Says this is the “right time” for such a consideration | There are ten in Maricopa County

Ruth Wicks

East side education advocate Ruth  Wicks urged  the Yavapai  Community College District Governing Board at the call to the public to consider initiating a study to assess the efficacy of establishing an Administrative model of operation.  An administrative model would have an east and west administrative college with a chancellor and each side of the County  would have its own dean and develop its own annual budget.  Wicks’ pointed out that there are ten administrative colleges in Maricopa County, commenting that the Board should not be “afraid” of considering such a model. 

While not providing independence to the east side, the administrative model would be a middle ground in terms of developing an individual community college identity on that side of the County.  It is hoped such a model would allow the east side of the County greater autonomy in creating post-secondary education goals for its residents.

Wicks pointed out that Yavapai County is huge with an area larger than at least six states of the United States (with few roads connecting the east and west sides). Moreover, a mountain range splits  the County almost down the middle and makes  accessibility by east-County residents to the main campus at Prescott very difficult, if at times not impossible. 

Wicks said that there are  about 80,000 residents living on the east side of the County with  a significant portion of the population under the poverty line. “There is  an increased need for face-to-face community college classes,” she said, because of the number of residents living at or below the poverty line on the east side of the County.     There is also a need for flexibility in meeting the needs of our non-traditional students, she said.

She compared the cost of operating Mingus High School in Cottonwood with the almost $90 million operation of the Community College.  According to her, Mingus High School in Cottonwood has 1,200 students, 135 employees with 65 of them being full-time faculty.  The annual Mingus budget is a little over $9 million.  It boasts a  full array of high school classes plus fine arts, Career and Technical Education classes, bus services, fall, winter, and spring athletics. 

Yavapai College has 11 full-time faculty at the Verde Campus and offers no transportation or athletic programs. 

Ms. Wicks address to the Board follows on the video clip below.

How long must the 80,000 east side residents be essentially pawns in the hands of those who do not work or live on their side of the mountain but who make all the important educational decisions for them?

Editor Robert Oliphant

EDITORIAL. It is fair to say that at the present time Yavapai Community College has a superb administration; probably one of the best if not the best it has ever had.  Bright, hard-working, committed administrators are at the top. 

 But there is a really big problem; it is not one of their making.  That problem is the archaic structure they were handed that was designed fifty years ago and has completely outgrown its usefulness. It was a structure completely centralized post-secondary community college education almost exclusively in Prescott, Arizona. At the time, it  met the immediate needs of a  County population with less than 37,000 residents.  Today, with a 2020 population estimated at more than 236,000 residents the structure does not work and is crying out for change.

 Because of the initial effort at centralization, which was never abandoned in any real form, Yavapai Community College has struggled for over 50 years to develop an effective community college system in the Verde Valley on the east side of Yavapai County.  By any account, its efforts have fallen far short of what one would expect; especially now that the population in the east side of the County has reached or will reach over 80,000 residents.   

Recall that at the time the decision to create a Community College District in Yavapai County was made a little over 50 years ago, to gain recognition from state authorities meant it had to meet certain legal requirements.  As a result, those wishing to establish  a community college in Yavapai County were forced  to include its  entire high school population and its entire land value. Today, whatever legal requirements are needed to create a Community College District, the residents of the East side of the county can meet them.

But for the legal requirements of 50 years ago,  creation of a single community college district encompassing  such a huge  land mass makes no sense.  The Yavapai Community College  District covers all of Yavapai County consisting of 8,125 square miles. The size of the County  is comparable  to states such as Connecticut (5,543 sq. miles — 12 community colleges and universities), Delaware (1,982 sq. miles — three community colleges and universities), Rhode Island (1,214 sq. miles— one public and two private community colleges)  and New Jersey (8,723 sq. miles — 19 community colleges and universities). The state of Israel encompasses  8,550 square miles (ten universities and 53 colleges).

Today, most agree that Yavapai Community College  operates and resembles  a state college or university.  On the Prescott side of the County, it boasts  six athletic teams, athletic fields, a cadre of coaches, two residence halls, a major gymnasium, heated indoor swimming pool (including special therapy pool for seniors), professional tennis complex, weight complex, 104,000  square foot Career and Technical Education Center, and a state-of-the-art Performing Arts Center  (PAC) with an 1,100 seat ultra-modern auditorium — offering over 50 major theatre cultural performances annually and at least 20 free special events, probably many more. The College  offers more than a dozen  of music and performing arts courses not offered elsewhere.  It  will be offering four-year degrees shortly.

