John G. Dalton: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: ElginWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Elgin Community CollegeAge: 49Family: Married, no children.Occupation: Attorney.Education: Augustana College (BA,1984); University of Illinois College of Law (JD, 1987), graduating magna cum laude from both. I was Assoc. Editor of the Law Review and was awarded the Order of the Coif and Am Jur Prizes for both Civil Procedure Trial Advocacy.Civic involvement: I have deep roots in the community and a long record of service, including the following:Deacon, First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, ElginBoard Member of the Campanelli YMCA, which used to be called the Twinbrook YMCA, where I served for over ten years, held a number of leadership posts and received both the Twinbrook Award and the Service to Youth Award.Co-founder and Chairman of Elgin#146;s Speak Out Against Prejudice (SOAP) organization, which, under my leadership, received the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award ""for outstanding achievement in the field of civil rights/community relations advocacy.""Commissioner of the Elgin Heritage Commission#146;s Design Review Subcommittee.Board Chairman and Finance Committee Chairman of Famous Door Theatre Company which was the recipient of the Chicago Business Volunteers for the Arts Award under my leadership.Member of School District U-46 Handbook Committee: Ensured that new bullying, harassment and discrimination protection rules were added to the handbook.Member Kane County Bar Association, Serving on the Bench and Bar Committee, which works to improve the civility and professionalism of the county's lawyers.Member Elgin Hispanic Network, NorthEast Neighborhood Association, Elgin Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Neighborhood Association, among others.Elected offices held: Though I have never held elective office, I have served my community in many ways, including service as an Arbitration Chairman for over ten years (Cook County Court Annexed Mandatory Arbitration) managing a courtroom, ruling on all objections and rendering decisions in hundreds of cases; and as a Commissioner of the Elgin Heritage Commission#146;s Design Review Subcommittee, among others.Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: No.Candidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Fiscal Responsibility: We need to continue to maintain our excellent bond rating (Moody's Investor Services Aaa, and Standard Poor's AA+). Only two other community colleges in Illinois have achieved this rating, which will allow the school to borrow money at the lowest interest rates and save money. We must also keep our pencils sharp to control costs at all times and ensure that the funds entrusted to our care are spent wisely and tuition kept to a minimum. Elgin Community College has always maintained a balanced budget#151;dating all the way back to 1949. Now it can claim six consecutive operating surpluses, each the result of careful planning and conservative spending.Key Issue 2 Student Success: The college measures its effectiveness and the success of its students using a bewildering array of detailed metrics. Using most such measures, students are more successful than ever and there are steady signs of improvement across the board. We should keep our focus on the students and ensure that all Board policies are student centric.Key Issue 3 Planning for the Future: Strategic planning is the basis of the Master Plan approved by the voters in 2009, and implementation of that plan, coupled with periodic, proactive updates to the plans as circumstances change, are crucial to the school continuing to meet its mission ""to improve people#146;s lives through learning"".Questions Answers What prompted you to run for ECC board? If you're a newcomer, how will you make a difference? If you're an incumbent, how have you made a difference?Members of the current Board of Trustees asked me to run when an incumbent decided to retire because they felt I would be a good replacement for her. I consider this an opportunity for me to serve the community in a significant and meaningful way. If elected, I will work hard to understand the issues confronting ECC, now and in the foreseeable future, and work with the rest of the Board to govern it wisely so it can achieve its critical mission.With fewer than a third of students in some feeder districts deemed college ready, what can ECC do to better prepare students for college-level coursework?The Alliance for College Readiness, a partnership between Elgin Community College and its 12 feeder high schools (Elgin Area School District U-46, Community Unit District 300, St. Charles Unit District 303 and Central Community Unit District 301) was formed in 2006 to address precisely this problem, and it is a leader in the field, earning ECC both state funding and recognition from its national accrediting agency. The goal of the alliance is to ensure students in the four feeder districts are prepared for college and do not have to take remedial coursework before starting college. Members meet twice a year. ECC's ""Plan, Learn and Navigate Success"" program selects students for the program who are college-bound, but in need of support and encouragement, and gets them participating as early as freshman year. Gains from the program last year include increasing the number of students testing at a college level in writing by 9 percentage points, to 65.7 percent. Scores in math grew by 3.9 percent.The Alliance's three-week ""Summer Bridge"" program works to help college-bound high school graduates fill in academic gaps in order to test out of remedial courses before college classes start in the fall. In the last two years, 70 percent of participants that retook placement tests qualified for college-level classes. More than 80 percent of summer program participants earned a ""C"" or better in the next level of course work during fall semester - a higher success rate than the typical ECC student. According to a Daily Herald, May 10, 2010, front page article, ""A nationally renowned higher education expert says Elgin Community College's Alliance for College Readiness is out in front of the pack on a newly hot topic.'There are very few programs like that around,' said David Conley, University of Oregon professor and director of the Eugene, Ore.-based Education Policy Improvement Center (EPIC). 