(0:47 - 11:08)
All right, I'd like to call to order this called meeting of the Faculty Assembly. I'm Dr. Georgiane Ward. I'm the president of Faculty Assembly until August 1st and then Dr. Chanel Cook will be taking over. 

Chanel, where are you? There's Chanel. This is a called meeting of the Faculty Assembly with invited guests from the Board of Regents, Staff Assembly, and Administrative Assembly. I'd like to recognize our members of the board who attended today. 

First, we have Regent Gilbert Santana. You'll stand. There he is. 

Chairman of the board. And then we have Regent Gina Guillory, Regent Mark Himsel, and Regent Mark Hall. Thank you all so much for taking time out of your schedules to meet with us today. 

As a point of housekeeping, faculty and invited guests, so Faculty Assembly, Staff Assembly, Administrative Assembly, we will all have voice privileges at today's meeting. We're very glad that we have this opportunity to meet as a college community and discuss the matter at hand. So now we're moving on to item two on the agenda, the statement of purpose. 

We're here today for a discussion of the lone finalist of the presidential search. For context, on May 26th, at their meeting, the Lee College Board of Regents voted seven to two to name our interim president, Jacob Atkin, lone finalist in the presidential search. We are now in a 21-day waiting period per Texas government code, during which people can provide opinions or give feedback before the candidate is confirmed. 

A little bit more background, while the board has the authority to name a lone finalist in this way, their process followed a different pattern than in the past. In the past, we've hired a consulting firm, done a national search, had an advisory committee with various college stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students, community members, and we've held public forums with the top candidates. So this process looks different. 

After last week's board meeting, several faculty reached out to me with questions, and so we thought it would be great if the board could talk to us directly and answer those questions, and we're so pleased that Regent Santana graciously agreed to attend. So now I'm going to invite up Regent Santana. He's going to have some time to address the questions that have already been posed and give his statement, and then after he's finished talking, we'll have a question and answer period for you to voice your concerns or ask questions or give your feedback. 

So come on up, Regent Santana. All right. Thank you, Dr. Ward. 

Good afternoon. So there were three related questions that you know that you had received and that I had received that you're going to start off with. So I'm going to share these questions with you so that you can listen for his answer. 

One was, what was the board's process and rationale in making this decision? Two, why did the board decide not to use the process we've used in the past, including a national search and a committee of various stakeholders? And three, what are Jacob Atkin' strengths that make him an appropriate candidate for president at this time? All right. Well, again, thank you, Dr. Ward, for the invite, and thank you to each of you who have showed up in person and those that are online and given me a few minutes to come and have a little conversation with you folks. The regents in the room have been recognized, so thank you for doing that. 

I typically, if you know me, I do not like to have a script or even notes. I like to just talk. In the case of these three specific questions, I wanted to make sure that I was concise, and I did my best to clearly answer these three questions. 

And so, I do have some notes that I'm going to refer to. I want to first talk about the past presidents and how they were selected. And the most recent one, and hopefully I answer questions one, two, and three on the agenda. 

The most recent selection was the 2019 search committee. That was seven years ago. Now, this was the perfect, perfect scenario for a search committee. 

Dr. Brown had announced his intent to retire. The board had over seven months to find a new president. There was no internal candidates, and there was also no interim needed. 

The committee was formed, and one of our regents chaired that committee. Two other regents participated. We hired a consultant and a search firm. 

This three-person subcommittee with the consultant handled most of the work, narrowing down the 50-plus applicants based on Lee College criteria called presidential profile, along with the search committee's input along the way. So, there were some minimum qualifications, the non-negotiables, education, master's degree is a minimum, doctorate was strongly preferred. Executive experience, we needed someone who had a documented track record of senior-level administrator experience, a VP, a provost, or dean within a community college or higher education environment. 

There were also some required leadership challenges and opportunities specific to the Texas Gulf Coast, most of which still apply today. Workforce and industry partnerships, we needed someone who could build tight relationships to maintain the robust workforce training pipeline. Student diversity and success metrics, we were looking for someone, a leader with metric-driven background and improving retention and completion rates, focusing on the designated Hispanic-serving institution. 

And fiscal and capital management, someone with a deep experience in managing complex public budgets, navigating state funding formulas, and overseeing campus capital expansion projects. Those were the criteria. The public part of the committee included faculty. 

Some of you may have participated, staff and the Baytown community stakeholders who participated in public forums to interview the final group of candidates and provide input for consideration. On the faculty side, primarily to evaluate academic qualifications. I know a lot more than that. 

