YouTube: Integrating Technology into classrooms

"As technology has revolutionized society in the 20th and 21st century, it naturally has found its way into schools, education and learning. The way that technology is integrated with classrooms and into lesson planning needs to be reflected upon so that students learning can benefit most from the new technological tools that are available now and continuing to evolve in these new times."

Anthony Tricoli is the CEO and president of The Global Center for the Advancement of Higher Education. He is a recipient of the Top Governance Leader award from the Association of American University Presses (AAUP).

NEWS: Obama Signs Student Loan Deal

President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a measure restoring lower interest rates for student loans, pledging the hard-fought compromise would be just the first step in a broader, concerted fight to rein in the costs of a college education.

Source: TIME

REPOST: Coursera Hits 4 Million Students -- And Triples Its Funding

Distance education is earning wide acceptance following the move to digital platforms and wider Internet reach. This Forbes article talks about Coursera, a two-year old start-up site providing free, college-level courses from some of the most reputable universities in the country.

Image source: Forbes

Coursera founders Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng don’t think small. Their Mountain View, Calif., online-education company is less than two years old, yet it already has attracted more than 4 million student signups. Now Coursera has raised $43 million in fresh venture capital, tripling its cash available for growth.

Coursera is one of a handful of fast-growing startups (others include Udacity and EdX) that use the internet to provide free, college-level instruction. Subjects span everything from computer science to history, poetry and health-care policy. Coursera’s instructors include globally known professors from at least 73 universities worldwide, ranging from Brown to the University of Tokyo. The U.S. accounts for less than half of Coursera’s overall student enrollment; other prominent countries include Brazil,India, China, Canada, Britain, Russia and Germany.

So what comes next?

Some clues can be found in Coursera’s latest choices of backers. When the company raised $22 million last year, it tapped primarily into mainstream Silicon Valley venture capital firms (Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates.) This time around, Coursera is raising much of its fresh $43 million from three specialized ed-tech funds (GSV Capital GSVC -2.15%, Laureate Education and Learn Capital.) Other funds are coming from the World Bank’s investment arm (International Finance Corp.), as well as from Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner.

The implicit message: Coursera’s next frontiers involve better pedagogy and greater globalization. In an interview, Koller said she wants to enhance Coursera’s technology, so that students can have “an even better experience” when they take classes online. She noted that Coursera has started building up a mobile-devices team, so that students in emerging markets — who may not have round-the-clock access to computers with Internet connectivity — can still get some of their coursework done via smartphones or tablets.

Also on Koller’s list: opening up Coursera to applications developers, so that individual instructors or student groups can cook up customized apps that will allow easier, more fruitful interactions among students. “People learn better in a social setting,” Koller observed.

Coursera is likely to keep pushing to add more participating universities, more classes, and more students. But rampant growth for its own sake can be associated with superficial student engagement that translates into low completion rates, listless participation in discussions, and flimsy record-keeping that can leave doubts about how much students actually learned.

Coursera has adopted a two-track approach, letting big free enrollments persist while also created a Signature Track program in which the most-committed students pay to take a digitally proctored exam that verifies their identity and achievements. Koller said Coursera booked more than $600,000 in revenue from its Signature services in the quarter ended June 30, up from $220,000 the previous quarter. She also noted that more than 90% of students opting for the signature track go on to successfully complete their courses — far above the usual retention rate.

Like Udacity and edX, Coursera makes heavy use of interactive, Web 2.0 tools in its massive open online courses, or MOOCs. That’s a sharp contrast with the “taped lecture” approach that had been a hallmark of earlier distance-learning efforts. Even though an individual MOOC may attract 100,000 or more students worldwide, each course offers personalization on several levels, in a bid to keep students engaged.

Within the central instruction module, snap quizzes — with instant online grading — typically break up instructors’ material every few minutes. That’s meant to ensure that students grasp key concepts and aren’t just blinking idly as new concepts stream past. Meanwhile, students keep participating between formal sessions, through various online forums and chat groups with their peers.

