Take a look at the following press release regarding Drexel University’s efforts to locate a new private university campus in the area. This is an exciting step forward for our community, and if achieved, can only help "lift the tide" of higher education for Sierra College as well.

The photo is Drexel University President Dr. Constantine Papadakis (left) and Sierra College President Dr. Leo Chavez (right).

Drexel University Leaders Consider Major Campus in Placer

Drexel President Unveils Special $10,000 Scholarships For Qualified Sacramento/Placer Students To Attend Philadelphia University

A delegation from Drexel University met with Placer County officials and community leaders throughout the Sacramento area, and toured the region last week in their continuing effort to determine whether to start a new campus on the western border of Roseville.

A group of more than 40 Drexel officials, led by University President Dr. Constantine Papadakis, several college deans and trustees, conducted a four-day fact-finding trip as part of an ongoing feasibility study for a campus in Placer County. The group met with Placer County supervisors, other elected officials and education and business leaders.

Addressing a Roseville Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday at a kickoff event, Dr. Papadakis announced that Drexel would offer any area high school graduate a $10,000 academic scholarship toward the annual tuition charge. The scholarship, part of the Drexel’s Build the Pipeline Scholars program, is based upon completing the admissions process by Jan. 1, 2008 and will be renewed each year the student maintains a 3.0 grade point average at Drexel.

"The scholarships are an expression of Drexel’s strong interest in serving the students and families of Sacramento and Placer counties,"Dr. Papadakis said. "We feel once these students graduate after a wonderful experience at our Philadelphia campus they will become our ambassadors, returning to the Sacramento area and helping us spread the word about Drexel."

A 116-year-old Philadelphia institution renowned for its leadership in higher education innovation, Drexel is considering locating a new, four-year campus in Placer County, just west of the Roseville city limits.

The university community would include 600 acres for a campus and an adjacent 536-acre community that would be developed to help finance the campus. The land for the university would be donated by the Tsakopoulos family, William and Claudia Cummings, Wayne and Mary Prim and their partners.

"We’re very intrigued by the idea of creating a new Drexel University in the Sacramento region,"said Dr. Papadakis, who made an August visit to the area and announced Drexel’s initial expansion interest. "Our latest visit has been a tremendous fact-finding mission for all of us. We are very encouraged by the response we’ve received from the community. We understand this is an extraordinary opportunity."

With 350,000 residents in Placer County, including 102,000 in Roseville, many people in the region feel the time is right to plan for a private university with the capability of Drexel, which has a 20,000-plus student population in center city Philadelphia.

"I think Drexel University is exactly what this community needs,"said former Placer County Supervisor Bill Santucci, a longtime supporter of efforts to bring higher education to the Roseville area. "We need a private university that gives our children and our grandchildren some choices. Drexel would be a wonderful, first-class university in our community."

"Our community’s students need a university in our county,"said Susan Goto, a community leader and member of the Roseville City School Board. "Drexel would be a huge asset to our community."

Founded in 1891 in Philadelphia, Drexel University is a private, comprehensive, doctoral research university widely recognized for its focus on co-operative education and technology. Drexel is the 16th largest private university in the nation and became the first major university to operate a fully wireless campus in the year 2000.

The plan for the university campus entitlements is expected to go before the Placer County Planning Commission later this year.

The folks at Red County Placer were kind enough to post a column from me entitled “Sierra College: Finding a Way Forward”. I’m cross-posting it here…

A special thank you to Jeff for giving me the chance to add some perspective regarding the recent Sacramento Bee article. As happens at times with the Bee, the headline of the article, “Sierra College Makes a Case for Funds”, is a bit misleading.

 

It has been a privilege to serve my community as a Sierra College Trustee since my election in 2004. I am one of seven trustees, and we each have the individual responsibility to represent and communicate with taxpayers across our entire 3,200 square mile district, which ranges from the Antelope area of Sacramento, all the way to the Nevada border.

 

For those of you who weren’t reading newspapers a few years ago, here’s where we’ve been: after a campaign calling for balanced budgets and a return to accountability, 90,000 people voted for change at Sierra College, and Scott Leslie and I were elected to the board.