Student government representatives were to advocate for student services and campus life, and the local business leaders were there to ensure the candidate aligned with the regional workforce training needs. Public forums were set up to ask questions, engage the candidate's communication style, their values, and their vision. Feedback forums were provided and evaluation sheets for the Board of Regents to review and consider before the final vote. 

I'm going to review the timeline a little bit. June and July of 2019, the committee gathered a pool of over 50 applicants. In August, applications were rigorously weighted to narrow the field down to a group of 7 to 12 semifinalists. 

September, the board narrowed down to four final candidates. And September 24th, Dr. Billenwale was named the sole finalist. It wasn't until December the board officially recognized her hiring, setting up a transitional month with Dr. Brown before taking full leadership January of 2020. 

The perfect scenario. I'm going to review a couple of others. The recent past, Dr. Brown, he was hired in February of 2012 after a search committee when Dr. Murphy's three-year contract ended. 

The search process started in June of 2011, had seven-month advance notice. Dr. Murphy was hired January 5th, 2009, after a search committee process to serve as president for only three years. When Dr. Ellis resigned in April of 2008, Dr. Topper served as interim president for eight months until Dr. Murphy was hired. 

Now, prior to Lee College, Dr. Murphy worked for ACCT as a consultant and had served as an interim president at three different institutions. So basically, that search resulted in hiring an interim college president for three years. Dr. Ellis was hired in August of 2002 after a search committee when Dr. Sasser resigned in December of 2001. 

CFO Steve Evans served as interim president for about eight months until Dr. Ellis was hired. I'm not going to go back any further. I just wanted to cover the most recent history, a couple decades of presidents, how they were hired, and exactly as Dr. Ward presented the process. 

Let's talk about where we are today. Dr. Villanueva's resignation was sudden. There was no advance notice or transition period with the new president. 

In the cases of an interim president, both Steve Evans and Dr. Topper were not considered candidates for the president position as prescribed by the board. They were explicitly caretakers of the role. Most colleges bar the interim from applying to prevent an unfair advantage over external candidates and keep the search committee's efforts completely objective. 

When we appointed Jacob as interim, we had a scheduled board retreat the very next day. We had no idea what our immediate plan was. We decided to give ourselves about six months before deciding which process to take.

(11:08 - 16:36)
Our consultant told us if we were to accept Jacob as a candidate in a national search, we wouldn't get the quality of applicants due to having an internal candidate. In our case, we experienced an interim who had the skill sets you would look for in a president. To have a robust and completely honest search process, we would need to disqualify Jacob as an applicant. 

Typically, when an interim president comes in, they do not make sweeping changes due to the mindset of being temporary. They maintain status quo. They do not initiate long-term reorganizations, and they defer strategic planning efforts. 

Basically, don't mess things up. Jacob has been the exception. Jacob has acted and planned like a permanent president since being appointed interim February 26th. 

He has dealt with personnel issues, managed the budget, executed contracts, dealt with legal issues, and enforced board policy in all areas of operation. He has not been status quo. He initiated a cabinet strategic planning retreat, supported facility improvements, requested a strategic plan from all cabinet members that support the college's strategic master plan and ties to the budget, identified changes to the state funding formulas and how it impacts the financial outlook and future of Lee College. 

Jacob also led the negotiations with the city of Baytown on the land swap for the ExxonMobil Baytown Event Center. Jacob has established relationships with our industry and business partners through involvement in two area chambers of commerce and the Baytown West Chambers County Economic Development Foundation and membership in the Rotary Club of Baytown for over a year. Jacob has continued to follow up on new student opportunities in bachelor degrees, Huntsville program expansion, as well as campus master planning efforts based on current and future program needs. 

He has continued his leadership in our current budget process and has communicated budget challenges that we are facing. Jacob initiated and is leading the implementation of the new 20 million dollar ERP system. He has continued to vision with his team the industry partnerships needed to create new opportunities and support our local workforce needs. 

Jacob has reached out to our ISD partners to determine how to better serve students in our broader community. Jacob has participated in the Gulf Coast Consortium and provided a perspective for future focus in our area. We witnessed his leadership, his relationship with Dr. Hellyer when he held his cabinet retreat and how she related to his detailed approach to solving problems and planning for outcomes. 

As a note, she was the former CFO at San Jacinto College. So, an example of a very similar career track is Dr. Hellyer at San Jacinto College. Dr. Hellyer was a foundation director, a non-academic role. 

