What We Are About: Toward a Shared Vision; David R. Perkins

In March 2003 West Virginia's Legislature passed and the Governor signed House Bill 2224, legislation that created New River Community and Technical College (NRCTC) by combining Bluefield State Community and Technical College with elements of Glenville State Community and Technical College. On July 1, 2003, NRCTC assumed official existence, administratively linked to Bluefield State College (BSC) but slated to become an independently accredited higher education entity. The new college includes campuses in Beckley and Bluefield, as well as the Greenbrier Valley Campus in Lewisburg (formerly Greenbrier Community College Center) and the Nicholas County Campus in Summersville (formerly of Glenville State College). Speculation regarding the reasons for this bold legislative action has wandered across the public policy and political landscapes, depending largely on the histories, perspectives, and current statuses of observers. I have some sense of the various perspectives that informed different points of view among faculty, staff, and administrative constituencies of Bluefield State College (BSC); I will refrain from guessing the origin and nature of explanations that circulated among Glenville State College (GSC) alumni, employees, and friends, though I can imagine the discomfort resulting from the change.

Little Forest, photograph by Bobby Morgan. Click for a larger view, and for more of Morgan's works.

Some members of the Bluefield community saw the legislation as punishment for BSC's past sins of omission or commission, whether or not those sins are indeed real or simply perceived. Other members saw it as a serendipitous opportunity to increase BSC enrollment as a consequence of the West Virginia Legislature's effort to solve the "Glenville problem," a problem centered on and emerging from GSC's situation in an area of declining population, shrinking student enrollment, and poor economic prospects-the last a microcosmic reflection of West Virginia's state-wide revenue shortfalls. Others viewed the legislation in the context of the larger challenges associated with the weak economy, difficult terrain, and aging population of southeastern West Virginia. Within this view, BSC's organizational and programmatic structure offered at least partial responses to these challenges. Bluefield State College is, after all, the only college geographically situated and with the right mix of allied health and technical instructional programs to meet the needs of the people of southeastern West Virginia. Moreover, these programs rise to the demands of the West Virginia Legislature's marked emphasis on providing relevant, high quality community and technical college programs to citizens throughout the State.

In some way, each of these factors helped garner the legislative majority that brought forth HB 2224. Other observers may fairly identify additional factors involved in the dramatic creation of the new community and technical college. Be that as it may, we must view the relevant social, economic, and political currents in light of one undeniable fact: New River Community and Technical College exists. Consequently, I choose to examine the legislative and institutional history only because such knowledge will help the college community and the supportive constituencies establish sound, relevant institutional goals and identify objectives, activities, and assessment strategies that the college students, staff, and faculty will endorse and work together to achieve.

Boy with Bird, photograph by Bobby Morgan. Click for a larger view, and for more of Morgan's works.

I am of course aware of disparate traditions, attitudes, and protocols that characterize the several institutional and campus cultures comprising the new college. Failure to recognize and accept this truth as we go forward in our being and our doing would hinder, if not preclude, achievement of our mission and purpose. I choose, however, to welcome the disparity--I could just as well say the diversity in our histories and experiences--as a plenary source of institutional richness. In this spirit I am determined to wield my leadership so as to lessen any negative effects of our differing institutional fountainheads and to build on the strengths of each historical and organizational element of NRCTC: Bluefield State and Glenville State Colleges; faculty diversity and commitment; staff skills and dedication; and administrative experience and enthusiasm.

Many obstacles threaten the achievement of this overarching goal, but I am confident that we will prevail. We will bridge substantial distances-literally and figuratively. Across difficult physical distances, we will communicate ideas and operational documents by analog and digital means. We will harness new technologies as tools in the age-old endeavor to teach and to foster learning. No one of us will have the answer in meeting these challenges, for their solutions will result from shared knowledge, adoption of best practices, and mutually supportive good will and hard work. But though any one of us lacks the answer, together we will forge the many answers that our endeavor requires, and we will move forward to implement them.

The new college faces many immediate demands: student registration; course development; facilities maintenance; program and protocol regularization. The list would likely be endless, if we let our thoughts see that far. On top of these ongoing demands, the college staff and faculty also must shoulder the plethora of complex tasks demanded by our effort to achieve independent accreditation (legislatively mandated to be in place by December 31, 2004). All of these demands are important, of course, but in attending to them we must be careful not to neglect the substantive reason for our existence. All employees of New River Community and Technical College are involved with our customers-our students and our business, industry, and agency clients. Faculty members teach and foster learning; staff support teaching and learning processes or create the safe environment in which they flourish; and administrative leaders facilitate teaching and learning by ensuring adequate resources and effective operations.

So what are we about? We are about the business of adding dimension to the educational opportunities available to the people of our region of responsibility, and of improving the rates of success for those who take advantage of the opportunities. As we go forward to accomplish all the tasks that are necessarily associated with organizational development and maintenance, teaching and learning must remain at the center of our work. Both are, after all, the reasons for our work.