TORRINGTON – The Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) Board of Trustees convened for its December meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12. 

President Dr. Jeffry Hawes was present with trustee members Chairman Robert Baumgartner, Randy Adams, Kurt Sittner, Jackie Van Mark, Doug Mercer and Rick Vonburg. Trustee Katherine Patrick was absent. Converse County advisory member Jim Willox was also present.

Hawes presented the changes made to several board policies ready for their final readings. The policies in question refer to information security, the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), accessibility, acceptable use, visitor use of institutional resources and security awareness training.

“[These policies shown on the agenda] just made it through the 45-day review with edits and recommended changes,” Hawes told the board. “What is in black [on the agenda] is what made it through the final review with legal counsel, Kelly Pearson and Parker and Poe.”

Shown in the agenda in red are the changes that have been made to the policy to help bring the college into compliance.

“[As laws change, these policies] are going to require some continual legal review,” Hawes explained. “We probably going to have to have a consultant at the campus that can review and test our organization every six months. There will be a process that will be coming [to address this].” 

Hawes said moving forward these policies will need to be maintained in order to keep them up to date. Currently, staff are coming up with a review process to help these board policies get reviewed on a regular schedule.

“This was a big lift,” Patrick Korell, interim vice president of administrative services, said. “I think our Title Nine is probably going to be the next big lift. We’re going to have to tie it in with our old nomenclature with our new nomenclature.”

“It’s going to be a bit exhaustive this spring,” he continued. “But we will put some processes in for all of the policies and slowly wind down to do this review on a regular schedule.”

The trustees unanimously approved the final readings for board policy 7.0 information security, 7.1 GLBA, 7.2 accessibility, 7.3 acceptable use, 7.4 visitor use of institutional resources and 7.5 security awareness training. They also approved the renumbering of current board policies 7.16 electronic communications to 7.6, 7.17 emergency notification to 7.7 and 7.19 enforcement to 7.8. 

During the work session, the trustees voted on new officers. The officers for 2024 are as follows: Chairman Jackie Van Mark, Vice Chair Rick Vonburg, Secretary Randy Adams and Treasurer Katherine Patrick. 

It was also decided the trustee representatives to the EWC Foundation for 2024 will be Van Mark, Vonburg and Sittner. The trustee on the Board of Cooperative Educational Service for 2024 will be Patrick. 

Willox was voted to remain the Converse County Advisory Member for 2024. The appointment of Kwin Wilkes, chief financial officer, as assistant to the treasurer of the board of trustees was also approved. 

Also, during the work session, the trustees were presented with the audit review and summary by Brittany Wilson. 

Wilson went through several details of the audit and noted that there were no instances of noncompliance and no significant unusual transactions. When performing the audit, they only noted four findings which were issues or errors with the number of students in Gear Up, Student Financial Aid (SFA) enrollment reporting, SFA student loan notification and SFA Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. 

The trustees unanimously approved the appointment of Sherrie Peif to the position of Gear Up coordinator. 

The board also approved the designation of depositories and designated the Torrington Telegram as the college district’s official newspaper.

During the president’s report, Hawes announced the Executive Director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, Sandy Caldwell, is retiring. This week, the commission has been holding interviews with the three selected candidates. 

“I want to thank our faculty for their service to our students and our programs, as well as our employees who do not have the benefit of the faculty of being done today,” Hawes said.

Hawes also explained he is currently working on vetting the second contract with Sodexo. If progress is continued, it is expected that the transfer will take place in the spring semester. 

The next meeting of the EWC Board of Trustees is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 5:45 p.m. The agendas, minutes, and recordings of meetings can be viewed at https://ewc.wy.edu/about-eastern-wyoming-college/presidentscabinet/board-of-trustees/board-agendas-minutes/.