Nancy McCallin had some serious work to do when she took charge of the state’s 13 community colleges last fall: cleaning up misuse of spending and slashing administrative costs by 20 percent.
In nine months on the job, the former chief budget officer for Gov. Bill Owens says, she has accomplished that and more. She cut costs by 22 percent as she eliminated top administrative positions in her office and reduced the travel budget and operating costs.
Now she’s working on a new information technology system that could consolidate some administrative operations at the colleges, such as financial-aid processing.
“It doesn’t make sense to be doing things 13 different ways at 13 different colleges,” McCallin said. “It’s not good for the students.”
The changes haven’t all come easily, with some accusing McCallin of running the colleges more like a business than a system of higher learning. Professors at Front Range Community College say their president was forced out because she opposed McCallin’s ideas.
President Janet Gullickson, whose last day is Sunday, will receive $30,000 to settle a legal dispute with the system, according to an agreement drawn up by the state attorney general’s office and released to The Denver Post through an open-records request.
The agreement says Gullickson will stay on as a consultant until December, when her contract expires. The settlement forbids Gullickson from saying anything “derogatory or negative” or that “detracts from the business or reputation” of the college system.
McCallin declined to comment on the resignation.
Faculty members say Gullickson fought consolidation efforts that might take power from the presidents and transfer it to the central office.
“She was a zealous advocate for the strength and independence of this school,” said John Sullivan, head of the faculty senate.
With Gullickson’s resignation, eight colleges in the system have presidents. Four have chief administrative officers, who replaced presidents who have resigned or retired.
The eight presidents referred questions to McCallin’s office or did not return calls from The Denver Post.
McCallin said she has no plans to eliminate presidencies.
She addressed the college system board’s reluctance to replace presidents who have resigned.
“It has been intentional on my part to leave interim presidencies in place while we analyze the organizational structure of the system,” she said.
New technology that would consolidate some administrative functions would be more convenient for students, McCallin said. For example, a student taking classes at two colleges would have to fill out only one application and one set of financial-aid documents.
McCallin also plans to reform distance learning, eliminating the redundancy of similar classes offered at multiple colleges.
The legislature originally asked McCallin to cut administrative costs by 35 percent, then amended that to 20 percent. She has trimmed $2.6 million.
The savings go back into community-college system projects.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
