Click here to view the video of the General Assembly morning presentations.

Administrators, faculty, and staff gathered for presentations that were both informative and entertaining at ACC’s annual General Assembly to kick off the fall semester on Friday, August 24.

The day began with breakfast and a chance for participants to visit with representatives and departments from around the college. After presentations by ACC faculty and employee associations, President/CEO Dr. Richard Rhodes and Interim Provost Dr. Enrique Solis discussed the opportunities and challenges impacting the college at the local, state, and federal level.

Dr. Rhodes discussed the “Three Rs” of re-imagining community colleges: “Redesign, Reinvent, and Reset,” and cited nationwide targets to double college graduation rates by 2020.

“We’ve got to blow the top off of that,” he said.

Dr. Solis gave a brief overview of ACC’s Academic Master Plan currently in development.

“We are at a point where we have to look at ourselves and chart our future,” he said. “The Academic Master Plan will renew our focus on the core mission of the college. It will provide us with a roadmap for the future.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Mark David Milliron, chancellor of WGU Texas, presented “Emerging Insights on Learning, Technology, and the Road Ahead in Education,” and asked members of a student panel to share their thoughts on their ACC experience.

Milliron noted that while the country has made great strides in making higher education accessible, the pathway to graduation is not as smooth as it should be. He added that performance data should be shared more quickly with those on the “front lines” — students, instructors, and advisers — and encouraged colleges to provide students with tools to plot and manage their growth.

View photos from the event below.