Looking ahead, Koller said she thinks it’s unlikely that Coursera will seek to sell itself to an existing education company. “I’m not sure that the companies that might want to buy us would have the right goals,” she explained. “And our university agreements are very flexible. If the schools aren’t comfortable with a new direction, they could leave and go do something else. We aren’t interested in being acquired.”

Could a public stock offering lie ahead instead? “I don’t think we have a choice,” Koller said. “We have outside investors, and they expect a return.”

Anthony Tricoli is an advocate of modern and alternative instruction methods. Read more about his work by visiting this website.

Google internship: A tough but rewarding experience

Video source: youtube.com/thrnetwork

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have made interning in Google seem easy in the film The Internship, but in reality, joining the multinational IT company is anything but laidback. Nevertheless, the perks are high for those who have completed the three-month internship.

In the U.S., Google selects only 1,500 students out of some 40,000 applicants each year. These select applicants must have impressive grade point average, past internship experiences, and extracurricular activities (like creating apps). Once shortlisted, they are scheduled to technical phone interviews. “It’s figuring out if you can scale a system, or you can make something much more efficient,” says Rohan Shah, an intern at Google’s Android department. Once they have passed the make-or-break phone interviews, the applicants are scheduled for team interviews, which will introduce them to different Google departments.


Image source: tech.co

The official internship program begins by inviting the students to live in a corporate housing in San Jose’s North Park. Food and lodging, as well as gym membership and laundry services, are provided by the company. Interns are also oriented about Google’s data centers and the company’s functions and goals. After this, they are assigned to work on different projects, where they are paid an average of $5,678 per month.

Life after an internship at Google is promising. Often, interns are offered a full-time position by the company. Rohan Shah, for example, has been working as a software engineer since his graduation and is reportedly making $80,000 every year. He and other Google interns are the epitome of Larry Page’s vision when the CEO says, “We don’t just want you to have a great job. We want you to have a great life.”


Image source: wikimedia.org

Raising educational programs and services to a level of excellence is the driving motivation of Anthony Tricoli, CEO and president of The Global Center for the Advancement of Higher Education. Follow this blog for more discussions on education and leadership.

REPOST: A CEO's Memo To College Grads: Five Questions To Ask About Where To Start Your Career

Spring is the season for commencement speeches. This Forbes article outlines some good points for reflection.

Time for another season of commencement speeches. The air is filled with unsolicited advice to new grads. I would like to join the chorus. But the tips I have to offer are neither motivational (“If you can dream it, you can do it.”), spiritual (“Carpe diem!”) or even humorous (“If you see a fork in the road take it.”).  I do hope, however, they are useful.

My goal is to offer a bit of practical wisdom, gleaned from more than 20 years running fast-growing companies, large and small, public and private, from hiring more than 10,000 people, and from my current work as a hands-on investor. Simply stated, I have a point of view to share on how to successfully pick the right place to work after you graduate.

Image source: Forbes

Many college students have made very thoughtful decisions about where to enroll and what to study, while others fell into a decision based, in part, on which schools said no. No matter, success can be found at all schools if one searches for it. But when it comes to the decision on where to work, it’s both more important and more impactful. College grads often join whichever company recruits them the hardest or makes the first offer. Instead, I would urge graduates to take a more deliberate, systematic approach to picking an employer. You will thank yourself years later. And yes, it may take that long before you appreciate the lessons that you can still learn in your vocation.

I realize that for many young adults (and their parents), getting a job, any job, is an achievement. That is especially true in this economy. But I would suggest that being selective in that process is paramount to future success, even if you are only choosing among limited options. And finding a job, especially a first one, is like running a marathon. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. Going out too fast doesn’t lead to a strong finish.

When I graduated college many of my classmates were recruited to work for large, successful companies like Eastman Kodak and Digital Equipment Corp. that paid a lot of money. Many of those companies later ran into trouble. The jobs the new grads believed they had earned, the high salaries, and the lifestyle, were, in fact, unsustainable. As the fortunes of their employers changed, many of my school friends underwent painful transitions for which they had little preparation.

