A message from JCCC President Joseph Sopcich, posted to the Johnson County Community College electronic mailserver, Infolist:
From: InfoList
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 1:04 PM
To: InfoList
Subject: [infolist] A message from Joe Sopcich
Throughout the history of our college, we have successfully served the community in many ways. In the process, we have acquired a national reputation for achievement, innovation and success in working with our students to succeed. In a sense, these accomplishments have helped to create the traditions of this institution, as well as the “mini-traditions” we continue in various areas throughout our campus community.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed history and actually relish an occasional look backwards, because so many times, history teaches us about where we are today and why. When I look back at the history of our college, one of the mantras used when our founders started the place was “Yes, we have no traditions.” In other words, we have nothing in our set way of doing things that can prevent us from inventing, innovating and doing great things.
I wonder whether during the years ahead we should re-adopt the mantra of “Yes, we have no traditions” and challenge ourselves to take a fresh and objective look at everything we do, a look that is uninhibited by our current ways of doing business, a look that is inspired to improve the performance of our students.
Over the past few weeks, many of you have listened to and watched Patrick Rossol-Allison and me talk about key performance indicators (KPIs) and the budget. Or as one person put it, in a rather open discussion with me, the “Doom and Gloom speech.” (I was uncertain as to whether I was Doom or Gloom or both.) Now there are some who might see it that way, but actually I believe there is infinite opportunity in the information presented. In every case, we have the opportunity, provided we work together, to make this college better and improve student success. And this is what we’re going to do. Continue reading →