She transitioned into institutional leadership as vice chancellor of fiscal affairs and CFO. Dr. Hellyer was an internal candidate who stood out due to her business background as a CPA, her familiarity with the local community needs, and her performance managing the college's multi-million dollar budget. She was named the lone finalist without a search committee process in 2007. 

The trustees did place a doctoral requirement on her contract before she could assume the office, which took her about two years. I'll also point out the trustees did a survey to decide if a national search should be launched or bypass and promote Dr. Hellyer. The survey resulted in a direct promotion. 

However, San Jacinto had a retiring chancellor who stayed around, not a sudden resignation. So, if I can summarize some of this, this was a sudden resignation, not a planned retirement or long notice given. There's reaction versus response. 

We could have reacted to or responded to the circumstances. If we didn't have an administrator we felt could at least hold things together, we would have reacted and formed a search committee immediately. Instead, we were confident that Jacob could hold things together until we decided how to respond, which is why we initially gave ourselves six months. 

Since Jacob was hired in March of 2025, he has had a board facing role. He immediately gave complex financial updates and answered tough questions during the budget process. Jacob is the one high-level administrator other than the president who spends the most time with the board. 

Jacob closed the deal on the Barbers Hill Branch campus shortly after he arrived. As community representatives, we have evaluated his knowledge of student services, faculty needs and challenges, the total student experience, workforce training needs, communication style, demeanor, values and vision. I believe most of you have had the opportunity to meet Jacob or hear him speak, see how he treats people, his knowledge of Lee College and our unique presence in our service area. 

As I mentioned, Jacob didn't just hold things together or become a caretaker, he has been the president. Timing was mentioned as a reason we didn't form a committee. Timing is a consideration in any decision but not the only variable.

(16:36 - 22:26)
We are aware there will be some retirements next year that will require filling those roles. The president should be involved in filling those positions. The sooner we have a permanent president, the sooner we can work those positions. 

Jacob has been performing two high-level roles since February. We would need to hire a temporary CFO if we were not naming a new president soon. If we name a president, then we need to hire a permanent CFO. 

Two different searches based on timing. A communication about what has been happening has been questioned. As a board, we can only have conversations during posted meetings. 

When we discuss personnel matters, they happen in closed session. There can be the appearance of not being transparent or making deals behind closed doors. The first time we met to see if we had a potential path forward was at our April 16th posted meeting. 

At that time, we all had confidence in Jacob's ability to lead the college and I can say that the concern over the option of not having a search committee was expressed by more than two regents at that time. There were no decisions made so there was nothing to communicate. There was some follow-up on questions we had regarding accreditation, grant funding requests, policy on criteria, were all areas we continued to review. 

The second conversation was at the posted meeting May 20th. We had more clarity on a possible path forward with remaining concerns regarding a national search or at least a modified search process. The third conversation was at the posted board meeting May 26th. 

During closed session, we determined we did not vote. We should act on naming Jacob Atkin the sole finalist, understanding the criticism we would receive. When we acted in open session, we believe we made the right decision for the circumstances, timing, and fortunate internal candidate that we had. 

The board as a body has the authority to name a sole finalist, which we did based on everything I just covered. There was no intent to eliminate or keep the college community or the overall community out of the process. This was not a fault of a sole finalist who no one knew or the community hasn't experienced. 

The board believes Jacob can lead this institution well into the future of serving our students, workforce partners, and our greater community. We believe he has the knowledge, professional skills, and soft skills to lead this institution. We believe Jacob will work well with the board and we look forward to Lee College continuing continuing to be a leader in higher education and improving lives in our community. 

I hope somewhere in there I gave a glimpse of the three questions that were asked and if I didn't and I'll be glad to address those in the open session for questions. Thank you so much. We did have one other question that was posed ahead of time and you already did a good job of explaining why the board has communicated the way it did and some of the board rules and some issues with confidentiality, but we're wondering as we move forward how can we as a campus community improve communication between the board and college employees? Yeah, that's a great question. 

I'm not even sure why we haven't discussed this question in the past. As I mentioned there are nine regents on this board and we have nine different opinions and any one of us can speak on our personal opinion. When we speak as a board it's what the board has decided the path forward is and the way we communicate as a board is the action that we take at our posted meetings. 

The agenda items are posted, we read the agenda item, we have discussion, you'll hear comments from each board member how they feel about it. We'll take a vote and then we move forward with the affirmative vote if we have that. That fundamentally communicates what we have done openly and in public. 

