2019-2020 President's Report

President’s Message

June 30, 2020

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18a

In February 2013, the East Central Community College (ECCC) Board of Trustees officially approved 2020 Vision . It was the culmination of nearly eight months of a collaborative strategic planning process that included all stakeholders of the college—students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, and members of our local communities. The result was a roadmap for the future—a strategic plan that gave us a vision to shape and guide the future of ECCC and included a long-term desire to be nationally recognized and locally preferred.

Eight years later, we are coming to an end of that road, a road that was not always straight and not always easy to navigate. Fortunately, 2020 Vision gave us the flexibility to meet the ever changing needs of the students and communities we serve, and there has never been a greater need for flexibility than during the Coronavirus pandemic that we began addressing in March 2020. COVID-19 presented us all with unprecedented and ever-changing times. Through it all, ECCC has persevered. 2020 Vision allowed us to be flexible and to adapt to most any situation we faced as a college. As I write this message on June 30, 2020, the last day of our fiscal year and my final day in office after eight years as president of ECCC, plans are being made to fully reopen the college for fall 2020 classes. As I turn the mantle of leadership over to the college’s ninth president, Dr. Brent Gregory, I wanted to share with you some of the many accomplishments of the 2020 Vision strategic plan in my final President’s Report . Everything you will read on the pages that follow is the result of all those individuals who bought into the vision they helped create, took ownership of that vision, and then worked hard to see that it became reality. In my “Message from the President” in the 2020 Vision strategic plan I wrote that I was convinced that God had a great plan for this institution. His Word states in Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” 2020 Vision presented this college with a clear vision for the future with extensive input from all stakeholders, and I know as you read the pages that follow that you will see proof that God was, and continues to be, at work at ECCC.

May God richly bless each of you.

Dr. Billy W. Stewart President

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