payroll schedule delayed the first paycheck for adjunct instructors. Is this correct? Why was a new schedule created?
The college issued a pay schedule that had been agreed to, shared with Teaching and Learning, and communicated to adjuncts. Because the start of the fall semester is August 23, and we pay in arrears, it was suggested that the first pay period would be September 29. This would allow for verification of the class-making load before being processed in the payroll system. Again, this was communicated to all of our adjunct faculty and clear to leadership in the Teaching and Learning division ahead of the start of the fall semester.
As for student services, we have seen that since 2022, according to HCC student surveys, that satisfaction ratings for advising, disability and tutoring services have declined each year.
HCC administers the Yearly Evaluation of Services by Students (YESS) Survey to assess students’ satisfaction with the quality of college services, instruction, campus climate and student life programs. The survey results are used to improve or enhance the student experience at the college. The statement that “satisfaction ratings for advising, disability and tutoring services have declined yearly since 2022 is incorrect. The 2023 results of the YESS survey show improvement in each of the areas when compared to the 2022 results. The 2024 results show a slight decline in each area (less than .25), which may be attributed to the reorganization of the Division and the transition to holistic case-managed advising and academic support for students- which was an anticipated change.
During a November 2022 “Dragon Dialogue,”, a dozen faculty members interviewed by The Banner recalled how she pointed to the room’s exit signs and delivered a stark message: If they didn’t like her decisions, they could leave. Similarly, at the October Jeremiah Program event, Willis mentioned that staff on campus were upset she had said, “If you don’t like it, you can leave.” Is this how Willis recalls these events?
I would take issue again with how one would apply the word "stark" to her remarks because, for many members of our campus community, they were a welcome sign of galvanizing support for our students and our institutional mission. As previously mentioned, employee departures have decreased each of the last two years. This data would suggest that most understood her words to be a call to action on behalf of our community and are electing to remain part of HCC's historic growth.
Candidly, it is hard to imagine a CEO in any industry who would publicly or privately tolerate an anonymous letter-writing campaign targeting her and members of her family that reached as high as the office of the Governor and began less than six months into her tenure at the college. She challenged employees to focus on what matters most, the students, or to find more rewarding work. In that conversation, the larger context was student graduation rates. She remains unwavering on that point.
We have spoken to people who attempted to hand over the union certification documents to both President Willis and HR and that they were locked out from doing so. Why did HCC lock the doors and not accept the union’s certification letter until a member of the public safety team brought it into the HR office?
This is false. Three senior leadership team members in the Galleria of the Academic Commons formally received the certification documents. Their gathering was not a sanctioned event, and while it was outside of our college policy on large assemblies, the reception of the documents accompanied our message of support for the unionization of full-time faculty under AFT. https://www.howardcc.edu/about-us/news--press/news/howard-community-college-announces-certification-of-american-federation-of-teachers-/
Why did the Board of Trustees and college wait until over two years since the online anonymous message board first appeared to address it in a joint statement?
The college was unaware of the website until former Board Chair Sean Keller notified the president of its existence on Aug. 28, the first day of the fall semester this year.
Some have said that they object to Willis-centered promotion of HCC and have questioned how Willis is presenting herself through social media and with her decision to center her Lego creations in spots traditionally used for school awards.
Dr. Willis has chosen to center Legos as a personal showcase of her campus-wide commitment to mental wellness and meeting students and employees where they dream. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/16/legos-toys-for-stressed-adults/ Her practice is her own, but she has championed employee satisfaction and well-being through initiatives such as a casual dress code, encouragement of physical activity during the workday which is also a part of our employee health programming and suggested professional development curriculum. During our annual Day of Learning, she led a course on Lego building as a stress relief tactic that attracted more than 30 participants from throughout the college.
We also have an on-campus 'Recharge Room,' designed to allow employees to watch television, paint, write, play games, build Legos, and hold conversations during work hours to reduce stress load and encourage collegiality. This room was one of Dr. Willis' major initiatives in 2023, along with the development of a study room where HCC student parents could bring their children to work in the library without requiring childcare or noise being a disruption to others. https://www.howardcc.edu/about-us/news--press/news/howard-community-college-opens-a-family-study-room/
It is worth noting that a review of reposts on the college-managed social accounts will reveal that the most viewed and engaging content the college produces regularly features Dr. Willis in her professional work or her private life as a wife, mother, and regular person.
We spoke with Joy Milfort, who described that she felt blindsided by her firing and what she said was the unfounded accusation, made publicly, that there were financial discrepancies associated with her.
The college does not comment on personnel issues, and this administration has never made a public accusation against any employee, current or former.
Why change the anonymous annual staff survey to include names and identifying information? Why was there no staff survey in 2023?
The college has several platforms for feedback, both public and anonymous, from the college community. Our anonymous platforms included a digital and physical comment card system and instant digital surveys during our annual Data Summit, Day of Learning, and town hall meetings. Public forums include Dragon Dialogues, the annual staff and faculty surveys, town hall meetings, and the senior leadership team's open-door policy. We've also created new digital publications with selected content that allows comments, and allow comments from followers on all our college social media accounts.