Brian Massie, Citizen Journalist
We attended a public meeting at Lakeland Community College a few weeks ago. The main subject was the release of their Strategic Plan for 2022 – 2024. We thought it would be interesting to pull back the curtain on the statements and numbers that they presented, and to see if they are meeting their stated priorities.
What is their Mission Statement?
Mission: To provide quality learning opportunities to meet the social and economic needs of the community.
Lakeland, in our opinion, has lost sight of what type of training is needed to meet the employment needs of Lake County manufacturers. Here is an article we just published congratulating AWT of Mentor for establishing a training facility to properly train future employees.
Diversity – fostering equity, inclusion and civility by respecting and celebrating differences among individuals and communities.
We are quickly seeing this leftist mantra being inserted to all Lake County schools. It preaches equality of opportunity, but really just wants equality of outcome.
What are their Strategic Priorities for Student Experience?
They state that the first key indicator of progress is “Headcount enrollment”. So we took a look at their enrollment numbers. Dr. Morris W. Beverage Jr. has been their President since 2001. We could only find enrollment statistics for 2010. An internet search provided the following information:
Lakeland Community College/Total enrollment
9,831
2010
From their Strategic Plan for 2022 – 2024 they provided the following enrollment statistics:
If they had 9,831 students enrolled in 2010, and in the Fall of 2022 they projected only 4,907 students, that is a drop of 4,924 (50.0%). We would have to conclude that Lakeland Community College has failed in their Key Indicator of Progress.
What have they done financially to address the tremendous drop in enrollment?
Here is their Compensation Analysis that was included in their Strategic Plan:
It appears that the part-time faculty and staff bore the brunt of their expense reductions since 2019. A total reduction of $1,509,583 (22%) in part-time help. However, full-time faculty showed a slight increase ($125,355, .9%)
What are Lake County taxpayers getting for the $19 million per year they are paying in property taxes?
This will forever be what we will remember about Lakeland Community College the next time that they ask for a renewal, or a new property tax levy.
We give you the cornerstone of Lakeland Community College’s teaching.
This has to be coming from the leadership at the top and the board members. Our final comment is “Go woke, and go broke!”
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Categories: Education, Lakeland Community College