 

After being sworn in, things didn’t go quite the way I’d planned them, but we nevertheless had a very tough change in leadership and direction at the college. My best vote as a trustee was to appoint Dr. Leo Chavez as the fifth President of Sierra College. He is a nationally known and visionary leader, dedicated to excellence in education, and integrity in everything we do.

 

As a conservative, I’m very pro-education, for several reasons. First, I believe that a well-educated citizenry will choose freedom over the tyranny of a powerful government any day of the week. Second, education equips us to start new businesses, create new jobs, and build the skilled workforces needed to fill those jobs. Sierra College is at the center of this effort in Placer County.

 

Over the past several months, Trustee Bill Martin (elected in 2006 as the board’s newest member) undertook his own project to compare Sierra College’s tax revenue and expenditures over the last twenty to thirty years with those of other community colleges.

 

He summarized in some creative new ways the data that was presented to me throughout my orientation as a trustee. Due to low tax rates set by its board prior to the passage of Prop 13, Sierra College has saved the taxpayers some $300 million dollars during the last thirty years. The college spends $5,461 educating each student…about a third less than the $8,133 it costs to put the same student through kindergarten in this county.

 

The inaccuracy of the Bee article came early, in the headline, when it said that “Sierra College” was seeking new funds with this analysis. Trustee Martin was abundantly clear that his report reflected his own personal opinions and research, and was not intended to reflect the views of any other college trustees or staff. The Auburn Journal and Auburn Sentinel reported this very accurately, to their credit.

 

There are definitely some differences of opinion about our next steps as a college. One thing we all agree on: after 40 years, many of the classrooms and labs on the main Rocklin campus are nearing the end of their intended lives. We also face a dramatic need for more classroom space: even with the slowing of the housing market, our student enrollment is predicted to double in as few as 20 to 25 years.

 

Ken brings up an interesting point about “leaky roofs” and how this kind of maintenance is supposed to be financed. One thing to note is that Sierra College’s tax rate has not changed since 1978, when it was frozen at its low level by Proposition 13 (and thank heavens for Prop 13, or we would have all lost our homes a year or two ago). Those local property tax dollars, plus supplemental funding from the state, pay for the college’s annual operating expenses — faculty, staff, utilities, routine maintenance, technology and operations.

 

No college has ever been able to afford the construction of new buildings, or the modernization of old ones, using these “general fund” dollars. So what has changed in the last twenty years? As you might guess, the politicians in Sacramento got greedy.

 

Up until the late 80s and early 90s, the state would pay for 100% of the community college system’s construction costs as part of its own budget. Each college would apply for funding based on its student population growth, and would receive grants of state money to construct or modernize its facilities. The state even added allowances for furniture, fixtures and equipment inside the buildings.

 

But then the Sacramento crowd came up with a great idea to raise our taxes without getting the blame themselves. In effect, they confiscated about half of the state funding for community college facilities, and told local community college trustees to go pass local financing measures to pay “their share”.

 

So either way, it is the taxpayers in our community that get fleeced. We either accept a new bond measure and pay “a little more” in property taxes for 25 years so that we can receive matching funds from the state, or we turn down a local measure, but watch our facilities money be spent elsewhere on Sacramento priorities.

 

It’s a pretty rotten system, and people of all political persuasions have a right to be upset with it. I’ve spoken about this issue with each of our representatives in Sacramento, and they’ve all agreed with me that it needs to be fixed, but as we all know, the Democrats aren’t about to change a system that tilts more state money to the liberal communities that vote for tax increase after tax increase.

 

So the real question is: what do we do now?

 

There are those who think the best choice is to go back to the old way — proposing big-time bond measures (I’m not necessarily referring to any other college trustees, but I have heard this sentiment directly from a few community members). This approach is not only the wrong choice, but it will also bog the college down when it needs to be productively moving forward.

 

As I said in 2004 before I won the election, I am open to supporting a small, efficient and conservative financing measure. Any such measure would be much like a mortgage — the amount financed would be for building and repairing classrooms and labs only, would be to the benefit of the taxpayers who are paying for it, and would be financed no longer than the useful lives of the new buildings.

 

But I strongly believe that Sierra College needs to be much more creative in finding a way forward. We do have some resources — such as 72 acres of undeveloped land — that could be used as a partial solution for funding classroom and lab repairs. I think we should spend the next few years working much harder with the resources that the taxpayers have already entrusted us.

