Burlington Hawk Eye
07-07-06
By CRAIG T. NEISES
cneises@thehawkeye.com
WEST BURLINGTON — There are no shoes, big or little, for Southeastern
Community College's new vice president for teaching and learning to try to fill.
Verlyn Fick started work last month in a job that was left vacant for more than a
year, following the mid–year resignation of his predecessor and during a lengthy
search for a new president.
But instead of coming in and trying to fill the void by offering up big, new ideas
gleaned from 17 years spent at community colleges in North Dakota and Iowa,
Vick said he is taking a deliberative approach to working at SCC.
"It's as easy to make a dud as a good one," Fick said, adding that he hopes for a
low percentage of duds.
Admitting to a personal history of taking a "build it and they will come" approach
to program development, Fick said he means to get away from that at
Southeastern, instead focusing more attention on researching not only business
and industry demand for programs, but also student demand for programs and
program delivery schemes.
Calling theirs a maturing industry that has identified and filled niches in career
education, transfer programs, industry training and dual enrollment, Fick said that
for community colleges to continue to grow they must "have a better connection
to the student population."
That means meeting the needs of people locally, as well as having offerings that
will meet the needs of people in a region, nationally or even internationally. It also
means understanding how to best offer programs that could be drawn out over
two years or offered in a week, taught at nighttime or during the day, online or in–
person, or a mix of all those.
Program offerings alone no longer drive students to enroll.
"Students drive programs," Fick said.
Fick, 49, comes to Southeastern from Western Iowa Tech Community College in
Sioux City, where he worked for seven years, most recently as vice president of
instruction and student services.
For the decade before that, he worked at a North Dakota community college.
His farm background initially led him into teaching agriculture classes, first at the
junior high level in South Dakota, then later at the collegiate level in North Dakota
and New Mexico. Fick's doctorate, earned at Iowa State University, came in the
field of crop production and physiology.
In addition to taking a measured approach to program development, Fick also
intends to work on assessing academic outcomes for students, with an eye
toward either identifying areas the college can brag about or those they can
improve upon.
Though Southeastern might seem a step down in size from a college based in
Sioux City, Fick said the West Burlington–based school is not really so much
smaller when considering the relative sizes of their full–time student population
and full–time faculty.
In that respect, he said, SCC and Western Iowa Tech are quite similar.
The difference comes in the number of part–time students, and the number of
high–schoolers who take college courses for high school and college credit.
"I didn't see it as a large–to–small kind of a move, actually," he said.
The opportunity to work with Beverly Simone, the college's new president who
was hired in November and has a national reputation in the community college
field, and to help in her efforts to lead SCC was a factor in Fick's decision to
make the move.
So was the fact that his predecessor, Dan McConnon, wasn't replaced right away
after resigning in January 2005 for reasons that were never explained publicly.
"It was a chance for me to come in and have an impact, instead of just
maintaining," Fick said, explaining that he has no pattern to follow. "I'd rather
dream and create and do some of those things than just operate."
Coming with Fick to Burlington are his wife of 23 years, Sue, and their three
children: Henry, 18; Michelle, 17; and, Eleanor, 13.