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MONTAGE Serving the St. Louis Community College - Meramec community since 1964
ACP Award Recipient
VOLUME 53, ISSUE 2 | THURSDAY, SEPT. 14, 2017 | WWW.MERAMECMONTAGE.COM
Graphic by Noah Sliney
Chancellor Pittman responds to state budget cuts STLCC administrative team creates work groups to address potential deficits Melissa Wilkinson | Editor-in-Chief Chancellor Jeff Pittman recently announced via email that the STLCC administrative team has created several work groups in order to respond to the current budget situation. The email, sent Aug. 29, named five work groups in total - Employee Optimization, Employee Benefits Analysis, Employee Overload/Overtime/Sabbatical Analysis, Program Review/Consolidation and Departmental Outsourcing and Consolidation. Each group will focus on its titular concept regarding ways it can be altered to immediately ease the burden of the recent budget cuts. “We have for each [workgroup] a team champion composed from our leadership team,” said Pittman in an interview. “They may go into the initial meeting and say ‘here are some ideas’ and then they’ll
listen and collect information and feedback from the people there.” In addition to the team champions, each workgroup will contain additional members including division deans, academic department coordinators and representatives from campus police, information technology, human resources and the National Education Association (NEA). While some members have been announced, many are still yet to be chosen. Chancellor Pittman plans to allow the stakeholder groups to nominate their own representatives. “The bargaining unit leads are stakeholders,” said Pittman. “The faculty and staff governance are stakeholders. Some of the departmental leads are stakeholders. We’re trying to get a cross section of people involved who can provide us with ideas and in-
put and recommendations as we consider what we’re going to take to the trustees in November.” In addition to the work groups announced in the email, Pittman mentioned the creation of a new Innovation Council which will focus on previously untried methods of fundraising. “I was thinking,” said Pittman. “We’re looking at all these cost reduction measures but have we considered other options for revenue generation, or maybe new programming that could generate revenue through enrollment or other means?” Dr. Elizabeth Perkins, provost at the Florissant Valley campus, will lead the Innovation Council along with a co-leader she will choose from the faculty. “Essentially, we will work to find ways that we can assist our strategic planning groups by providing
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Students Assisting Students Club feature. -Art & Life, Page 5
Graffiti in a Different Light -Opinions, Page 7
Women’s Volleyball -Sports, Page 8