President Atkin and I have discussed a little bit about how we can go beyond our board communication which is the formal communication we make as a board. When I talk to you as board chair I'm trying to convey and support the action the board took. Whether I agree with it or not doesn't matter. 

It's the action the board took and that requires a majority affirmative vote whether I agree with it or not. If I talk to you as an individual board member I can give you a different opinion but I can't speak for the board and I don't have a problem and I don't think any one of our regents have a problem telling you what our personal opinions are about things. It's just how we do that right. 

How do we constructively do that without undermining what the board has decided to do. So when action has been taken and there's a path forward and one of our regents or two or three or four do not agree with that action their role their opportunity to disagree is at the board meeting and express why and we've had that those comments expressed in the past but after the board action is taken our role as a region is to support the board's decision. Support the board's decision 100 that's our role that's how we function.

(22:26 - 23:10)
We can't be a split group so we have two opportunities to communicate to the college as a board and as individuals and as individuals we have to be very careful that we don't begin to split or separate what we as a board have been charged to do. So that's why a lot of times we do not have individual conversations about our individual opinions because we work as a collective board and I can tell you each one of them can tell you being one of nine is very very difficult very difficult. I in my world I'm one of one.

(23:11 - 25:38)
I take input I make a decision we move forward when I joined this board I knew the rules I knew exactly what I was getting getting into but it it is a challenge to be one of nine. So we have discussed and Dr. Ward and I just briefly discussed possible opportunities for us to visit on some scheduled basis with the assemblies either quarterly or whatever whatever is discussed that's not for me to decide I'll let the president and the assemblies decide that but I can tell you that that each of us as board members have no problem communicating with the college we just have to make sure we're either communicating as a board or we're communicating as an individual. So we look forward to figuring that out as far as what has happened these last few months as I told you we did not know until the evening of May 26th what our path forward was going to be. 

We had had a few conversations prior and we can only talk when we meet posted meetings we it'd be great if we could kind of visit behind and kind of see where everyone's at but we can't do that till we meet and we we all respect that process and I think each one will tell you that we we have not we have not had those conversations outside of board meetings. So especially when it's going to be an action item at some point it's it's a a walking quorum and that's against the law and none of us none of us want to go to jail. So this process had we had decided initially what we were going to do we could have communicated that to you we could have said we're bypassing the committee process and we're going straight to a direct appointment we we didn't know that we we just did not know that and I think the other regents in the room will tell you the same thing. 

So it was hard to communicate something we hadn't decided. We as a board did not have a direction and so what could we communicate except we don't know what we're going to do and when we decided that we knew what we were going to do then that was the time for us to communicate. I will tell you that it was intentional on my part to not issue a communication to the college community after our decision May 26th.

(25:39 - 30:54)
It seems odd. I wasn't being disrespectful. We weren't neglecting you. 

I was really waiting for the right opportunity to have this type of conversation and not try to put it in a letter to you. An opportunity to share more than what I could just put down in a simple letter saying this is what we did and why. An opportunity for you to ask questions. 

If you don't agree with what we did we understand. We do a lot of things we don't agree with ourselves so we certainly understand that and I'm thankful that this is the opportunity that that that came up because I can tell you even to the local newspaper I didn't provide a statement. They wrote their report on our board meeting. 

They covered what was said during the meeting. That's exactly what happened so we didn't even provide a public relations statement to local media. This is what we were waiting for and I didn't know when it was going to happen or how but this is what I was hoping would happen. 

So I don't I didn't give a direct answer but I know we're willing to work on how we can better communicate with the college community. If members of the college community had questions concerns that are not answered today is it appropriate for them to email you or others on the board or how do we communicate with you? You can communicate with with each one of us either individually or collectively. If one of us receives an email that requires a response it will go to all of us. 

We will collect our response and get it back to you. So either way or through or through the president. Our emails are public. 

I've had some people say we didn't know how to email our emails or publics on the website. Anyway so yeah just reach out to us. Thank you. 

All right now we're going to move on to the question and answer period and as a reminder the faculty assembly so faculty and our invited guests the staff assembly and administrative assembly so faculty staff administrators all have voice privileges today. I do like to try to give some guidelines to Q&A's. First of all let's try to be constructive. 

Let's try to be respectful of people's time and not ask a question that's already been answered even if it wasn't the answer you wanted and then I also like to say if you have a concern or you voice a complaint I always like you to follow that with a suggestion. So let's try to keep it solutions oriented if you can. So the first question actually came from an audience member ahead of the meeting and they wanted me to to read it so that they had some anonymity. 

