NC community college system picks Cox as new president while legislature seeks more control

A state board voted Friday to call a brand new president to supervise North Carolina’s system of group faculties.

Jeff Cox, president of Wilkes Neighborhood Faculty and head of the North Carolina Affiliation of Neighborhood Faculty Presidents, would be the system’s eleventh president. The State Board of Neighborhood Schools accepted the rent on a voice vote with no opposition. Lisa Estep, Tom Looney, Hari Nath and Jerry Vaughan abstained.

“Dr. Jeff Cox has confirmed to be among the many greatest training leaders within the nation throughout his time at Wilkes Neighborhood Faculty and as a North Carolina Okay-12 superintendent, and we’re excited to announce Dr. Cox as the brand new president of the North Carolina Neighborhood Faculty System,” Burr Sullivan, chairman of the board, stated in a press release. “We all know our group faculties want robust statewide management and dynamic future-forward approaches to enterprise and workforce growth and Dr. Cox is that chief.”

Cox replaces Invoice Carver, who has served as interim since July, when Thomas Stith resigned from the position following an 18-month tenure and after what folks accustomed to the matter described as considerations over his hiring choices.

The system has 58 group faculties, which give certificates and two-year levels, grownup training and GED programming.

Cox’s prime precedence is workforce growth. He additionally sees his and the system’s imaginative and prescient as progressive.

“We’re going to set a brand new customary for group faculties throughout this nation,” Cox advised WRAL Information.

Cox will take over a system workplace that has a 13.5% worker emptiness price and a statewide group faculty system that has a 23.4% worker emptiness price. The statewide system has greater than 55,000 staff.

Turnover within the prime position — Cox would be the eighth president in eight years, together with interim leaders — has involved state lawmakers, who’re looking for extra energy over the hiring choice and different modifications that will give the Common Meeting extra oversight. Republican lawmakers pushing that shift have additionally expressed concern with some campus presidents, saying that some don’t work nicely sufficient with companies to arrange job-training packages.

“North Carolina group faculties are the catalyst for workforce growth and progress for our state, and now’s the time for innovation, collaboration, and partnerships,” Cox stated in a press release. He added that the GOP-backed basic meeting and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper “have completed an exemplary job in setting the situations to make North Carolina No. 1 within the nation for enterprise.”

Cox has been president of Wilkes Neighborhood Faculty since 2014, the place he greater than doubled the college’s completion price from 25% to 55% in 5 years. Whereas he was there, the school raised $20 million and totally endowed the universities Schooling Promise fund, which offers free tuition to each highschool senior graduating within the faculty’s service space.

Cox has additionally labored in Okay-12 faculties, serving as superintendent from 2005 to 2014.

In an interview with WRAL Information, Cox stated he needs to ensure group faculties are higher working with space companies to organize college students to work for them.

“We are the primary state within the nation for enterprise,” Cox stated. “And if we will hold it that approach, we have got to have the primary workforce within the state, and our group faculties are going to play a vital position in that work.”

He additionally stated the universities must pay shut consideration to group members who need a greater life and offering them what they want.

“We have got 30% or 40% of our highschool inhabitants no longer pursuing any type of publish secondary diploma or credential,” Cox stated. “And nearly all of those new jobs which are rising in our financial system require some type of post-secondary ability or credential, most of them not a four-year diploma.”

The timing of the rent is vital. Republican lawmakers on the Common Meeting are engaged on a invoice to require legislative affirmation of the president’s place, which might give GOP management extra energy over who turns into president of the system.

That invoice would additionally overhaul the board and improve the system president’s energy over the 58-campus system, partially by giving the system president the ability to fireside native campus presidents within the system and taking energy away from the governor and native college leaders on the state and campus stage. The measure, Senate Invoice 692, is a part of a collection of payments shifting appointments to consolidate extra energy with the Common Meeting and thus its political majority.

Cox advised the system board Friday, previous to its vote, that almost all campus presidents assist the legislative push to provide the system president extra energy. He stated the invoice was mentioned throughout a latest assembly of campus presidents, however that the presidents’ affiliation and its members aren’t taking a proper stance on it.

At the least some group faculty board members wished to fill the system president’s job earlier than that invoice passes and keep away from the proposed affirmation course of. Sources accustomed to the presidential search indicated this week {that a} faculty government in Colorado was the main candidate however withdrew his software.