Western Nebraska Community College President Greg Dart is just about three weeks into his new position, and says he’s ready to jump in to a number of areas during his first six months.
Dart sat with the Western Community College Area Board of Governors during their meeting Wednesday, and started his report singing the praises of John Marrin and the work he did over the past two years.
He said he told Marrin that he could write the book on how to be a successful community college interim president. “The last two years that he spent in that role, he has set this college up as well as anyone ever could in that time frame,” said Dart, “And I owe a debt of gratitude to him, and everyone else, this board, faculty, and staff, and everyone that have not stopped moving forward. And that continuous improvement has occurred during a time of interim leadership, and that isn’t common.”
Dart also outlined his three initial priorities, saying implementation of the new WNCC strategic plan will be at the top of the list. He said he’ll be working with the community college’s executive team to look at tactics to put the plan into motion.
“How do we now make this operational? Having a document and having it on a shelf, doesn’t do anything. But operationalizing it, and making sure it’s integrated in everything we’re doing, and all we’re doing for accreditation, and all that we do to continuously improve, is really ‘job one’ for me,” Dart said.
He says he will also be relying on the board and staff to help him meet the officials, leaders and people in the communities served by the community college, and will become involved in further development and implementation of WNCC’s strategic enrollment management plan.
