MATC Matters

Dear Faculty and Staff,
I spoke with many “freshman” students this past week, and they’re very excited about starting their college careers and getting into the swing of college life. That excitement seems to be rubbing off on us all!

This is such a busy time of year it’s important to stop and remember why we’re all here and how we work together to meet the needs of our students and each other. If you know of an “outstanding MATC employee” please consider nominating him or her for a 2007 MATC Outstanding Employee of the Year Award. Nominations are open until September 24, and forms are available online.

I know many of you are working on your unit plans right now. Planning was the key topic at last week’s meeting of the Leadership Council, a group comprised of all managers, administrative personnel and the presidents of our three unions. Becky Baumbach, vice president for Strategic Advancement, presented a model of the overall college planning process. The model resembles a pyramid, starting at the top with the most broad strategic goals of the District Board and the college Strategic Plan and moving to the more specific plans that will be covered in your unit plans and the budget.

In the model, the Strategic Plan is followed by the newest component, the Academic Plan. We are entering the final stages of the Academic Plan building process. Feedback has been gathered and is being used in the development of the final version of the plan, which will be shared with the District Board at its October 10 meeting. The Draft Academic Plan (in full and in an executive summary) is available on BlackBoard. To find these, go to “Learner Success” and click on “Planning and Budget” in the left-hand navigation.

Our next goal in the college plan process will be the development of a long-range facilities plan for the district. While we’ve had three-year facilities plans looking at short-term space and expansion issues, a broader overview of our facilities goals is needed. Much of the Academic Plan will drive decisions about our facilities, so the District Board wanted to have the final Academic Plan in place before moving forward on a facilities plan.

Help in developing your unit plans is available on the MATC Website. From the homepage, click on the A to Z Index link and you’ll find a link to “Unit Planning” to find forms and useful information on unit plan development.

At the meeting, Sarah Hart McGuinnis discussed the budget planning process. The important thing to note when preparing your unit plan is that requests for new operating or capital funds (with the exception of routine equipment replacement) will be cross-checked with and linked back to your unit plan. More information and new funding request forms will be available at the end of September.

MATC Marvels
Help desk staff Kathy Acker, Quang Duong, Michele Henrekin, Michelle Reed, Sue Dalton, Steve Hrobsky and Gail Rusch plus student helpers Nick, Jake and Mary for their constant technical troubleshooting for faculty, staff and students.

Highlights of my week
In addition to events on our campuses, I’ve had the opportunity to go out into the community to share news about MATC and learn what’s going on. Recently, I took part in these events:

• participated in a conference call with a few WTCS presidents;
• hosted two delegations from Germany who were on campus to learn more about our technical college system and future expanded partnerships;
• attended a TEMPO presentation where Professor Vicki Bier, a risk analyst specializing in security and critical infrastructure protection, spoke about rigorous techniques to protect the country, its people and its infrastructure from terrorist attacks;
• attended the Madison Symphony Orchestra board meeting;
• attended Rotary and visited with Spike Ehlers, one of our major donors;
• met with Jan Bultema and Denise Reimer (Kornetzke) to prepare our presentation for the ACCT congress in San Diego later this month; and
• attended Jack Lussier’s 80th birthday party (Jack has been a very generous donor to MATC; to read more about Jack go to The Capital Times column about him. This event was co-sponsored by MATC, Capital Newspapers, and the Evjue Foundation.
• I also attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Team Technologies Data Center located at the Fitchburg Technology Campus, which is being constructed in partnership with Berbee Information Networks. As you may remember, we provided fifty interns to the Department of Administration a year ago when they opened the state’s new data center, so I’m hoping to get opportunities for our students at the Team Technologies facility. Team Technologies is headquartered in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and their CEO was my former neighbor.

In closing, here is a quote by Jim Ryun (via Cindi Rutten):

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Thanks for all you do for our students!

Bettsey