Their concern is not so much about the presidential search but about the process and about how the college plans to use the same process in the future. As you mentioned we have other big positions that will be coming open in the future namely provost. Dr. Walshertz has been amazing and that will be a big position to fill and the person just wanted to know what are your plans for filling other important roles such as provost in the future. 

Well first I'll say that we the board only have one employee and we only fill one position and that's the president. We don't fill the provost role or the CFO role or any other role beyond the president. That's just how it works. 

So I would expect the normal process of filling the provost role would be used no changes there unless the HR folks college community wanted to do something different but as a board we don't get involved in the provost search. Thank you. Okay who else has a question or a comment. 

We have a microphone on that side of the room and also one over here. Remember we're in this 21 day waiting period this is the time to voice concerns and give feedback so they can make the best decision. Hi my name is Jessica I'm a full-time faculty member here at lee college. 

I understand that you did not know what you were doing until the 26th but it was concerning as a member who were of the faculty to read in the baytown sun on the 22nd that you were considering him for Mr. Atkin as the lone finalist. I feel it's not necessarily a question but a concern that that's how I first found out about it versus the agenda that came out for the board meeting. So while you didn't know what you were going to do I feel like those conversations of course were already happening some of which we can't know about right because we don't know we can't but can you say something to that as as a community here who love working here who love our students who want the best president possible.

(30:56 - 56:50)
I'm hopeful that you acknowledge that was really hard to read and then not know until the 26th what was really going to happen. So how did that come about that post in the baytown sun where I believe you were quoted about interviewing a candidate for a year which I get every day you come to work you should act like you're being interviewed right like you're going to do the best you can. So if you can describe that process of why that came out first and then how we found out if I hope that makes sense. 

Sure. So I'm talking about timing a little bit our May meeting was not our normal third Thursday of the month. We moved it back a week almost a week so we didn't conflict with some of the Goose Creek CISD high school graduations. 

When we found out that we had an opportunity to meet prior to that board meeting I believe May the 20th was a Wednesday we had to post that meeting as well so we did we did the week before. Our regular board meeting already had an agenda item that said after closed session take action on matters discussed during closed session. Very generic very broad you know gave us an opportunity to do whatever we talked about in closed session that really isn't specified right. 

So as I was looking at the agenda for both the May 20th meeting which was very specific it talked about talking about the presidential position and I looked ahead at the next agenda that was already posted it didn't clearly say that we might discuss and we might take that that action right. We didn't know we hadn't even met the second time on May 20th but because the board meeting was on that Tuesday and there was a holiday before that meeting the required agenda posting had to be in on Tuesday the 19th and we weren't meeting until Wednesday the 20th and I'll take responsibility for that call. I got with President Atkin and I said I don't like the fact that our agenda for next week doesn't allow us an opportunity should we discuss for the third time a way to move forward and we would have to call some future special meeting or wait till the next month and not that it was an urgency but if we were ready to take action then we wanted the opportunity. 

So I asked him to change the agenda for the following week's meeting on the 26th to very specifically say this is what we may do right. When I was interviewed by the Baytown Sun when that agenda came out because it did get everybody's attention I was quoted and I have to admit I gave the Baytown Sun a lot of information probably more I should have written it down probably more than they needed so it was a lot of information and I'm not blaming them but I didn't say we were going to be appointing Jacob at that next meeting the headline correctly said said may consider right may consider that's what it said the first sentence said we will appoint and that was not accurate there was there was a lot of information I provided on the background when I when I made reference to the one year it was the fact that we had an opportunity to know who Jacob was right this wasn't just an interview process and a candidate that applied and they went through a couple of public forums you know. 

We had met and as I stated from day one when he got here he had a board-facing role he spoke to us directly he he gave us insight into our finances that we hadn't had before we had a really good CFO. And so Jacob stepped up and we we knew him and he met with us in closed sessions on on land deals and other issues and we knew we knew how he handled things. We knew his his his thought process and that was important. So my reference to a year of interviewing him it was interviewing who he was, not him as a president. Who he was and who he is is very important in any person that you select to be your president. 

We all know that most presidents that apply are going to have a very good background. They're going to have great references, and we're going to get the best side, and they're going to say what we want them to say and what we want to hear, right? And I'm not saying they're lying. I'm just saying that's what you do in any interview.

