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ICCC board OKs salary freeze

Board also approved curriculum changes to degree programs

FORT DODGE – The Iowa Central Community College Board of Directors voted to approve a salary freeze for the college’s administrators and president on Tuesday night.

“Tonight, we’re asking the board to approve a freeze for the administrative salaries for the 2020-2021 year,” Iowa Central President Dan Kinney said. “During tough economic times, education enrollments are down and that’s what we’re seeing — got to tighten our belts and things like that. So the administration, including myself … are asking for the board to approve that our salaries be frozen this year instead of doing any raises.”

Board President Mark Crimmins thanked Kinney and the administration for coming to the board with that request.

“Everybody likes to get an increase, and to recognize that it’s not there this year, we appreciate that,” he said. “It makes life a little easier for us when it comes to budget and everything else.”

The board also approved a series of curriculum changes to several degree programs.

“A lot of this is just the result of us really putting the push to get (the departments) to get their credit requirements to 60 credits,” said Stacy Mentzer, vice president of instruction.

Prior to these curriculum changes, several programs required nearly 70 credits for graduation, while the college generally requires 60. The purpose of the changes was to lower those credit requirements to match the college’s. For example, the photography program was previously 68 credits, but is now 61.

Seven credits were dropped from the criminal justice program, which will now require 60 credits to graduate.

Board member Larry Hecht gave the rest of the board a report from his trip to the Association of Community College Trustee’s Leadership Conference in San Francisco last October.

Hecht particularly enjoyed a presentation from Monroe Community College of New York, which “super stressed the importance of doing systematic presentations on recruiting and retention to the board and the faculty as well.”

He also noted a program from the College of Lake County, Illinois, that buses high school students to the community college for the first two periods of the day and also provides laptops, advanced calculators and WiFi hotspots for students to check out to use if needed.

“They aim to get as many high school students on campuses as possible — that’s what really jumped out to me,” Hecht said.

The next regular board meeting will be at 5 p.m. on Feb. 11, in the conference room inside the Triton Cafe.

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