 It has even dropped the name “Community College” in favor of being called “Yavapai College.”

The Community College Governing Board is dominated by west county Governing Board politicos who in 2012-13 boldly approved a $103.5 million plan to further develop the institution with less than 5% of development flowing to the east side of the County.  The Community College top administrators, including its president, are all based in Prescott or Prescott Valley.  The vast majority of faculty and staff live and work on the Prescott side of the County. In any faculty vote, the Prescott-based faculty have an overwhelming majority over faculty located outside that area.

All major decisions regarding courses, construction of facilities, and other projects are ultimately decided by the Prescott-based executives.   The decisions come directly from Prescott and must be approved by them.  The current Dean of the Sedona Center/Verde Campus is not given a strong  voice in decision making; it is claimed she is required to spend at least one day a week off campus on the Prescott side of the County on matters unrelated to the east side.  Even the College Foundation is dominated and controlled almost entirely by the west side residents despite the fact that  the current president is from the Verde Valley.

The Governing Board holds one or two meetings a year on the east side of the County while all other meetings are held on the west side: most on the Prescott Campus.  The Community College Foundation meets monthly and only on the rarest of occasions has it ever met on the east side of the County.

There have been repeated calls over the years  for the Verde Valley to establish its own  independent community college, but those calls have fallen on deaf ears.    Others have called for a middle ground, which would result in the cooperative development between the east and west sides of the County of two administrative colleges — one for each side of the County.  In the Administrative model, the hope is that  the two administrative colleges would share common resources but independently prepare budgets and develop their own programs and projects. The pervasive influence of Prescott and its yoke of control would be somewhat loosened, or so it is hoped.

The two- County  administrative model would be developed in a flexible fashion that could best serve the unique needs of each side of the County.  The  framework would be  similar but not identical to the administrative college model  created in the Maricopa community county system over the past several years.

If an Administrative College were created,  a person such as Dr. Lisa Rhine, the current President of Yavapai Community College,  would normally become the chancellor in the Community  College District. She would provide overall direction to both the east and west sides of Yavapai County’s two administrative community colleges, each of which has its own Administrative President. 

But ever since the idea has been broached some ten years ago, the Prescott-based executives and a majority on the Governing Board have ignored it.  Former Governing Board East side representative Al Filardo resigned in 2016 in part over the refusal of the Governing Board to agree to make an independent assessment about developing an administrative college on the east side of the County. Joel Staadecker, a 16 year Sedona resident, urged the Sedona Mayor and Council at the September 27, 2016, meeting to join him and others to persuade the Governor and State Legislature to create an independent taxing district for an independent Verde Valley community college.   We “must get out from under the crushing oppression of the Yavapai College governance system, leadership and management that resides and works on the West side of  Mingus Mountain for the benefit of the Prescott region communities,” he said.

It was no accident that back in 2016 two days after the Verde Valley Forum, attended by about 100 participants from all over the east side, recommended that an unbiased, independent study be conducted to examine the establishment of an independently governed community college in the Verde Valley, the Prescott dominated Governing Board effectively abolished the Verde Valley Board Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee had made over 20 recommendations to the Governing Board with almost all of them ignored.

Aside from the cruel yoke history and political domination by the west side of the County over the east side, sometimes one asks, “are there any real benefits to an east side community college?”  Well, yes, there are many. 

The following is a list of some of the possible benefits that the East Region residents might receive if an Administrative College or, for that matter, an independent community college model were created.  Included are some  historic examples to illustrate and support the view that it’s time to create either an administrative community college or a completely independent community college in the Verde Valley.  The benefits  are not listed in any particular order of priority.

Share a common vision

An Administrative College may help bring the various communities in the East Region together in a common cause. With an Administrative College controlled by East Region residents, the small communities and towns that make up a total of more than 75,000 residents may more easily come to share a common vision of developing a strong post-secondary community college. It may also help reduce the competitive, non-cooperative, bickering spirit that communities and other institutions in the East Region sometimes exhibit.

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