President's Message

On Tuesday, March 24, I attended the press conference during which Governor Beshears announced the new Career Transitions Initiative for KCTCS. Jeff Buis, one of our Physical Therapy Assistant students, represented SCC very well at the news conference. Jeff explained to the press how he had been a displaced worker. He appreciated the help he got from the Workforce Investment workers and from SCC. The program will offer special help to displaced workers including a 50 percent discount on up to six credit-hours of classes at any KCTCS college.

It appears that our enrollment will be up significantly for the Spring Semester. At this point we have enrolled 484 more students than we had at this time last year. I want to express my appreciation to Student Affairs, Financial Aid, and to our recruiters Sean Ayers, Trent Poole, and Melissa Morrison for their dedication and hard work. Community College Week has listed SCC among the 50 fastest growing community colleges in the nation for the past two years.

As you have probably read, our tuition will increase by slightly more than 3 percent next year from $121 per credit-hour to $125 per credit-hour. I think that all will agree that we needed this small increase in light of the state budget cuts we endured this past year.

I want to congratulate the Physical Therapy Assistant Program for the many awards and honors their students have received recently. As you may have noticed, several of our PTA students have been recognized by the American Physical Therapy Association.

I also want to thank all the faculty and staff who have volunteered to make the Science Olympiad and MathCounts regional competitions at SCC such wonderful successes. I know it takes hours of work to pull together these events for middle school students. I want everyone to know I appreciate those efforts.

The new Health Careers and Technical Building located at the Laurel Campus is on schedule and we should be moving ready to begin using it in January 2010. I am sure our students in Laurel and surrounding counties will appreciate having all of the student services functions in one location.

As many of you know, SCC is working with Honeywell Building Solutions SCS to reduce our energy costs. Honeywell has presented us with a proposal to replace or improve the heating and air conditioning systems in some of our buildings. They have also made other proposals which will save the college money. The proposal guarantees that we will be able to pay for these changes in a few years. Then, the savings can be applied to educational uses. You will be hearing more about this as we proceed. This effort is part of a state contract that includes Hazard Community and Technical College and Southeast Community and Technical College. Those colleges are going through the same proposal process.

And, finally, I want to congratulate all of you on SCC being named one of Kentucky’s “Best Places to Work.” This is our fourth award. The competition has only been in existence for five years. This year SCC is the only educational institution to be honored. Every individual at SCC has had a role in making our college a good place to work and I thank you.

Dr. Jo Marshall