Taking a job at a big, stable company is not necessarily a bad thing. But make sure that other boxes are checked as well. Investors allocate their energy and capital not simply to the first investment that comes along or the best short term option. They typically use a sophisticated screen to find the right opportunities.

And choosing a job is even more important than picking a stock to buy. Not only will you spend a lot of your time there, which makes it the ultimate undiversified investment portfolio, but the work habits you form will begin to be set for the rest of your career.

What I like to do when I learn about a new opportunity or when I am advising someone on whether to take a particular job, is to ask five questions. These questions are somewhat subjective. Not everything can be built into a financial model. Yet I have found that when I follow this screening process I tend to be more successful. New graduates will also benefit:

1. Do you like the people?

Every business is all about the people who work there.  You will spend more time with your co-workers than possibly anyone else during your first job. It is critical that you have the right cultural fit. If everyone wears suits and you prefer polo shirts, don’t force it. If there is an intense competitive ethos, but you prefer consensus, listen to yourself. Don’t try to be the round peg in the square hole.

Find the right fit. Remember, would you buy a shoe that didn’t fit—that didn’t feel right? So don’t choose a job that way. Trust yourself. Listen to your gut.

2. Do you believe in the idea?

Every organization has a mission. Ask yourself: Am I passionate about this mission? Is it something that resonates with me? Can I commit to it?  You are going to spend a lot of time working in whatever role you choose. If there is dissonance between what you believe in and what you are doing, then you will not have the right formula to succeed.

And does the mission make sense? Is it something I believe in strongly enough to dedicate my most precious resource, my time? Let’s say it’s 1982. You really want to work in technology, and you think the future is personal computers. Working at a mainframe computer company, no matter how good the offer, would be a huge mistake. No matter what industry you would like to join now, there are going to be winners and losers. Some companies will have vision while others are stuck. And remember, you have more insight into whether an idea will work than you give yourself credit for. Would you buy the product? Would your friends or parents? Trust your instincts.

3. Does the company have customers?

The follow-up question to the mission question is: Is the market buying what this organization is selling? This applies not just to start-ups, but any kind of job opportunity, no matter the industry. No matter what kind of widget you sell, make sure that its customer base is growing, not shrinking. If you yearn to work at a nonprofit, find out if it is attracting donors and if its charitable work is well-received. As investors like to say, “Will the dogs eat the dog food?”  Don’t hitch your buggy to a slow horse.

4. Is it scalable?

As an investor, I am always looking for growth. That’s how I make an impact. As an employee you should be doing the same.

The chances of having an impact on the world in a shrinking company are close to zero. The chances of being promoted and experiencing a leadership role are slim. Every company, charity, or government entity is selling something. In the technology world scalability has a specific meaning, the ability to create something that can naturally get bigger without proportionately increasing the inputs. If you write a piece of code and can sell it million times that is far more desirable than selling it a thousand times at the same margin. Use analogous logic to evaluate opportunities across sectors. Is your government job tending an old program? Or are you developing new ones that show promise?

5. Does this new job give me experience or experiences?

I’ve interviewed people who tell me they have five years of experience, but when I look at what they’ve done, it looks like one year of experience repeated five times. If someone said he or she had five years of experience in the third grade, we wouldn’t value that very highly. In fact, we would question why they’ve repeated the same thing over and over.

You want a job that constantly challenges you, creates new opportunities, projects and yes, experiences. This is how you grow. You don’t want to be an expert on one thing because the thing will inevitably change. (“I’m a whiz at dot-matrix printers!”) You need to learn how to manage that and create new experiences, inside and outside of your job.

And, one final note, since more parents will read this than new graduates: During this process, be patient. You cannot and should not direct. In part, it’s because you don’t know how to best prepare your son or daughter for an uncertain future. So guide, support and let your child experiment and make some mistakes. Better early in their careers when they are young. Those are the experiences they need.

I’ve often been asked about failures in my career. My response is that we rarely fail, but we do know that some lessons, some learning, is a lot more expensive and painful than we would like.

