Dr. Bill Law
St. Petersburg College President Bill Law, who completed his fourth year as college president earlier this month, received a contract extension through June 30, 2017 and an exemplary performance review from the SPC Board of Trustees on Tuesday, June 17.
Board Chair Deveron Gibbons praised Law’s leadership, expertise and creativity and his commitment to the college’s mission of promoting student success and enriching local communities through education, career development and self-discovery. Board members reviewed Law on leadership, diversity of initiatives, planning, budgeting and external relations.
“One of the principal charges given to Dr. Law at the start of his tenure was to refocus our efforts on the core mission of this institution,” said Gibbons. “Dr. Law has performed this portion of his responsibilities at the highest level of leadership. (SPC’s) College Experience project has significantly improved the classroom success of our students across the board.”
Law created The College Experience in 2012 to ensure students finish what they start and succeed. The five major components of The College Experience include:
· Out-of-class support
· Integrated career and academic advising
· New student orientation
· My Learning Plan (a roadmap for graduation)
· Early alert and student coaching system
Since The College Experience launched, SPC students have shown significant academic improvements, but the greatest advances have been among African-American and Hispanic males. For African American males, success rates jumped from 42% in Spring 2012 to 58% this spring. For Hispanic males, the success rate rose from 53% to 68%.
Law holds weekly meetings with college staff to review progress reports and success metrics and communicates these goals throughout the college.
In his review, Gibbons also noted that Law has succeeded in the past year in:
· Moving forward with the complex development of the Midtown Campus
· Renewing SPC’s online education program
· Formulating a student-focused response to major changes in the state guidelines for developmental education
· Expanding the college’s commitments to workforce education across all levels of the college’s instructional mission.
“Our consistent, superior audit reviews, budgeting, and strategic planning, have been able to put into motion, a plan for future success,” Gibbons said. “President Law continues to be an effective spokesperson for the college in Tallahassee and our college continues to perform at a very high level in the key areas of postsecondary education policy.”
Board Chairman Deveron Gibbons
Board Chairman Deveron Gibbons read the following statement regarding the president’s review:
Earlier this month, Dr. Law will be completed his fourth year as president of St. Petersburg College. As you know, one of the responsibilities of this board is to perform an annual review and evaluation of his performance over the past year.
To that end, board members have had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Law individually, and to complete a comprehensive, written evaluation assessing his performance. The categories we reviewed included, but were not limited to: Leadership, Diversity Initiatives, Planning & Budgeting, Board Relations, and External Relations.
I have had an opportunity to review all of the evaluations, and am pleased to report that they are exemplary.
One of the principal charges given to Dr. Law at the start of his tenure was to refocus our efforts on the core mission of this institution. Dr. Law has performed this portion of his responsibilities at the highest level of leadership. The college’s College Experience project has significantly improved the classroom success of our students across the board.
His efforts included support for students beyond the classroom, improved systems to support intake, counseling, advising and student activities, renewing community and school district relationships, technology enhancements, facilities maintenance, remodeling and repair, and support and development for our faculty, administration and staff.
Our consistent, superior audit reviews, budgeting, and strategic planning, have been able to put into motion, a plan for future success. President Law continues to be an effective spokesperson for the college in Tallahassee and our college continues to perform at a very high level in the key areas of postsecondary education policy.
In the past year, Dr. Law has been successful in moving forward with the complex development of the Midtown Campus, the renewal of our online education program, and formulating a student-focused response to major changes in the state guidelines for developmental education. President Law continues to expand the college’s commitments to workforce education across all levels of our college’s instructional mission.
In view of Dr. Law’s superior performance, as chairman, I would like to move that we extend his employment contract an additional year, as we did last year at this time. This one year extension, would be added on to his existing 3 year contract, thereby extending his employment agreement with the college to June 30, 2017.
While our review is limited to the performance of the president, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the tireless efforts of all the faculty and staff. Dr. Law prepared a written summary of progress over the last year, and in it, he specifically mentioned many of you individually, and did so with high praise. Our faculty, administration and support staff do a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’, and we know that. While Dr. Law provides the leadership, expertise and creativity to set the plan in motion, our success would not occur without your continued commitment to SPC and our students. On behalf of this board, we thank you.
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