What we've had with Jacob is not an interview period. We've just had Jacob. We've had who he is, how he handles things, how he handles conversations, how he handles challenges, never held back from telling us what we needed to know, what we were challenged with. And so my reference to that interview time was who he is, not that we've been interviewing him for a year to be the president. So that was taken a little out of context.

It is very difficult, and I said that earlier, for us to communicate what we do not know. And the other regents in the room will tell you we did not know. We were still challenging ourselves on the search process and, as I mentioned, even maybe a modified search process where we just sort of said, let's just get to the end and let's just do something, right?

But in the end, everyone here, even those who didn't vote in favor, believed Jacob could do the job. It was just the question of the search process and not including everyone else. And so it wasn't intended to exclude. We just felt that the board felt that the path we took forward was the right thing to do.

Can I answer your question, all of it or some of it?

Yes and no. I think it's still, for lack of a better word, hurtful to find out from the Baytown Sun before the board itself. And so I'm still a little confused about the timeline. I understand board agendas have to be sent out at a certain time, but I want there to be trust between the board and the employees of this college, and I feel like that was rough business to find out that way.

So I'm not sure what you could say to that because it's not really a question, but I think more of a statement.

I think it's understandable. We all know that. We also know that we can go five, six, seven years and everything's great, then we do one thing that gets questioned and trust is damaged. We know that. It's a very sensitive issue both ways, right?

So it was a difficult decision. And just to issue a statement that, "Hey, we're going to be doing this next week," before it showed up as an agenda item in the Baytown paper, it just didn't happen. And we also know that, post our decision, the quickest way to get trust back is to have these conversations.

We were going to have a difficult time either way. And, speaking personally, I prefer to do it sooner rather than later. So we're having it now.

Thanks. Other questions or comments? Feel free to ask. We're here to talk.

I was at the board meeting, and I can tell you that this decision was made by a majority, but not all board members agreed with that majority. So this was a conflict up until that moment.

Just a comment, and I'm not quite sure if there's an answer to this, but I think, for me as faculty, some of the issue that I'm having with just kind of appointing the interim as president is the fact that while it seems like some of our upper-level administrative positions have been filled with people who did not go through that same train of our process, more faculty-facing and student-facing positions don't get the consideration of, "We've been here for 10 years. We've been here for 15 years. You've known us." They didn't interview us during that time; they just do a blank search.

So it seems like some of us on the lower levels are being passed up for certain positions and promotions, but the board can just put in an interim because they've known him a year. So I don't know if you can speak to that or not.

But again, we have a lot of upper-level administration that was kind of added in, and there are people that we know who were here who seemed like they were passed up several times for those same positions. But they have been here and done the work, and the college has gotten to know them and all of that. So it seems like there's an incongruity with this search process or this appointment versus what happens at the lower level that affects us and our students.

Okay, great comment. And I'm fine with getting questions or comments that have no direct answer.

What I will tell you is President Atkin is here listening to that comment, and those concerns are from the president level down. As I mentioned, the board has one employee, and we have at least two ways to hire that employee, and both are acceptable methods. I mean, they just are.

The search process is not a legal mandate. It's a tool, an available tool to a board to go find a president, but it's not a legal mandate.

I'm not sure what the rules, processes, or policies are on filling administrative positions, but we, the board, do not fill those positions. We have one position to fill. We have options, and we exercised the legal, rightful option based on our interpretation of the circumstances, the timing, and the interim, and etc., etc.

Without explaining my perspective on what you just said, we didn't have all these administrative positions open. They were a result of a reorganization, and we didn't see a lot of people change. In other words, somebody didn't move up and someone came in behind them.

Again, we as a board don't get into those details. We just get the results of those things. So I'm not sure what the policies and procedures are on filling those positions, but I can see you comparing the two. We don't compare to whatever the policies are for upper-level administrators.

Can I follow up on Kyra's question?

Kyra, is there a solution you could offer to the board for the qualities of a president you would like them to look for who would hire in the way that you think would be important to the college?

I have no solution, but I do know that the board does approve every single position, correct? So even though you may not have a say in the hiring, when that position is up, is it not on the agenda and the board has to approve new hires and all of that?

Yes. We approve the contracts of all employees. As far as promotions, those are handled internally. We approve reorganizations, so if new positions are created, we do approve those positions. We don't approve the person in the position, just the creation.

Right. Okay.

There was a question. I want to just—I was having a thought here. And again, I want to be clear that, as I mentioned on the previous three or four presidents who were selected, a lot of times an institution may have a specific need, and that will then fall into the criteria that you apply to your search.

