'For the Win': Candidates running joint campaign for Del Mar board of regents

Aiming to redirect Del Mar College’s focus from what they consider “empire building” to student success, three Corpus Christi residents are running a joint campaign to fill three slots on the school’s board of regents in November.

The candidates are Shawn Flanagan, a former cross country coach at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; Laurie Turner, an educator for 15 years; and John Wilson, a regional sales manager at HMG Mortgage with 30 years’ experience in finance. They are running on a platform of improving enrollment and graduation rates, keeping costs low for students and taxpayers, trimming away excess administrative jobs and finding a better use for what they say is an unnecessary new South campus.

They’ve adopted the slogan “FTW,” a combination of their last initials that also stands for “For the Win.”

Flanagan and Wilson are running for the two open at-large seats, and Turner is running for the District 4 seat.

The hope is that by taking a third of the spots on the nine-member board and finding allies in two or three other regents, they can pave a new way for the school, Flanagan said.

“Instead of just being a voice in the wilderness, if you want to get something done, if we got a solid voting bloc,” he said, “we can actually make the real changes that count and make Del Mar back to what it should be — a college and a campus that we should really be proud of.”

Or, as Turner put it: “Instead of running as individuals, why don’t we run as a team? I’m not sure if it’ll work, but why not?”

They say their No. 1 goal is to improve student outcomes. One way to increase the graduation rate, Flanagan said, is to hire more academic advisers. 

Last year, the college earned a federal grant of $2.8 million over five years to hire advisers dedicated to specific areas of study and train and certify faculty members to advise students.

Thirty-six faculty members have been trained in advising — surpassing the target of 25 — as well as 16 staff members, Rito Silva, vice president of student affairs, said during a board meeting in September.

The college has hired two advisers in specific areas of study and is in the process of hiring a third. A fourth adviser will be hired in the third year of the grant.

But Flanagan proposed employing one adviser to every 100 students and offering adjunct instructors higher pay to become advisers in addition to teaching.

The candidates also plan to conduct an audit of the school’s programs to find ways to consolidate and improve them. 

The pandemic presents an opportunity for community colleges like Del Mar, Wilson said. While universities are offering many or all classes online, students can take similar classes at community colleges at a fraction of the cost before they move on to complete their bachelor’s degrees.

The trio share a skepticism for the college’s South campus, which is under construction and will open by 2022. They say the campus is unwarranted because enrollment has remained flat, a significant portion of students are dual-credit high schoolers who don’t set foot in college buildings, and construction costs have taken a toll on taxpayers.

Only three college districts in Texas have higher tax rates than Del Mar College, according to the Texas Association of Community Colleges. It has a higher rate — about 28 cents per $100 property valuation — than districts in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

The 2020-21 combined tax rate, which the board approved in August, is about $0.008 higher than the previous year’s rate. The maintenance and operations tax rate is slightly lower than the previous year’s, but the debt service rate is higher because of bond packages approved by voters, said Carol Scott, chair of the board.

Despite growth over the past several years, certified enrollment in fall 2019 — 12,008 credit students — was about the same as fall 2005, according to data provided by spokeswoman Melinda Eddleman.

Voters in 2014 approved a $157 million bond package that included $1.8 million for a South campus master plan, and in 2016, they approved a $139 million bond package for the first phase of construction. At $107 million, one of the packages of that first phase came in at almost $20 million more than the original estimate, though that cost was still within the bond limit. 

More:Del Mar College hires contractor for new South campus; project pricetag swells

The master plan outlines three more construction phases, which will require more bonds to fund them, Turner said.

Turner also took umbrage at the notion that the new campus would house only a handful of programs with few students, such as culinary arts. But the college has said the campus will also house core courses for transfer students, developmental education, dual credit, workforce and continuing education programs.

More:Construction starts on Del Mar College's Southside campus

Still, the trio says, the campus will come with ongoing maintenance and support costs that will drive the college further into debt. They’re proposing mothballing the campus, selling it or repurposing it.

Though the college is legally bound to complete construction, Wilson said, “I’m willing to look at everything and leave nothing off the table.”

“I think the board right now is more focused on building buildings” than on instruction, Turner said. “I just don’t think it’s wise with our tax money.”

