{"id":44127,"date":"2017-07-12T12:25:35","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T12:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=44127"},"modified":"2017-07-12T12:25:35","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T12:25:35","slug":"board-to-austin-community-college-president-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2017\/07\/12\/board-to-austin-community-college-president-whats-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Board to Austin Community College president: What\u2019s next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Community Impact:\u00a0Board to Austin Community College president: What\u2019s next?<\/a><\/p>\n

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Board to Austin Community College president: What\u2019s next?<\/h3>\n

As Richard Rhodes presents organization\u2019s successes, board members look to the future<\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
\"ACC<\/a><\/p>\n
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By Marie Albiges \u00a0<\/span>| \u00a0Posted July 11, 2017\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\"Austin<\/a><\/p>\n
The Austin Community College Board of Trustees and President and CEO Richard Rhodes (center).MARIE ALBIGESThroughout most of Austin Community College CEO and President Richard Rhodes\u2019 tenure, the numbers are looking up.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

Throughout most of Austin Community College CEO and President Richard Rhodes\u2019 tenure, the numbers are looking up.<\/p>\n

Since he began in 2011, graduation rates are up 77 percent; students enrolled in dual credit and early college high schools have increased by nearly 2,300; the number of associates degrees awarded has grown by 1,545 and total course completions have grown by 4 percent.<\/p>\n

One statistic, however,\u00a0darkens an otherwise positive report the president and CEO presented at the board of trustees\u2019 July 10 meeting.<\/p>\n

Fall enrollments dropped from 45,100 in 2011 to 41,543 in 2016. Between fall, spring and summer semester, ACC has lost almost 2,500 students since Fiscal Year 2014. The number of 0ut-of-district students enrolled in the last year dropped by 16 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to see our enrollments grow a little more,\u201d Rhodes said, adding the Austin employment rate has also dropped from 6.6 percent in 2011 to 3.2 percent in 2016.<\/p>\n

Now, the ACC trustees want to know what he has planned for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do you see us going?\u201d Trustee Mark Williams asked Rhodes following the president\u2019s \u201cState of the College\u201d report on July 10.\u00a0\u201cI think the brand of ACC is very high in our community right now, and I\u00a0think people are looking for us to do more,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Trustee Nan McRaven called the last few years under Rhodes\u2019 leadership a \u201cphenomenal success\u201d and said she wanted to see what the \u201cnext chapter\u201d was.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we stretch even further, what areas do we do that in?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rhodes said he wanted to focus more on building relationships with businesses and industries, particularly in the fields of health, IT and skilled trades.<\/p>\n

\"Board<\/a><\/p>\n
Austin Community College CEO and President Richard Rhodes (left) with several trustees at the opening of ACC Highland\u2019s bioscience incubator.MARIE ALBIGES<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe are undertaking that as we speak,\u201d he said, pointing to the passage of recent state legislation allowing for community colleges to offer bachelors\u2019 degrees in nursing<\/a>\u00a0and to ACC Highland\u2019s new bioscience incubator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rhodes will have a chance to present his ideas in greater detail at the board\u2019s August meeting, when trustees give their annual evaluation of the president. Rhodes said he planned to flesh out his \u201c2016-17 Opportunities for Success\u201d outlined in an 80-page July report to the board.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community Impact:\u00a0Board to Austin Community College president: What\u2019s next? Board to Austin Community College president: What\u2019s next? As Richard Rhodes presents organization\u2019s successes, board members look to the future By Marie Albiges \u00a0| \u00a0Posted July … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3556,"featured_media":33615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,331,720,1610],"class_list":["post-44127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc-in-the-news","tag-board-of-trustees","tag-community-impact","tag-dr-richard-rhodes","tag-state-of-the-college"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}