Some institutions who are struggling financially or trying to broaden their reach into their service area will hire a president with specific skill sets. The average tenure of a community college president in the nation and in Texas is about five and a half, 5.8 years, something like that. And surprisingly, our last 10 presidents average out to 5.8 years.

So each time you select a president, you may have a unique situation that you're trying to address for a number of years. And I did a lot of research, not just in Texas but in the nation, on how colleges and boards go looking for a president.

There are a lot of colleges today, not so much in the state of Texas because we've got a robust system, but throughout the nation, who are looking for specific skill sets to help them with their financial situation. In that case, you want a president. You don't need a strong CFO. You need a strong president who says, "We're going to get these finances handled." And that may be for a period of three to five years, then they're gone because they took care of problems.

So for us, when Dr. Villanueva came in, we have to accept the fact that we didn't know what was going to happen. We kind of had a path forward. And everything I read about the criteria and the challenges we had in our workforce—if you recall, back in about 2015 we initiated a very robust workforce development initiative with our industry partners—and we were still in that mode.

When Dr. Villanueva came in, our plan was growing our industry partnerships. We had planned to have a general obligation bond committee put together and do a lot of facilities master planning. And then 2020 happened. Everything changed. Everything changed.

What I'll tell you, and what I tell people outside the college community, is what a blessing it was for us to go through that period of time. Because I think had we not been challenged the way we were challenged, and had we not had the leader we had at the time, we wouldn't be where we are today.

We have to acknowledge that there's a lot of changes that have taken place in the last six years, and we are much better as an institution, and we're serving our community in a much better way.

So I would say today, if we were instituting a search and we as a board were looking at the criteria we would place on a president, it might be a little different than what we had in 2019. And I would assume it's different every time you do it. I don't think it's just a boilerplate, "Here's what we want. Here's what we want to get." It depends on where you are as an institution.

Today we're challenged with our service area. We're in the southern tip of a very large service area. The Barbers Hill branch campus was an idea we've been working on for over 10 years. You're all aware of that. And it took our last president to get it really close to done, and Jacob came in as a CFO and took care of the last part of it. That campus will be opening soon—a great, great expansion for Lee College.

And I can tell you that today Jacob is taking that same approach into Crosby and Huffman. We lost Huffman. We lost their dual-credit students. It's not acceptable, right? What are we going to do about that?

He recognizes that challenge. We need to look at Crosby. He's met with ISD superintendents one-on-one. We didn't realize that wasn't happening. Okay? He's taking that initiative.

He's talking to Dayton. He's already started the conversations with not only their superintendent, but we're going to be talking board-to-board on how we can envision what we can do in Dayton.

We have the Liberty Center. We have a president that understands the business of the college and how we can grow the business, which grows the service that we provide.

So I'm speaking personally on this one. I believe what we need in a leader today is someone who can run the business of the college. We know what our service is. We know what we're here to do. There's no question of that.

We need someone that can take this institution, the business of the institution, and move us out of the pocket we've been in since the day we were formed. And that's what I think we have with Jacob.

Now that requires the board as well, so we'll see how that goes.

We have a question back here, and then maybe time for one more question after that.

Hi. I've been a full-time faculty instructor here since 1998, so I've been here for a very long time. And I have to say I was quite disappointed to not have an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates because there are some certain faculty, I think, overarching concerns that we have.

So I was looking forward to that. So that's one of my issues with not having the search, is not having the opportunity to get information. But I'm hoping that Mr. Atkin will meet with faculty to take questions that we can ask to get his thoughts on certain topics that are of concern to us.

But my main comment is about the process, the way this went. I remember asking all semester long last semester, "What's going on with the search? What's going on with the search?" And everybody I asked was like, "I don't know. I have no idea."

So my thought was, it would have been nice to have you guys say, "We're going to put this on a six-month hold. We have hired a consulting company to come in," and then say, "Look, we had the consulting company come in and this is the advice they gave us, so now we're going to use that and we're going to sit and think about it because we put the six-month hold on there."

And then we're going to, hopefully, come to a decision about how we're going to play out this process in the future.

Just little steps along the way, to have a little bit of information, would have been, I think, really helpful because this kind of just felt like the rug got snatched out from under us since nobody here knew what was going on.

We just thought, "Well, they're just dragging their feet." You know, I don't know what the hiring process is. Maybe it's because we have a high turnover of staff. We had no idea.