The philosopher who got it right describing the journey was Dr. Seuss:

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

So go forward and interview, but remember: You are doing the interviewing too. And there are no mistakes, only experiences to learn from.

Anthony Tricoli, CEO and president of The Global Center for the Advancement of Higher Education, is an advocate of alternative educational methods. See this Facebook page for updates of his most recent activities.

 
Dr. Anthony Tricoli presents Cole Auditorium
Manager Jennifer Jenkins a Gold Star Award.


by Roger Barnes

Cole Auditorium Manager Jennifer Jenkins had no idea why Georgia Perimeter College President Dr. Anthony Tricoli called her to the podium during the 2008 Fall Convocation on Aug. 11.

“I thought something was wrong with the microphone,” said Jenkins who has been involved in GPC productions and theater since she was a student here 36 years ago. Tricoli asked Jenkins to just stand on the stage as he reached behind a curtain and presented her with the Gold Star Award for “her dedicated service above and beyond.”

“Calling me out there was just a ploy because I was working,” said Jenkins who ascended the stage from her behind-the-scenes booth where she was directing the convocation program. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

For the other “star” faculty and staff members who received awards, this year’s convocation took on the aura of a Hollywood awards ceremony, including all the suspense of naming a small group of finalists before announcing the big winner.

“We thought we’d also recognize the nominees so that the winners would know they were in great company,” said Dr. Pamela Moolenaar-Wirsiy, director for GPC’s Center for Teaching and Learning and a convocation presenter. But the biggest change was that the 2008 awards were restructured to honor employees who are best contributing to helping the college meet its new goals and vision.

“The awards parallel our strategic mission, vision and goals,” Tricoli said. “That means we’re recognizing faculty and staff who have transformed the lives of our students to thrive in a global society and have strengthened student success. This year we honor our co-workers who have enhanced the cultural vitality of our communities and continue to support our core values which include trust, excellence, integrity, passion, efficiency and diversity.”

Meanwhile, the Cole Fellow award, created after former president Dr. Marvin Cole retired in 1994, remained a highlight of convocation. The Cole Fellow recognizes a faculty member’s exceptional commitment to teaching, academic achievement and service to the college.

This year’s Cole Fellow went to Brenda Cherry, assistant department chair of Nursing.


 
Nursing faculty member Brenda Cherry, center,
was named the 2008 Cole Fellow by
Dr. Virginia Michelich, vice president 
for Academic Affairs, and Dr. Anthony Tricoli.

“She teaches her students to help fellow students, which is the example she sets every day,” said Dr. Virginia Michelich, vice president of Academic and Student Affairs, in announcing Cherry. “Her colleagues say she epitomizes her profession, keeping abreast of current knowledge, practice and education standards.”

Michelich also told the story of how Cherry helped a student who was one course short for graduation come up with a schedule that allowed the student to receive a diploma this summer and still sit for the national licensure exam all nurses must take and pass.

“She instilled the confidence in this student that she could and would be successful and fulfill her dream of becoming a registered nurse,” Michelich said.

The day of the exam, Cherry was on vacation, but arrived in the office with cupcakes in hand. “I had to be here when my students take their exam to show my support and then to celebrate with them,” Cherry explained to her nursing colleagues.


 
Magaret Major

In line with the new strategic plan, other awards presented included the GPC Mission Award which went to Margaret Major, associate professor of biology. The mission award recognizes the GPC employee who best exemplifies the mission of the college to transform the lives of students.

Teaching Excellence Awards went to Margo Eden-Camann, associate professor of humanities, and Calandra Davis, associate professor of mathematics. This award honors excellence in teaching, the foundation of student success.

