McHenry County College candidates on tackling future

The six candidates running for seats on the McHenry County College board have different ideas about how the institution needs to be more creative in delivering education.

Incumbents Ron Parrish and Michael Smith, who was appointed in October, face challengers Jeff Hill and Scott Summers, a former trustee, for two, 6-year seats. Candidates Karen Tirio and Matthew Hardt are running for one, 4-year seat.

Higher education requires "adaptive change" based on data and performance measurements so money can be used effectively, Hill said. "To me it comes down to value - if there is perceived value from the students (in a specific area), we need to invest in that."

Hill also advocated for competency-based education, so that students could finish classes in a shorter time, based on their initial knowledge.

Public/private partnerships are key, several candidates said.

"We should look to private fundraising and private financing for capital needs, and intergovernmental agreements to share underutilized resources," Smith said. "There are a lot of potential benefactors out there."

The college should partner with companies in McHenry County that want better trained employees, even if they require training to take place on their premises, Parrish said.

"Our new role is not facility-oriented. It's content-oriented," Parrish said. "We need to reach out to the community, and not wait for them to come to us."

Summers agreed. "We've got to get out from under the bricks and mortar and go where the need is. We have to be, basically, a virtual classroom," he said.

MCC also needs to move quickly to respond to real-world needs, Summers said. "We have to move in a matter of weeks or days, not a semester, to come up with the curriculum," he said, adding volunteer mentors would be a good idea.

Smith said MCC should look at nontraditional course offering including online, blended online and in-person models, and satellite locations.

Parrish said the college should capitalize on senior volunteers. "We can do volunteers to do the stuff we pay for and that will not come with a pension obligation."

Tirio agreed. "(Seniors) take their jobs more seriously. They wake up because they want a purpose."

Any talk of raising taxes to fund the college makes no sense in light of its "dismal" 28-percent completion rate, Tirio said.

"Increasing enrollment is important," she said, adding MCC should also carefully track part-time students. She proposed hosting social functions at the college to get the community to connect with the institution.

MCC should look at starting a diesel technology program and leverage trade associations for things like donated equipment, Hardt said.

"In this day and age of budget cuts, any additional - and the current - offerings will probably continue to exist with the existence of business partnerships," especially in the career and technical education fields, he said.

The college should offer competitive staff salaries but not look at tax increases, he said. "Our county is very high up there on taxes, we can't continue to built stuff on the back of taxpayers," he said.

Despite a $5 tuition increase starting this summer, MCC still provides great value compared to community colleges across the state, Hardt said.

Trustees cannot guarantee there will be no more tuition increases, Smith said. "It would be almost imprudent - if not reckless - to contend we will never raise tuition."

Hill is a former campus president of Westwood College, a for-profit college that is being sued by the state's attorney general for causing students to go into debt to pay for worthless degrees. Hill said he's proud of the work he did at Westwood; he also said didn't have direct involvement with the allegations, which he believes will be disproved in court.