Gogebic Community College gets strong academic quality report

IRONWOOD - Gogebic Community College's Board of Trustees heard a positive update regarding the school's Academic Quality Improvement Program.

Larry Gabka, who acts as AQIP coordinator for GCC, updated the board on a recent check-up visit by AQIP and told trustees the school received a clean report of program accreditations and federal regulation compliances.

"In my opinion, this is as good as it gets for a higher educational institution," Gabka said. "Really few schools get a report as positive as this."

AQIP inspectors noted GCC had an obvious, strong commitment to the community, Gabka said, and the college had a "willingness to take strategic risks."

"They said the way we go about approaching risk was, they thought, really innovative," Gabka told trustees, mentioning the strategic and fiscal planning committee.

He said inspectors first thought the college gave too much power to the committee, but after seeing how it operates, "By the time they were done, they left saying, 'Wow, this is a fabulous way to do things,'" Gabka said. "It's inclusive, brings everybody in, protects the university as a whole as we take very carefully planned risks to service students."

This was GCC's fourth portfolio it has submitted with AQIP, which the college joined in 2000.

One thing AQIP inspectors said GCC had lacked in previous reports was documenting its comprehensive processes.

"However, it was an issue for us in the past, after visiting campus, reviewing our data, talking to community members, board members, employee groups, they have determined that formal comprehensive improvement processes are securely in place," Gabka said. "But our methods for documenting them could be improved."

Gabka said the college struggled in previous years because it lacked enough data to include in the report submitted to AQIP. However, this year data had been collected by a number of people involved through the four-year process.

"This is something you don't typically see," President Jim Lorenson said. "And as Larry said, it's reflective of the organization. People have done very well with this."

Fall enrollment is still changing by the minute at GCC, but as of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Dean of Students Jeanne Graham told trustees the head count was up 3.9 percent from fall 2013's enrollment of 1,101. Credits are also higher than last year by 2.9 percent.

"That's good because we still have three more days," Graham said, noting class registration ends Friday.

Lorenson said a number of GCC's peer institutions have seen drops in enrollment and credits coming off of similar decreases the year prior.

"I really believe that we're being recognized for the work we do," he said. "I hear from other presidents now, regularly, saying, 'What are you folks doing that we are not, because we're missing something.'"

A budget hearing was also held before the board meeting for the upcoming fiscal year.

Revenues are up more than $618,000 from last year's budget, and expenses have increased as well, by more than $498,000, but the gap in revenues over expenditures has grown to around $60,000.

"We're still looking at making that gap even larger," said Erik Guenard, dean of business services.

According to the budget, the college has listed about $10.97 million in revenue and approximately $10.91 million in expenses for this coming fiscal year.

"All of our budgets at this time are projected to be self-sustaining or break even," Guenard said. "We don't have anything in a deficit situation."