The Teamwork Champions Award went to the Presidential Inauguration Committee chaired by Tina Philpot from the business department. This award recognizes the group that best demonstrates teamwork in accomplishing the mission, vision and goals of the college. The committee members included Rick Bertaccini, Anthony Bush, Steve Blutstein, Coletta Carter, Fred Cuspard, Garrett DeHart, Chip Howard, Dr. Paul Hudson, Beverly James, Rosemary Jean-Louis, Jennifer Jenkins, Kathy Jordan, Patrice Masterson, Susan McKinnon, Lora Mirza, Dr. Jean Mistretta, Barbara Obrentz, Martin Okafor, Glenn Pfeifer, Rhonda Powell, Barbara Price, Bill Roa, Glenn Sierko, Dr. Louise Strange de Soria, Garry Tuttle and Julius Whitaker.

Customer Service Excellence Awards went to Greg Faulker, low voltage technician, and Ellie Ross, administrative secretary. This award recognizes employees who render excellent customer service to students, community partners and fellow employees.

The GPC Collegiality Award honors exceptional collaboration with colleagues. This award went to Andrea Hendricks, associate professor of math.

The Internationalizing the College Award acknowledges outstanding efforts to infuse international knowledge and understanding into the curriculum. Eric Kendrick, assistant professor of ESL, received this honor.

The Civic Engagement Award, recognizing a GPC employee who has worked at strengthening the college’s relationship with the community, went to Ellen Sweatt, associate professor of business.

Awards for Outstanding Dedicated Service to GPC and All Constituents went to Frank Nash, dean of Student Services and interim director for GPC’s Alpharetta Center, and to Lisa Fowler, assistant vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success.

REPOST: Stay focused

Paul Tough's book, "How Children Succeed," identifies and examines the many factors that led to the failure of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a research project designed to close the achievement gap between privileged and poor students. More about this issue are discussed in this article published on www.economist.com.

THE young teenagers who graduated from a special South Bronx middle school in 1999 became nationally famous. All black and Hispanic and largely from low-income families, the students had been recruited four years earlier to participate in an experimental programme called KIPP (ie, the Knowledge Is Power Program), designed to close the achievement gap between privileged and poor students. The experience seemed to pay off: in a citywide test, these students earned the highest scores of any school in the Bronx, and the fifth-highest in all of New York City. Most won admission to top high schools, often with full scholarships. They all seemed destined for college, and for successful, precedent-bucking, demographic-defying lives.

But six years after their high-school graduation, only about a fifth of KIPP’s first class had completed a four-year college degree. Most ended up dropping out, reaffirming America’s growing class divide on college campuses. KIPP’s founders were distraught, particularly because a college degree has never been more valuable, enabling Americans to earn some 80% more than people with only a high-school diploma. So how had KIPP failed to prepare these students for college? What did they do wrong?

Paul Tough, a journalist and former editor at the New York Times Magazine, aims to answer these thorny questions in “How Children Succeed”, an ambitious and elegantly written new book, now out in Britain. The problem, he writes, is that academic success is believed to be a product of cognitive skills—the kind of intelligence that gets measured in IQ tests. This view has spawned a vibrant market for brain-building baby toys, and an education-reform movement that sweats over test scores. But new research from a spate of economists, psychologists, neuroscientists and educators has found that the skills that see a student through college and beyond have less to do with smarts than with more ordinary personality traits, like an ability to stay focused and control impulses. The KIPP students who graduated from college were not the academic stars but the workhorses, the ones who plugged away at problems and resolved to do better.

So non-cognitive skills like persistence and curiosity are highly predictive of future success. But where do these traits come from? And how can they be developed? In search of answers, Mr Tough first looks at the problem on a neurological level. Apparently medical reasons explain why children who grow up in abusive or dysfunctional environments generally find it harder to concentrate, sit still and rebound from disappointments. The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical for regulating thoughts and mediating behaviour. When this region is damaged—a common condition for children living amid the pressures of poverty—it is tougher to suppress unproductive instincts.

The science seems daunting, but it also points the way forward. Studies show that early nurturing from parents or caregivers helps combat the biochemical effects of stress. And educators can push better habits and self control. The “prefrontal cortex is more responsive to intervention than other parts of the brain,” writes Mr Tough. It stays malleable well into early adulthood. Character can be taught.