“Bottom line is (the regents) have been very irresponsible, and we’re not getting value for the money,” Wilson said.

“I feel that there are people whose interests are more aligned with the construction companies that are making money as opposed to the students. It’s just a question of reevaluating the priorities that are currently there at the college.”

And the college spends too much on managers and administrators compared to classroom instructors, the candidates say.

As of Sept. 2, the college had 312 full-time faculty members and 255 adjunct faculty members, Eddleman said. Of 221 full-time salaried workers — which include instructors in continuing education, workforce training and corporate service training, as well as operational, administrative and student support staff — 44 work in administration.

Scott, the chair of the board of regents, said the issues brought up by Flanagan, Turner and Wilson are all things the board has been working on for years.

Regents approved a five-year strategic plan in September 2019 that outlines goals to improve program completion, recruitment, academic preparedness and other areas. She said the school has more than 350 advisers of different types, and pointed out that administrators include advisers, student services personnel, financial aid staff and maintenance workers.

“To say that you want more advisors but then you want to cut administration positions is not consistent logic,” Scott said in an email.

As for the South campus, Scott said: “Some might have the opinion that it is not necessary, but the voters have decided.”

The current board has been focused on “empire building,” Wilson said, rather than “their main core purpose, which is student outcomes. I feel confident that if the three of us get elected, there are current members on the board who would be willing to work with us to make those changes.

“It’s a tremendous resource in the community. I just think we could do a better job of it.”

Other candidates

Nick Adame

Adame, a chiropractor, was first elected to the board of regents in 2008. He said his priorities as a regent are public health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic and implementation of the college’s five-year strategic plan, which the regents adopted in 2019. 

Access to the college remains restricted to essential employees and students in approved coursework, which mostly consists of industry and health care programs that need hands-on instruction. Adame said that though he is frequently asked when face-to-face instruction will expand, he is focused on the safety of all students and employees, and avoiding decisions that would hurt the college community. 

As for the strategic plan, Adame is particularly focused on improving the completion rate, which means increasing the number of students who earn degrees or certificates each year while decreasing the amount of time and number of credit hours that students attempt, and keeping tuition and fees affordable in part by exploring grant opportunities.

Richard Pittman

Pittman is an active principal for Bath Engineering Corp., which he joined in 1974. He is a board member and past board president for the local nonprofit Citizens for Educational Excellence, which he has been involved with since its inception in 2003. He was a member of the Flour Bluff ISD board of trustees for 20 years, including eight years as the president. If elected, he hopes to repurpose campus spaces that are not being efficiently used, he said. He also hopes to keep the school’s tax rate “as low as possible” while still giving students a superior education.

He believes a successful board consists of people who get along and give guidance and direction to the president while letting him do his job, without micromanaging. 

Carol Scott

Scott has been a regent at large since 2014 and is the current board chair. She has worked in public relations in Corpus Christi for 36 years. She is a past president or chair of the Corpus Christi ISD board of trustees, Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Corpus Christi, League of Women Voters and Texas Public Relations Association.

She said the issues she’s prioritizing as a regent are student success, growing the college’s enrollment, COVID-19 safety protocols, keeping the college affordable for both students and taxpayers, and implementing the college’s five-year strategic plan. About 78% of students attend part-time and are returning to retrain for new careers or finish a degree — an issue the board is “hyper focused on,” she said. The board has targeted strategies for advising in the strategic plan, including investing in technology, training and resources to help students complete their degrees faster and more efficiently. 

Guy Watts

Watts, a former attorney, served on the board of regents from 1988 to 2018, when he resigned to run for an at-large seat. The board censured him four times, meaning they leveled the highest form of disapproval against him, and launched a fifth investigation days before he resigned.

Watts is aiming to recruit what he calls “academic” students — meaning students from certain parts of town, including Calallen, Flour Bluff and Padre island — to the South campus. His other goals for that campus include ensuring each department prepares students well for four-year universities, hosting high school competitions on Saturdays to attract students, promoting physical fitness, expanding cultural programs such as debate and music, creating a faculty-assigned core curriculum of nonfiction books covering a variety of fields, and creating a Southside Academic Committee.

Vicky Camarillo covers education, immigration and other issues in South Texas. See our subscription options and special offers at Caller.com/subscribe.

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