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Wayne D. Watson, Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago

Accomplishments

Chancellor & Educator

The Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), is responsible for managing a $476 million budget that enables more than 5,700 full-time and part-time employees to provide educational programs which serve an average of 114,000 students annually.

The City Colleges provides instruction and services of the highest quality to Chicago’s citizens in one of the nation’s largest urban community college districts.  Human capital within CCC was re-engineered and a work culture that speaks to personnel productivity and educational excellence was reaffirmed and enhanced.

Having earned a national reputation among his peers as an Agent of Change, and as profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 8, 2005), Chancellor Watson, who is committed to participatory governance, works with a strong team of Vice Chancellors and College Presidents.  Together, they have developed a five-year strategic plan – based on themes of globalization – for 2011 to coincide with City Colleges Centennial anniversary.

CCC’s programs and policies focus on establishing an institution of higher education with excellence and outcomes as its District-wide standard.  Examples of the accomplishments that City Colleges has achieved include:

Amended the district’s Fiscal Management Policy in order to make financial processes more efficient and transparent.

  • Received the Civic Federation of Chicago’s support for City Colleges FY 2007 budget and cited for making impressive strides in implementing business process reforms that will enable CCC to manage its resources better.
  • Created a grant-tracking program that ensures that grants resources are used efficiently and completely, thus reducing the district’s need to return grant funding for lack of distribution.

Raised academic standards

  • Achieved the highest accreditation status (10 years) awarded by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools for all seven colleges. This is the first time in the City Colleges’ 97-year history that all seven colleges concurrently hold this status.
  • Established common exit competencies for general education and raised the minimum passing grade from "D" to "C" in order to complete an Associate’s Degree.

Created Project ALIGN, a high school/college partnership with the primary goal of improving college readiness of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. Project Align involves direct collaboration with the Chicago Public Schools and five Illinois universities: Illinois State University, Loyola University of Chicago, Roosevelt University, Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Project ALIGN articulates CPS’s exit standards with CCC’s entrance criteria for English and mathematics courses. Project Align goes on to align CCC’s exit criteria with the course entrance criteria for the five universities listed above.

Negotiated - twelve months early - an unprecedented 5-year labor agreement with the Cook County Teachers Union (CCCTU) Local 1600 that ensures six years of institutional continuity. The proposed agreement was ratified by 86% of the CCCTU faculty and 92% of the professionals.

Strengthened CCC’s relationships with government agencies and the business community.

  • Supported the creation of a district wide lobbying effort that established City Colleges of Chicago as a strong lobbying entity at the municipal, state, and federal levels.
  • Supported the lobbying efforts to create a line item appropriation of $15 million annually for City Colleges of Chicago in the Illinois Budget.
  • Chairs the Community College Council of Presidents Legislative Committee (thirty-one presidents throughout Illinois).

Conceived and wrote - with Congressman Danny Davis and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) - congressional legislation that resulted in Predominately Black Institutions being eligible for $600,000 per year (for two years) of additional funding from the federal government. CCC was notified in the fall of 2008 that three of its institutions were chosen to receive funding in the amount of $3.6 million.

Created the Annual Program and Service Analysis (APSA) evaluation process. The intended purpose of this process is to: (1) measure the fiscal, qualitative and quantitative effectiveness of CCC’s programs and services and (2) provide input and establish metrics for evaluating the progress toward CCC’s five-year strategic plan. The data provided through the APSA process yielded the following initiatives and policy changes:

  • Colleges right-sized their program offerings to ensure the efficiencies of enrollment management.
  • Program offerings were re-calibrated to be more competitive in the job market.
  • Staff development initiatives were developed and implemented as follows:
    • Redefine the criteria for hiring faculty (in consultation with the Gallup Organization) by implementing a candidate and hiring assessment tool to assist in identifying the best teaching talent.
    • Established a continuous faculty and staff professional development process utilizing a "train the trainer" model. Master Faculty empowered through this process proceeded to teach City College's of Chicago faculty and staff in a thirty hour training seminar process. Through the seminar, faculty took part in developing methodologies for engaging students more effectively, learning to craft objectives and student learning outcomes, and obtaining knowledge of assessment. Over six hundred faculty and staff have participated in this process. This process has had a significant impact in changing the culture of teaching and learning at the City Colleges of Chicago.
    • Established a Leadership Academy to address the concerns of succession planning. The Academy is intended for faculty, administrators and staff who wish to pursue careers in academic administration and to improve their management and leadership skills.
  • Developed and implemented a district-wide student recruitment and retention initiative as follows:
    • Created a standing committee to address student recruitment and coordinate advertising efforts across the district.
    • Enhanced CCC’s branding image as a college of excellence and a destination college for specific high quality programs.
    • Developed a tracking report of prospective students and built a database to more effectively manage recruitment and enrollment efforts.
    • Introduced the Get on the Bus college tour and fair as part of CCC’s recruitment initiative for the fall 2007 semester. Co-sponsored by CPS and the Rainbow/Push Coalition, the tour and fair exposed students to CCC’s seven colleges, the high quality of the programs and instruction offered and the affordability of matriculating at CCC. Also, worked with CPS and the Rainbow Push Coalition on an Early College Scholarship Program for recent high school graduates.
    • Established Student Success Centers that are staffed by college advisors and focused on providing an improved delivery of support services year round and across program types. The Student Success Centers initiative was nominated for the prestigious Bellwether Award, sponsored by the Community Colleges Futures Assembly.
    • Significantly increased the number of articulation agreements and dual partnerships with four-year institutions.
  • Updated and aligned the Adult Education curriculum to Illinois Community College Board and National Reporting System levels to include student learning outcomes, lesson plans and syllabi. Also, developed a college transition course for Adult Education students.