But schools have experience creating classes that raise test scores. Figuring out the best way to help youths develop “grit”—a passionate dedication to a goal—is trickier. Psychological interventions require more sophistication than teaching maths, and one of the big problems facing underperforming schools in America is a shortage of good teachers. But Mr Tough highlights some promising efforts to take these lessons about non-cognitive skills on board. A fascinating chapter considers the work of a young chess instructor in Brooklyn who turns unmotivated low-income students into chess champions by teaching them new ways to solve problems and recover from failures. In Chicago a programme called OneGoal, launched in 2009, is preparing struggling high-school students for college by stressing the link between hard work and destiny. And KIPP schools are now experimenting with something called a character report card, designed to show students that such traits can improve with time.

Replicating such initiatives on a grand scale will be hard, not least because they all seem to be run by uniquely talented and dedicated teachers and reformers. But at a time when ever more American children are living in poverty, better schools remain the most powerful anti-poverty tool available. After decades of failed efforts to improve the lives of poor students, Mr Tough has written a fine and provocative book about the kind of work that seems to be making a difference.

Anthony Tricoli, CEO and president of The Global Center for the Advancement of Higher Education, has twice bagged the Georgia State Legislature Award, in addition to winning the International Leadership Award from the Chair Academy. This Facebook page provides more updates of his most recent activities.

Tricoli was Scapegoat for Georgia University System Inefficiencies

Posted: December 4, 2012 at 4:18 pm on The Collegian of Georgia Perimeter College
Updated: December 13, 2012 at 11:09 am

By David Schick

State Rep. Karla Drenner thinks that more blame for GPC’s budget deficit should be placed with the University System of Georgia than with former President Anthony Tricoli.

Drenner recently stated in a CrossRoadsNews article that she believed Tricoli wasn’t at fault and that he was just a scapegoat for the USG.

“How can a president with a long series of successes be abruptly dismissed before any investigation?” wrote Drenner in response to follow up questions the Collegian submitted via email.

In the response, Drenner analyzes and questions the USG’s Special Audit of GPC’s budget deficit.

“I also started to wonder about the USG involvement and learned that they meet annually with the college’s leadership teams to review the college’s budget actions of the precious year and discuss their future budget proposal,” wrote Drenner. “If they were meeting annually, how could the Chancellors office not know?”

Drenner stated that if they didn’t know, they should have known. Drenner stated that the changes to USG budget oversight procedures, which were adopted on June 5 according to an email by Chancellor Hank Huckaby, are an indication of the USG’s culpability.

“Clearly, the financial oversight processes and procedures which were in place at the System Office were inadequate,” wrote Drenner.

“While ultimately it is the college president’s responsibility to manage the organization, again I would offer with the adoption of these changes does it not communicate the recognition of the lack of appropriate processes and procedures by the University System that added to this problem?”

According to USG’s Special Audit, “email discussions among GPC’s financial staff starting in Jan 2012 that reference the declines in the auxiliary fund balances”were not shared outside GPC’s Office of Financial and Administrative Affairs until “several months afterwards.”

Drenner noted that the Tricoli was specifically excluded from these communications.

“I am particularly concerned that the USG’s special audit report failed to communicate that ‘system level’ leaders had been involved in these e-mail discussions which excluded the president,” wrote Drenner.

In her last point, Drenner makes reference to the special audit’s claim that all of GPC’s budget presentations were “incomplete and inaccurate.”

Drenner wrote:

Again, I ask myself, if the president was receiving ‘incomplete’ and ‘inaccurate’ budget presentations from the second person in authority at the college and the top financial administrator with 40 years of experience, the CBO, why was the president removed? Only too recently the Board at the University of Virginia removed the President of the UVA. The president after the investigation was restored to her leadership position. Consider the recent events at Emory when upper level administrators purposefully misled the public for years regarding its successes. An investigation was done, and when it concluded that the Emory’s president did not know, the president was retained, and the individuals responsible not.

Drenner concluded that she understood how difficult it could be to reverse the decision of removing Tricoli, but the evidence from the special audit “suggests thoughtful reconsideration.”

