TORRINGTON – The Wyoming Community College Commission (WCCC) held an open workshop for the presidents, as well as top staff, representing community colleges all throughout Wyoming. 

The workshop was held at the Eastern Wyoming College C-Tech building Thursday afternoon. 

Community colleges from all over the state met at 1:30 p.m., to share numerous pieces of productive opinions and advice, in order to ensure progress for each college throughout the state. Apart from EWC, Central Wyoming College (CWC), Laramie County Community College (LCCC), Western Wyoming College (WWC), Sheridan College, and Casper College were all in attendance.

Dr. Jackie Freeze, Community Chairman from Rock Springs, began with addressing the commission, as well as everyone in attendance.

“It’s great to be here and have a workshop. It’s an opportunity for everyone to have a dialog, and for it to be a little less formal. I use to view us [community colleges] as like, the stepchildren of education a while ago. I don’t feel that way anymore. I think these are all going to be really important issues to try and move forward on.” 

Various topics the commissioners had on the agenda for the afternoon included annual commissioner development, budget process and timeline, capital construction, and biennial funding. This as well included positive constructive news to share with each college’s educational growth and development amongst staff and reports.

Dr. Jeffrey Hawes, EWC President, who was in attendance further added, “I appreciate the conversations today, because originating outside the state of Wyoming, this really helps. As a new president, I try to identify with the community college structure. Having experienced other state and college systems, like Michigan State, 26 years in Illinois and Blackhawk College, this is very different. There is a lot of communication between smaller colleges. This actually helped me connect some dots, because here in Wyoming, the relationships between the community colleges are very close. They are individual institutions, and they identify how they will compete with their neighboring colleges. It is all such an essential piece. I think because of WCCC, that is what will keep Wyoming community colleges consistently ranked as some of the best in the country.”

WCCC Commissioner Sandy Caldwell conferred with Dr. Hawes, stating that statistically, indeed, Wyoming community colleges are ranked as the best in the country. It should be further pointed out that Wyoming is not ranked top 10 or five, but actually consistently ranked top one or two yearly in the country.

“This is something we are very proud of,” Dr Caldwell said. “We are here today, to go over the roles and responsibilities we have, specifically in service areas ranging all over the state. We have eight college districts, and seven service areas. That’s all going to be changing in the next few years provided everything goes well. The local colleges have local elected trustees, as they are not state colleges. That’s why it’s so important that they interact with their counties and communities.”

Dr. Caldwell continued to explain to the Commission, and attendees, that the reason why community colleges are so unique, is that it in fact takes a great deal of communication and cooperation with each other in order for them to succeed.

“The community colleges aren’t in the constitution because they didn’t exist at the time. The WCCC is an independent agency. Some offer four year terms, and some offer two years. Presidents are appointed by the Governor himself, throughout the state. There is a required party split [within the Commission], in which no more than five [commissioners] can be from the same political party. We usually have five meetings a year, we update, and make sure the statutes are relevant and keep good resources.”

According to the information provided by the WCCC, along with Wyoming Ethics and Disclosure Act, the roles and responsibilities of the commission include, establishing tuition, as well as general functions. These functions include, coordination, administrative, report review implementing, biennial budget, and the statue of statewide college system’s strategic plan. 

Commissioners are to also represent community college education statewide and do not represent any specific region. They are to serve the interests of community college education statewide, and shall be the primary voice for matters relating to community college education. This constitutes affecting two or more of the community colleges.

“These are things we all take very seriously.” Caldwell proclaimed.  “We are not a governing board, but a coordinating board. It keeps focus in student services and academic learning. Advocacy is important, and we have an additional level of advocacy that is expressly stated in the statute. This is important because there isn’t a constitutional power. I think this is great.”

The commission continued to advocate that the quality of education, as well as programs with community colleges in Wyoming is extremely high, and would reasonably rival that of any public university nationally. 

CWC President, Brad Tyndall of Riverton, who participated virtually, further commented, “It’s not duplication it’s replication. This is a system that has been top ranked for many years and it works like this. Governance that is closest to the students and local boards. Comprehensive community colleges? Do we get along with UW? And the answer is yes. We do have an annual articulation meeting.”

Tyndall expressed concerns of misrepresentation, and misinformation that community colleges are somehow stereotyped as inferior, or are considered “less than” universities. 

“These misrepresentations of us, community colleges, is that we are a mess. This could not be further from the truth.”

The WCCC met again at 8:30 a.m., Friday morning at EWC, to discuss further budget proposals throughout the state. 

For more information regarding the WCCC, call (307)-777-7763, or visit communitycolleges.wy.edu.