So that is the kind of information I think would have been helpful, just little bits, like one or two sentences at a time. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

No, I completely agree. Thank you for your suggestion. That's very helpful.

I would say I hope that faculty don't think they have to wait for a presidential search to express their concerns to a potential president, that you would be able to express those concerns directly to the president who's here today. So please do that.

So I have full confidence—I mean, hearing you and the business side, for sure President Atkin has my full confidence in that because that is outside my purview.

My question is more about the academics because, as an academic, I don't see teaching as a business. I'm meeting with students. I'm cultivating a relationship to kind of get them forward. Each of my students has different needs, different learning styles.

And so when you think of academics as a business, then I'm questioning what kind of pedagogical practices are you bringing to us? Who are you surrounding yourself with to get a better understanding of what it is to teach?

Because I don't know business. I don't know what it means to close a deal. And that is awesome. That's great to kind of think about the institution growing.

But what about the teaching and learning, the things that go on inside the classroom? Who are you surrounding yourself with to kind of bring those innovative practices, to think outside the box that teaching is not a business but instead cultivating relationships with students, many of whom are experiencing very problematic things, right?

And so we're trying to reach students, get them to be better, to be in a position of leadership, right?

And so I haven't—Dr. Villanueva was wonderful about connecting with students, and so I'm hopeful that President Atkin will do that as well and surround himself with those that understand the academic side, not the business side, but are in the academic side to think about how teaching and learning happens, not just in technical fields but also in the liberal arts, in the sciences, right, and those kind of departments.

And so my question to the board is: What are you going to do about the academic side?

Okay. We believe the provost is the chief academic officer of the institution. We believe that everyone below the provost has the responsibility of doing everything you just said.

In order for all that to happen, it has to be supported by everyone else in this institution.

So, from my perspective, I don't depend on the president to be the chief academic officer and be in the classroom. They need to understand what it takes to deliver the service.

And I'm not minimizing service in any kind of way to our students. It's no different than the medical field. Every patient's different. Every need is different. But you have to have an organization that's geared to serve every student, every challenged student that comes in here.

Jacob's experience—he didn't come from industry. He's not just a businessman. He spent his entire career in community college settings. He understands what community colleges are there for. He understands the academic side.

He's not taught in the classroom. I've not taught in the classroom. Yet we're responsible for setting policy, hiring a president, and providing a budget to make it all happen.

So at our levels of responsibility, we all understand why we're here. And I believe that Mr. Atkin understands what we do at this institution and the unique challenges we have at this institution. They're not the same everywhere.

He completely understands the statistics that have been provided, as we do. Dr. Walters has given us great statistical data to let us know who our students are, who you guys are challenged to teach.

And in order to provide you what you need, we need to understand that.

So I think that I'm not taking away the importance of the president on the academic side. But the president's role has an internal component and an external component, and that's a very careful balance.

Because at the same time we're focusing on each individual student that comes through the doors every day, we're also focusing on our industry partnerships that level well beyond any one of us.

And we're focusing on the needs of folks that are 45 miles away in our service area. How do we support their dual-credit students? How can we provide for an early college high school campus at one of our closer ISDs, which we haven't done?

Those are the parts of the business that I talk about—not just numbers, not just the dollars and cents.

The business that we're in is providing higher education to all students in our service area and beyond.

And so when I say business, I'm talking about the business of what we do and what you do every day in the classroom. I'm not making it all about finance.

Okay, well, we are at the end of our hour. Do you have any other comments you'd like to make?

No. I just appreciate the opportunity to visit with each of you.

And if you have any other questions, I want you to feel free to reach out to me or any of the other regents that you may know and just let us know your thoughts.

Let me tell you, when we made this decision, we knew what we had done already by not communicating something because we didn't know what we were going to do.

And I will take the blame that we just didn't know what we were going to do. We didn't even know how to communicate. We didn't know what to do.

And I will also take the blame for it happening quickly.

But in my opinion, and in supporting the board's decision, the sooner the better. The sooner we get moving down the road together, build the trust up again if it's been lost, and continue delivering higher education to our community better than we've ever done it.

So thank you for the time.

Yeah, and again, we talked about this before we started, but I've been full-time faculty here since 2007 and I don't remember ever having a conversation like this before.

So I really appreciate your time and your thorough answers, and I thank all of you for taking time out to come in today.

If you had a question and it didn't get answered, as Regent Santana expressed, all of the board's email addresses are on the web page. So his is gsantana@lee.edu.

If you have a specific question or comment that did not get addressed, please reach out to them.

All right. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.