The Collegian emailed Chancellor Huckaby requesting a response to Drenner’s statements.

As of press time, there has been no response.

Representative Drenner’s Comments:

In the court of law the presumption of innocence is the principle that one is considered innocent until proven guilty. It stands to reason that the prosecution or in this instance that the University System of Georgia has to collect and present compelling evidence to support the allegation of “fiscal mismanagement” that subsequently supported the termination of GPC’S President. Of course, I realize that Georgia is right to work State and the legal metaphor that I use is not applicable. But the larger question for me in this situation is how can someone be removed, not rehired, terminated or any of the above without first obtaining the facts??? Effective June 30th the GPC’s President’s contract was not renewed and the USG formal audit was not released until 11 weeks later on September 17th, 2012.

Below are my responses to your questions:

1) Why do you believe Anthony Tricoli wasn't at fault for the Georgia Perimeter College budget deficit?

Several statements made in the final audit report suggest the problem was not solely at the presidential level. Other departments suggested to be involved were the Human Resource and Budget Offices. “A significant inaccuracy regarding personal services was budgeting of fringe benefits. GPC understated the fringe benefits that corresponded with each employee on the payroll. This understatement has been estimated at $6.7 million. Understating fringe benefits allowed other budget areas to be overstated. When funds were spent against the overstated areas, deficit spending occurred.”(page 14)

Does this mean the college’s Office of Human Resources made mistakes in assigning employees to the appropriate departments? From what I understand, both the Human Resources Department reported to the same vice president as did the Budget Office. Thus, the problems regarding the budget are centralized in this one area under this one vice president (CBO).

Presidents in all organizations are ultimately responsible for the organizations in which they have been charged to run but, presidents must rely upon their staff to provide them with accurate information, so the best decisions can be made in a timely fashion. On this point, the special audit reported the following: “It is clear from our review that GPC’s CBO did not provide GPC’s President with timely and reliable financial information for the President’s use in managing the institution.”(page 3)

The special audit report indicates the following about the role the college’s budget manager played in the college’s budget problems: “Meanwhile, the former budget director stated that he knew of no one who was looking at the overall budget. It seems apparent that he should have had the responsibility for doing so since his job description included responsibility for budget planning, development and monitoring in accordance with institutional and system requirements. He indicated he had conversations with the former CBO and the former AVP to notify them they were overspending, but no actions were ever taken to curtail the spending. (We did not find documented evidence to support the existence of the conversations referenced by the former budget director.)”(page 19-20)

When the former budget manager was questioned by an attorney about his role in this situation, he responded by sending a signed Affidavit. This Affidavit was noted in the special audit review: “He [budget manager] also stated in an affidavit signed for former President Tricoli that he did not believe there were any budget deficits and that he never brought concerns about budget deficits to the attention of the former President.”(page 20).

Again, I began to wonder how the President did not know about this budget issue. The special audit answered my question in this way: “The former Budget Director’s job description states that he is responsible for “budget planning, development and monitoring in accordance with institutional and System requirements. As noted throughout this report, fundamental budget duties were not performed. Budget reporting was inaccurate, budgets were not correctly loaded into the financial system, numerous individuals could override the flawed budgets that were loaded in the system, and budget development essentially ignored actual financial experience. In short, essentially every primary duty of the Budget Director was left unfulfilled.”(page 5 ) This finding alone suggested to me a system flaw. I began to think about the annual budget reports and the creation of those reports what role did they play in the budget problem at GPC. The Special Audit stated, “We found three such presentations for FY 10, 11, and 12 and noted that presentations were not representative of GPC’s financial condition.” (page 19) So, from this information I now knew that the budget information received by the college president was inaccurate.

At this point, I also started to wonder about the USG involvement and learned that they meet annually with the college’s leadership teams to review the college’s budget actions of the previous year and discuss their future budget proposal.

So, if they were meeting annually, how could the Chancellors office not know?? Well, either they knew or they should have known? If they did know then how come from 2010-2012 the systems office did not discuss the looming financial concerns with GPC and make adjustments back in 2010? I could find no evidence in the final report that there was a discussion from the Interim President and the current GPC President? Why?