Established a Study Abroad Program for students and faculty. Students have participated in study abroad to Xian, China; Salzburg, Austria; and Salamanca, Spain. Faculty has participated in a study abroad initiative to Salzburg with an emphasis on the impact of globalization on curriculum. The Study Abroad program has been in effect for five years and affected over eighty students and faculty directly. The Program has had a widespread effect through the City Colleges of Chicago particularly in infusing the curriculum with globalization themes and acceptance and understanding of international cultures.

Established the Office of Developmental Education which has been charged with providing professional development and technical support to the colleges in their efforts to increase the number of students who successfully complete college preparatory courses. As an example of the work being done by this department, six CCC faculty have been selected for the National Association of Developmental Education Kellogg Institute in June, 2009.

A $385 million bond was issued to build a new Kennedy-King College and make capital improvements for the remaining six colleges in the district. In fall 2007, the new Kennedy-King College Campus opened in the heart of Chicago’s Englewood community. The 40-acre campus consists of six state-of-the-art buildings, day care, theater, and WKKC-FM radio, WYCC TV-20, the Washburne Culinary Institute, and Sikia Restaurant. The facility is available for students and community residents. The new Kennedy-King College has proven to be the anchor of the revitalization of the Englewood community.

The following innovative concepts and programs were promoted:

  • Produced town hall meetings that were broadcasted on WYCC as a venue for students, faculty, and the community to discuss and exchange opinions on important issues of the day. Town hall meetings topics have included such matters as: the Iraq War, stem cell research, the developing global society, and the rising cost of textbooks. Recently, the 2008 Presidential Election was the topic of a town hall meeting simulcast across five states.
  • Created collaboration between students in CCC’s broadcast journalism and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism to produce newscasts broadcast on WYCC - TV 20. The students were able to provide in depth election coverage from various locations in the City of Chicago and was even able to scoop some election results prior to the main channels.
  • Held live simulcast of WVON Cliff Kelley Show at the seven City Colleges of Chicago promoting their more than 130 programs.
  • Revitalized and expanded the Washburne Culinary Institute into a prominent culinary arts program with two state-of-the art facilities and restaurants. The Parrot Cage Restaurant is located at the historic South Shore Cultural Center and the new Sikia Restaurant is located at the new Kennedy-King College Campus.

Established a Construction Trades Program that partnered with the following unions to bring their respective apprenticeship programs under the auspices of CCC Dawson Tech Institute:

  • International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers-National Electrical Contractors Association (IBEW-NECA) Local 134 established a dual apprenticeship/degree program in Electrical Technologies
  • National Elevator Industry Educational Program (NEIEP) established advanced certificate and an Associate in Applied Science degree in Elevator Construction Technology.
  • Operating Engineers Local 150 established a certificate program in Material Testing
  • Painters and Decorators District Council Local 14 established a certificate program in painting.

Created a new district-wide Workforce Institute that proactively interact with the Mayor’s Staff, the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development (MOWD), and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce to provide entry level and incumbent training in:

  • Transportation, Warehousing and Logistics (TWL)
  • Manufacturing
  • Hospitality
  • Healthcare
  • Construction Trades

Established a uniform curriculum in nursing across the District. Improved retention and graduation rates in the five Nursing Programs. Increased the number of seats by 40% and negotiated higher salaries for nursing faculty. In the Fall 2008, facilitated the recruitment of 10 additional nursing faculty into the District.

Recommended and Implemented PeopleSoft - a comprehensive suite of software specifically designed to meet the changing needs of higher education institutions. The PeopleSoft application provides City Colleges with a competitive advantage. It offers the best end-to-end solution for managing the entire student life cycle from recruitment, admissions, financial aid and registration to graduation, career planning, issuance of transcripts and alumni follow-up. City Colleges was among the first of community colleges in the nation to implement all three PeopleSoft systems (Human Resources, Finance and Student Administration).