 

By being the place that over 40% of our local high school graduates go to train for their career, or prepare for their four year degree, Sierra College is a key cog in the engine of our local economy, and the provider of a workforce to the businesses who create the real return on investment. We need to come together as a community, think outside of the box, and find new ways to give our local college the resources it needs — so that it can deliver the future and the opportunity that we all want for our kids.

Here’s an update, for those of you following the saga of bringing Spencer home.

The Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare has granted Spencer’s "EP", or emigration permit. That means that the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States Department of State are free and clear to issue his exit and entry visas…the last step before we go pick him up!

We could be as few as three weeks away from leaving for Seoul to pick up our little guy. They will give us very little notice – as little as two or three days.

Assuming we depart on a Monday morning, we’ll arrive Tuesday night in Seoul – hooray for 17 hour time changes! Of course, it also works the other way. If we come back on a Friday evening, we’ll arrive Friday mid-morning to noon…before we left.

We’re counting the days!

A few days ago, I was privileged to be a part of the dedication of “V Building”, known as the Math and Technology Center during its construction. This building will house our mathematics, computer science and mechatronics programs, and is an exciting addition to the Sierra College Rocklin campus.

I joined Trustees Bill Martin, Nancy Palmer and Barbara Vineyard, along with Sierra College President Leo Chavez, in cutting the ceremonial ribbon and opening the new facility. Those scissors were heavy!

A group of local elected officials and community leaders, including Supervisor Kirk Uhler, Supervisor Jim Holmes and Councilmember Carol Garcia, gathered to celebrate the grand opening.

After the ceremony, I enjoyed touring the building and seeing a demonstration of polymer modeling equipment used by companies to save thousands of dollars in the manufacturing process. This is a part of the Sierra College Center for Applied Competitive Technologies, an effort to support manufacturing in our local community.

To the left is one of our dedicated part time faculty members, and to the right is Bill Halldin, President of the Sierra College Foundation Board of Directors.

I bought Cacey a new camera as a gift, and we’ve been having fun taking great pictures with it.

Here she is with her cousin, Tamara, at the baby shower for their son, who was born just a few weeks ago. Color me biased, I think this is a great picture of my sweetheart.

Playing with my niece, Lily.

Holding another one of my nieces, Julia.

And this is a shot that I captured of my oldest niece, Elaina (Lily’s sister, and Julia’s cousin). She is two, going on six.

Well, I tried the blog thing before, and just sort of ran out of time to keep it up. Now, with so many things happening in life, and so many friends to keep in touch with, I thought I’d give it another shot.

I am blessed to be married to my best friend. She is a fascinating, smart, and caring person who I love spending my life with. I met her when I was 14 years old, and it was love at first sight. We got together in January 2000, and married each other in a little church in Garden Valley in April 2001.

We are in the middle of adopting the most adorable baby boy from South Korea. Spencer Daniel Sang-Jin Klein was born on St. Patrick’s Day…March 17, 2007. We’re told that he giggles and babbles when you talk to him, and he doesn’t cry when held by strangers.

He is currently with foster parents in South Korea, and we expect to fly to Seoul and bring him home some time in December or January. We can’t wait for the miracle of adoption to change our lives forever.

Cacey and I are in the middle of two wonderful, big families. I’m the oldest of six, and Cacey is the oldest of eight. Between us, we have two great brothers-in-law, one great sister-in-law, three beautiful nieces and four wonderful parents.

I started working for my dad when I was twelve years old, in the shipping room of his small distribution company, and I’ve worked in entrepreneurial business every day of my career since then. I love business, technology, marketing and product development. I love the fact that I love what I do.

In 2004, I was privileged to be elected to serve as a Sierra College Trustee. I am passionate about education and the role it plays in creating new businesses and new jobs. I believe in efficient and effective government that gives taxpayers the best bang for their buck.

For those that never get the chance to say “how are things goin?”, I’m looking forward to this blog creating a little bit of a window on our lives, and helping us to stay connected with friends and family.

I’ll be writing about business, about Sierra College, about books I’m reading, about movies and music I’m enjoying, and about my family. And I especially look forward to posting a few things about our upcoming trip to Seoul to bring our son home.

See you along the way…