2) Do you have any evidence that the University System used Tricoli as a scapegoat?

The USG Chancellor shortly after the departure of the President of GPC, adopted changes to the processes and procedures within his office and other USG departments to strengthen budget oversight in the future, suggesting that perhaps GPC may not have experienced the financial crises which resulted. Clearly, the financial oversight processes and procedures which were in place at the System Office were inadequate. They were so insufficient that they prevented the USG from providing appropriate review and guidance of the budgets for the institutions in the System, including GPC. In a June 5, 2012 letter to the University System Presidents, Chancellor Huckaby said the following: “Effective oversight of fiscal operations is a shared responsibility among our presidents, our chief business officers, and the University System Office.” “In an effort to strengthen our fiscal operations, the System Office will be implementing enhanced review of each institution’s financials. Accordingly, I am implementing the following procedures. These procedures will be formalized shortly; however, please implement these at your respective institutions as follows:”

The communication follows with great detail about how each of these areas listed below will be carried out in the future: 1) Budget Hearings; 2) Quarterly Financial Reports; 3) External Audits; 4) Use of Reserves; and 5) Institution Visits.

While ultimately it is the college president’s responsibility to manage the organization, again I would offer with the adoption of these changes does it not communicate the recognition of the lack of appropriate processes and procedures by the University System that added to this problem?

3) If Tricoli wasn't at fault, do you know of any specific person(s) that was in a position to prevent the budget deficit?

The special audit acknowledges the following: “We also noted the existence of email discussions among staff within GPC’s Office of Financial and Administrative Affairs starting in January 2012 that reference declines in auxiliary fund balances and the use of auxiliary reserves for non-auxiliary expenditures over the past several fiscal years. There was no evidence that these emails were shared outside of the Office of Financial and Administrative Affairs until several months afterwards.” (page 1) While this information is disturbing, I am particularly concerned that the USG’s special audit report failed to communicate that “system level” leaders had been involved in these e-mail discussions which excluded the college president.

4) Do you have any other knowledge regarding Georgia Perimeter College's budget deficit or the removal of Tricoli? (Beyond what has already been published in the press or the special audit review)

During my tenure in the Georgia State Legislature thousands of my constituents have been and/or are currently connected to GPC, and there’s an overall dissatisfaction with what has happened at the college as a result of the Chancellor’s and BOR’s decisions. We all have the same question: how can a president with a long series of successes be abruptly dismissed before any investigation?

5) What do you think are the necessary steps to ensure this doesn't happen to another University System school?

Allow me to first share that I am saddened that so many college employees were harmed as a result of this situation. This problem appears to have occurred because of a lack of communication as well as a lack of a strong oversight guidelines at the University System level, as evidenced by new and more comprehensive System Budget Oversight Process.

As I conclude my responses, I want to share one last point made by those who conducted and prepared the special audit report: “GPC’s former fiscal leadership team relied on inaccurate, internally generated spreadsheets that did not correspond to the General Ledger. Specifically, it appears that members of GPC’s cabinet, to include the former President, and both the President’s Council and the Strategic Budget Committee, were provided incomplete and inaccurate budget presentations made by the CBO and the Budget Director at various group meetings.”(page 6)

Again, I ask myself, if the president was receiving “incomplete” and “inaccurate” budget presentations from the second person in authority at the college and the top financial administrator with 40 years of experience, the CBO, why was the president removed?

Only too recently the Board at the University of Virginia removed the President of the UVA. The president after the investigation was restored to her leadership position. Consider the recent events at Emory when upper level administrators purposefully misled the public for years regarding its successes. An investigation was done, and when it concluded that the Emory’s president did not know, the president was retained, and the individuals responsible not. I understand how difficult it can be for a decision to be reversed. As is evidenced by the internal findings of the USG’s Special Audit and the implementation of an extensive new budget review process by the USG suggests thoughtful reconsideration.