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Hocking President Says School Meets Commission Requirements
By: WOUB Staff Writer
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The president of Hocking College says the school is not in accreditation trouble, despite receiving deficient ratings in three of five areas by the Higher Learning Commission.
President Ron Erickson says in the recent review, Hocking met all requirements, but leaders were given areas to address.
Those areas include having a healthy financial reserve and improving governance practices.
Erickson says the governance issue stems from conflict between his office and the Board of Trustees last year in which he was fired and then re-hired. Two trustees resigned over the reinstatement.
But he says that conflict is now in the past. "The board and I just went through policy governance training just last week, in fact, which was facilitated by the Association of Community College trustees. We had a wonderful workshop with them and we're off to a very good start," said Erickson.
Erickson says the college has struggled for nearly 10 years to achieve a healthy financial reserve.
Enrollment is down nearly nine percent drop and the school is facing a budget shortfall. "We're currently projecting a loss of $2.9 million, but we think we'll be able to weather that storm quite nicely with a number of actions we can take to streamline our operations and become more efficient," said Erickson. Committees are meeting to address the shortfall and anticipated drop in state funding, he said.
Erickson says the drop in enrollment is not uncommon in Ohio public colleges in the current economy. He was a guest on WOUB-TV's Newswatch program Thursday night.