Austin Community College District (ACC) Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart held the June Virtual Employee Town Hall on Friday, June 13. More than 750 employees attended the discussion to hear updates on our state funding and how other legislation passed this legislative session may affect the College, a poverty training attended by about 100 employees, a Ph.D. program opportunity for ACC employees, and Russell’s reflections on the last town hall.
At the start of the conversation, Russell informed employees that the College is once again observing No-Meeting Week the first week of July (June 30 through July 4) and No Email Fridays throughout July, with the exception of helping students.
Below are highlights from the discussion.
2025 Legislative Session Outcomes
The 89th Texas Legislature adjourned on June 2, 2025. Russell said that the legislature did not change the Texas Dream Act, which granted in-state tuition to eligible undocumented students. However, the next day, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit challenging the law, with the Texas Attorney General in support of the suit. A U.S. District Judge then issued an order blocking the Dream Act, which created a lot of questions. Russell said we will follow the law, and we want to support our students.
The ACC Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting to discuss the implications of the legal action. Russell invited everyone to attend the meeting on Tuesday, June 17, at 6 p.m. More information and the link to watch the meeting live can be found HERE.
Additionally, the College is reviewing legislation that potentially affects the College—Senate Bill (SB) 37, which impacts shared governance, and House Bill (HB) 9, which changes property tax exemption levels. The College is working with the Faculty Senate to determine the impacts of SB 37, which is awaiting the governor’s signature.
HB 9 was signed into law, and—as a result—the College estimates that it will lose about $5 million in revenue. Coupled with property valuation decreases, the College expects a $10 million hit to the budget. Normally, the College could make up for it in state funding due to enrollment increases, but we didn’t get any meaningful additional funding through HB 8.
He said the College has a healthy budget and is prepared for moments like this, but with so much economic and legal uncertainty, we need to be more thoughtful and conservative in our budgeting, including employee raises.
House Bill 8 State Funding Outcomes
ACC Vice Chancellor of Institutional Research and Analytics Dr. Jenna Cullinane Hege presented an overview of the College’s FY25 state funding. After a refresher on HB 8, she showed how the funding we received compares to other large Texas community colleges. We went from about the middle of the peers in enrollment funding pre-HB 8, with $49.2 million in funding in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, to second to last with $56.2 million in FY2025. We had an increase of 15%, while six of our peers had increases ranging from 37% to 42%.
Cullinane Hege also went through our funding amount changes from FY 2024 to FY 2025. Some of the largest funding increases came from dual credit, high-demand occupational skills awards, advanced technical certificates, and high-demand bachelor’s degrees, while some of the largest decreases came from transfers to general academic institutions with 15 semester credit hours, Institutional Credentials Leading to Licensure or Certification (ICLC), high-demand ICLC, and high-demand advanced technical certificates.
She pointed out that we get to a successful performance outcome with about the same number of contact hours as our peers, but many of our students take a low number of contact hours—resulting in them progressing to these outcomes much more slowly. These challenges closely aligned to the Enroll Full-Time pillar of the Theory of Change. The strategies identified to help students increase their enrollment intensity include helping students pay for college, strategic scheduling, and accelerated courses that allow students to finish in a short amount of time. “We need to learn what these other schools have done to increase the number of hours their students are taking, which predicts their success, which predicts our ability to gain more from HB 8 funding,” said Cullinane Hege.
Leadership Ph.D. Opportunity
Aaron Henry, ACC chief of staff, shared an opportunity for employees interested in pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership. The Kansas State University program, led by Dr. John Roueche, is 60 credit hours and will have a local cohort in Austin. Henry said he will send information about the information session happening on July 20.
Poverty Training Overview
Nearly 100 ACC employees underwent a poverty training led by Dr. Donna Beegle. The employees were student advocates, mental health counselors, and people involved in both the Chancellor’s Leadership Institute and the Theory of Change design teams. Russell said that he will invite everyone at the College to experience the training over the next couple of years.
One of the employees, Lottia Windham, shared her experience with the program. She said it changed her life personally, professionally, and even politically.
Russell’s Reflections on the May Town Hall
Russell reiterated the decision tree the College is using as we work through things like the Theory of Change, our budgets, our resources, and our reorganizations. The decision tree is made up of three guiding questions:
- Does the best help our students?
- Does this make us more effective?
- Does it create more alignment and role clarity?
He also shared his reflections on last month’s town hall, when he said that leaders who can’t walk out our values will be held accountable. He said some people were upset by what he said, but overall, he received an outpouring of love and support after the meeting. He said that the responses affirmed that he is hitting the nail on the head and encourage him to stay the course.
“We’re not going to be a place—and I’m not going to be a Chancellor—that tolerates abusive leadership, but not tolerating abusive leadership doesn’t mean that we can’t disagree and debate and talk,” said Russell.
HR and the College’s ombuds both saw increases in formal complaints about leadership at multiple levels of the College since the last town hall. Russell said it signifies to him that employees want these behaviours addressed and that they trust he will respond and create systems that hold people accountable. He said he will give people a chance to improve and that we should give people who are impacted by the changes grace and love.
View the recording and Q&A transcript on the Virtual Employee Town Hall web page.