Greetings! I'm Richard Rhoda and I am the instructor for ELPA 7110 this semester
that's the Community Colleges of the United States. This is going to be a
brief video, in which I introduce myself to you, as well as a bit of introduction
to the course. There will be a separate video, more specifically about the course.
Let me begin with a heads up. Your first assignment for the class is going to be
putting together a video, self introduction of yourself much like what
I'm doing right now. If you have concerns about how to do that in the D2L course
site, the site for this course.. are some instructions there plus the link to a
help, as well as a phone number or an email address for a help desk. So, it's nothing.
Don't worry about it. Be very straightforward, but just three to five
minutes of an introduction of yourself that gets into your background, your
education so far, your career so far and then looking ahead if you have any
specific interest that you would like to pursue.
So again, just so I get and your classmates get to know you as well. And
first I should say, welcome to the cohort. You may be aware this is the second year
of the Community College Leadership certificate program at at ETSU and last
year was a great success and sure this one will be as well, but congratulations
for being nominated and admitted to the program. So, now a few words about me. I am
the director of the Center for Community College Leadership at ETSU and I teach
as an adjunct faculty member for the department of educational leadership and
policy analysis. In the way of my background, I was born in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. Both of my parents were educators.
My mother was an elementary school teacher. My father was a chemistry
professor at the University of Laval. I sometimes say I never had a chance to
think about anything else, but that's not quite true. But anyway, education was very
much a part of my childhood and that of my sister. We were just fortunate that
was my parents believed in and did and so
it wears off on you. I was educated in public schools in Westfield, New Jersey
and Suffern, New York. I started my higher education at a community college. Where
we were living in New York there was a brand new Community College. All the
community colleges were new at that time. This is in the mid 1960's and the
arrangement was what we now call dual admissions, but I was allowed to take
one course in the fall semester of my senior year of high school, one in my
spring semester and so I.. that was my introduction to higher education and it made
a lasting impression. I came to Tennessee to attend Vanderbilt
University, where I earned three program degrees. A BA in history, an MA in
education and then the PhD in higher education administration. In my
undergraduate years at Vanderbilt, that was the late 60's early 70's, what an
exciting time to be in college. Again, I think that influenced my decision to
seek higher education as a career, but as you're aware, there were booming
enrollments, campuses were alive in many good ways, some not so good ways, campus
unrest civil rights, women's rights, but it was a higher education was in fact
the place.. it was just an exciting enterprise. All of my career has been in
higher education in Tennessee. I started my first real job was in the research
office of the Tennessee Board of Regents and that's while I was finishing up
my master's degree. That was an interesting place. Well, I ended up being
there twelve years at the Board of Regents and the last five of those years
was as executive assistant to the Chancellor. But, what I was going to say
is that that was an interesting time and place to be, because the Board of Regents
had just been created by the Tennessee General Assembly the year before. So,
everything was new. The system was new. I was new,but how do you go about putting
together a system policy.. set of policies at that time it was the you
university, as well as the community colleges coming together. They had been
governed by the State Board of Education that also had responsibility for k-12
and special schools. So, this was a big departure and again it was an exciting
place to be.. is also interesting to be working on my graduate degree while I
was working there, because I was reading about things that then were going to
take place at the at the office. After that, I worked for five years in the
administration of Tennessee State University and that was an incredible
assignment. The state was embroiled in a desegregation lawsuit, higher education
desegregation lawsuit and TSU as the state's historically black public
university it was very much in the middle of all that. It was a central
figure and much of my job was related to that lawsuit and trying to diversify TSU.
After TSU, I returned to the Board of Regents as a vice chancellor and over
the next few years in that capacity I also held a number of interim
appointments. I was president of Nashville State, which is now a Community
College. At that time it was still a Technical Institute.
Austin Peay State University and then briefly as a Chancellor of the Board of
Regents. So again, as far as a career, that was something you don't plan for, but
certainly a direction that I took and it's very much appreciated. That period
of time and that would have been the early 1990s in Tennessee higher
education budget issues were looming not as severe as what would come later on,
but that was a big part of it. Campus leadership turnovers some very much
related to the budget issues, but it was again, it was a moment.. a defining moment
in Tennessee higher education. Following that I taught and helped start
a policy center back at Vanderbilt and what was interesting as far as my
interest, the Policy Center really dealt more with k-12 and so that took me way
outside my comfort zone, but I certainly appreciated it. But, those were in the
early days of what.. of developing, thinking big thoughts,
about ultimately would be.. those are the early years of Common Core although it
certainly didn't have that name, but that was the that was basically what we were
working on. So 1997, I was appointed as executive director of the Tennessee
Higher Education Commission and that's how I concluded that part of my career. I
was there for 17 years at T-Heck in Nashville. And again, those 17 years, some
were better than others, but a great deal was done and were
things just there's a lot of serendipity involved, but there was a lot of
alignment between public policy, the governor's at the time, but there were
major reform issues in Tennessee Higher Education and T-Heck had the opportunity to
be a big player in that. And specifically, the lottery scholarship program in the
early 2000's, the complete college Tennessee Act in 2010 and then more
recently the Drive to 55 and that's where I dropped off, but since then has
been the focus act. But anyway.. so that's that's kind of my career. I retired a
little over two years ago from T-Heck, from the state and began teaching here
at ETSU in the doctoral program in the EDD program. And then last year at this
time is when the Center for Community College leadership was established at
ETSU and I was asked to be director and then soon after that the Dean of
Education here at ETSU stepped down and I was asked to be the acting dean. So, I
did that for for nine months and just wrap that up at the beginning of summer.
So, that's my self introduction. I look forward to meeting you by video and then
in person at our weekend seminars. I look forward to seeing your introductory
videos. I'll say this again, but let me think of.. well I think of it now what I
mentioned.. throughout the course, throughout even when I'm not your
instructor, don't ever hesitate to contact me.
My contact information is on the syllabus. So, whether it's questions,
concerns, comments, please don't hesitate ever to give me a call. So, thank you for
your attention and here's to a good semester.