'You can find bridge programs with a high school and a college. And dual enrollment programs,' he said, 'But those aren't partnerships like ECC's.'"" Recently the Illinois Council of Community College Administrators honored the program with its Innovation Award. Other area community colleges are now struggling to catch up to ECC's groundbreaking programs in this area. I attended the Winter meeting of the alliance just yesterday (1/27), and the numbers continue to improve. While this is a difficult problem that will take lots of collaboration, cooperation and hard work to solve, we're on the right track. I believe we should continue to invest resources in these programs and build on four years of solid success.Tuition has remained steady for the past four years. With demand growing for community colleges, do you foresee having to raise tuition in the near future, or do you think it is important to keep tuition low in light of continuing economic struggles?After an unprecedented four year freeze (2007-2011), when the Board met on January 25, 2011, they voted unanimously to increase tuition by $8 dollars per credit hour, raising 2011 tuition to $99 per credit hour starting with the Summer term. I attended the meeting as an observer. The new rate is still affordable and is far lower than many other area community colleges. For example, College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn charges $129. This increase was kept as low as possible because there was general recognition expressed by the Trustees that times are tough and tuition should be kept as low as possible to keep ECC affordable to everyone. Even the student representative to the Board spoke in favor of the increase, and thanked the Board for holding the line for the past four years without an increase. An analysis by the ECC#146;s finance committee recommended the $8-per-credit-hour increase. The increase was necessary to fund the operations and maintenance of new facilities, including a multipurpose building and an academic library that are part of the Master Plan voters approved in the 2009 referendum. Did you agree with the need for $178 million in bonds to finance the expansion of the college? Why or why not? How will you ensure the voter-approved bond proceeds are spent responsibly and that the projects in ECC's master plan do not go over budget?First, let me say that being a good steward of the taxpayers' money is a sacred trust that each Board member must take great care to discharge faithfully. I voted for the 2009 referendum, along with a narrow majority of the electorate, because I believe ECC is absolutely critical for the success of our community, and in order for the school to meet it's responsibilities to today's students and future students, I felt the Master Plan was the right approach. The foresight displayed by the Board in seeking to modernize and expand the College just in time for a massive increase in enrollment (as a result, in part, of the economic downturn) was nothing less than prescient. Thank goodness these new facilities, like the new MPC building that celebrated its grand opening this week (I attended the grand opening and toured the facility on 1/26), are now available to serve the record numbers of students that are depending on this school for a quality education. Enrollment is up approximately 35% since 2008. Where would we put all those students without improved facilities?Of course, I might quibble with details in the Master Plan or its implementation. I know some in the community have questioned the cost of the gateway, for example, but overall I think the Master Plan and the new facilities being built are magnificent. I'm very proud to have such a fine institution of higher learning in our community. It should be noted that The Government Finance Officers Association, a national finance organization, awarded ECC its Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the seventh year in a row. The award is objective confirmation that ECC is a careful steward of the community#146;s investment and recognizes the college#146;s efforts in going beyond minimum reporting requirements to issue comprehensive, detailed and accurate annual financial reports for public distribution. ECC also just won a different award in 2010 for its world class budgeting. Obviously, the Board is keeping close tabs on costs and managing the construction projects effectively. The proof is in the fact that the construction is currently about $13.5 million under budget and six months ahead of schedule, which I think we can all agree is amazing performance.In addition, the Master Plan, which centers on the construction of a mixture of new buildings and renovation of existing facilities will create approximately 4,000 new jobs and more than $530 million will be infused into the regional economy at a time when it is desperately needed. ECC is committed to transparency and fiscal responsibility. Among other things, this means consistently maintaining a balanced budget and completing capital projects on time and within the allotted budget. No referendum dollars will be used for college operating expenses. I support the continuance of these policies.Community colleges provide many services to a diverse population. Is there a service your college should be providing that it is not, or reaching a segment of the population that it is not?We are just now beginning to receive the data from the recent census. We should scrutinize this new data to determine whether there are underserved portions of the community ECC serves, or new programs that should be offered, but all of the currently available data suggests that the college is already doing a fine job of serving a very diverse student body. For example, in April, the U.S. Department of Education officially designated ECC an Hispanic-Serving Institution, a status available only to schools that meet certain criteria, including an undergraduate, full-time-equivalent Hispanic enrollment of 25 percent or greater. The designation allows ECC to participate in exclusive programs, including new grant opportunities, such as eligibility for substantial Title V funding grants from the Federal government. Moreover, ECC recently has enjoyed increases in the population of every single age group and race/ethnicity. Most notable was a 30 percent increase last Fall in the number of students 30 years of age or older. ECC has also recently expanded its services for the unemployed, and recently added two new certificate programs.ECC has many programs aimed at reaching many different types of student, from full time to part time, trade oriented or planning to transfer to a four year school, seeking a diploma. a certificate, or merely seeking self-improvement, old, young, every socioeconomic class, race, creed, religion or orientation. It's obvious to me that everyone is welcome. No exceptions. Just as it should be.