ACC Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart held the February Virtual Employee Town Hall on Friday, February 14. About 750 employees attended the discussion on Zoom.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, he started by asking people to share information about someone in their life they love, and then he shared the story about how he met his wife. He encouraged everyone to “walk in love, both at home and at work.”

In this month’s town hall, Russell discussed state and federal legislative updates, process audits, the Compensation & Classification Study, the College’s Theory of Change process, wayfinding, and property taxes. 

Below are highlights from the discussion.

Federal Legislative Update

Russell acknowledged the political uncertainty of the moment and shared how the College, which is not a political entity, will respond.

“We follow the law, and when the law changes, we’ll talk about how we adapt to it.”

Instead of approaching new executive orders with fear, he said, we will prepare for them with calm, collaboration, and transparency while we get all the facts on how they will affect us and our students.

He reminded employees of the email he shared that includes the process they should follow if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials show up on campus. Read the message he sent out here.

“My primary purpose right now is to maintain calm and maintain the operations of the College; of loving our students to success; to be an inclusive, safe place for you and our students where we change lives every day; monitoring what is happening both at the state and national level; and  keeping you informed about where we are.”

State Legislative Update

Russell shared that ACC is leading the charge on a bill aimed at dual credit parity with Advanced Placement classes. The bill would require high schools to provide the same weight and class rank as the AP. 

“We know from our own data that dual credit has better outcomes than AP when it comes to postsecondary success, yet most families don’t take dual credit because AP counts as additional weight to their high school GPA.”

Process Audits Update

The College has been undergoing a process audit for Student Affairs as well as Business Affairs and Grants Accounting. The intent of the audits is to ensure that the College is effective and focused on the North Star Goal of a 70% graduation rate by 2030.

Russell revealed some of the findings of the Student Affairs audit, saying it is a reflection of what they have already heard from faculty, staff, and students. 

Key challenges include:

  • Operational inefficiencies and resource constraints – including staffing shortages and overlapping responsibilities
  • Underutilized and uncoordinated student support services – including awareness and accessibility issues and a lack of holistic service coordination which has led to redundant offices
  • Institutional growth and structural misalignment – the expansion of our campuses has not been met with a strategic alignment of student support services
  • Collegewide project management and decision-making – including issues defining decision-making authority, documenting decisions, and inclusive decision-making

He also shared that there were gaps in student experiences:

  • Advising and student support fragmentation – students were struggling to navigate our systems; advising can be confusing and cause students to get inconsistent guidance
  • First-year experience disconnects – orientation is disconnected from advising
  • Unclear roles and equity concerns – need to build a structure that works for students and employees

Auditors are now working on a responsibility matrix. They will spend a couple of weeks developing a structure that allows employees to do their jobs more effectively with less frustration and with the resources they need. This reorganization will likely include a redistribution of leadership roles and flattening the organization. He made it clear that no one will lose their job or salary.

Russell said he will follow the same structure in communicating the changes he did with the Safety, Security & Operations audit. First, he will inform the Board of Trustees on Monday, March 3. On Tuesday, March 4, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Dr. Shasta Buchanan and her team will talk directly with leaders affected by the change. Then, they will inform the rest of Student Affairs over the next two days and, lastly, present the news to the rest of the College at the Virtual Employee Town Hall on Friday, March 7.

He also shared the framework he uses to help him make decisions for the College:

  • Does this best help students?
  • Does it make us more effective?
  • Does it create greater alignment and role clarity? 
  • Does it solve the problem or push us toward a solution?

Classification & Compensation Study

Russell shared that the Classification & Compensation Study headed by consultant Guidehouse is well underway. He reminded employees that the purpose of the study is to identify misaligned job titles and job descriptions and that he is grateful for the high level of employee engagement so far.

They received more than a thousand survey responses and conducted dozens of group stakeholder interviews. They have assessed over 750 unique job descriptions and are trying to consolidate them into about 40 job descriptions where we have consistency and alignment that makes compensation more fair and equitable.

They identified three areas of strength:

  • Unified mission through the Theory of Change
  • Highly committed staff that is adaptive to change
  • As a College, the culture is fragmented, but teams are generally unified

Guidehouse also identified four areas of opportunity:

  • Need to align job titles – some jobs do the same thing, but we call them different things
  • Need accurate job descriptions 
  • Need a more transparent, unified, clear, and effective compensation process
  • Need to do a better job of transitioning processes into Workday – we don’t leverage all the tools we have

Guidehouse is now in the ideate phase (January 2025 – March 2025), where they will continue to engage employees through immersion workshops and focus groups.

Russell reiterated that no one will lose their job or receive a pay cut and that compensation may even increase in a few cases. He said that we can expect fewer job titles and that those will reflect the entire College, not just a division. 

Theory of Change Update

Russell shared that he spent some time with the Phase 1 Design Teams during the week to assess where they are, what their data headlines are, and what their case framing is. The Theory of Change Exchange event on Friday, February 28, will give the entire College the same opportunity.

He also shared that there is a new communication channel for anyone interested in regular updates about the Theory of Change. The ACC TOC Grapevine is an announcement-only Google Space that is currently being piloted and will be officially announced to all of the College at the Theory of Change Exchange. 

Wayfinding Update

The College is working with a consultant on a systemwide reimagination of how wayfinding functions. There will be a unification of our building names and processes. Russell expects to have a plan to share with the College at the Virtual Employee Town Hall in May. 

Property Tax Update

Before diving into rumor-busting, Russell shared that property taxes are in, and there has been a decrease in housing valuations—the biggest drop in valuations since 2008. He said that it does have an impact on the College and that we can expect a flat budget for the second year in a row. The budget will be a topic of discussion at the March Virtual Employee Town Hall meeting. 

View the recording and Q&A transcript on the Virtual Employee Town Hall web page.