For Pierce President Ara Aguiar, this past academic year was filled with challenges, most notably a budget deficit that is now projected to break even. Aguiar sat with the Roundup to reflect on recent achievements and challenges.
Roundup: What are some highlights or goals you met this semester?
Ara Aguiar: I think that one of the biggest goals that we met this semester was the fact that we were really able to analyze a lot of our programs, a lot of our budgets and we were able to braid some of the funding from categorical programs that were allowable for part of the projects, really look at each program, really analyze to make sure that we were balancing each budget, that we were really staying on task and really getting behind that whole idea of preparing ourselves for next year.
Next year is going to be more difficult, at least that’s what is being projected, and just overcoming the uncertainty of how the state financial situation is going to impact us. So it’s really looking at all these factors. Some of them are internal. Those are a lot easier to manage. It’s those external factors that may have an influence on us that make it uncertain. So working with the district, working with the other presidents, the other colleges, really having a team effort here, having a good team here that really can brainstorm and really tap into their experience and then the work of the the faculty, faculty union, the staff union and the staff so it’s getting the team to be understanding of the changes and being able to get a positive outcome.
We are now projecting more than likely, we’re going to break even so we’re not going to be in a deficit which has been the goal of the college, which is my primary responsibility. So having fulfilled that and then being able to work with the team to get that goal achieved has been the most significant because I can sit back and allow the faculty to take care of the students at this time because it’s so important that we’re fiscally stable so that we can continue to provide the kinds of services and needs that our students need.
Roundup: What are some goals you didn’t quite meet?
Aguiar: Some of our infrastructure really needs help. I wish we had more funds to be able to fix it. We will, I think it’s in the budget, but it’s going to be like two to three years from now. Also, shade structures for our students and more trees. We used to be a tree friendly campus. There’s awards that you get if you have a certain percentage based on the acreage—number of trees ratio to the acreage. We lost that a few years back, not a few but I would say maybe between seven and ten years ago, we lost many trees due to an infestation of some kind of beetle, and we lost a lot of trees, so with Rocky Young Park we were hoping that we could this year that we would be able to use some funds that we have allocated for Rocky Young Park.
We were hoping that we could fix it for our commencement this year and as you can see we’re having it in the stadium instead of Rocky Young Park and it’s because there’s a big project planned due to some large pipes that are underground right smack in the middle of the park. So to invest money in fixing it and then in a few months from now go back and destroy it to do some kind of work on those pipes would just not be the right thing to do with taxpayer dollars. I wouldn’t do it with my own dollars. It would just not be the right thing to do so we have to postpone it.
Roundup: What were some unexpected challenges faced this year?
Aguiar: By far bots because it creates so much chaos and also it adds so much time and effort on the college team to get rid of the bots. Fortunately the number of bots has drastically reduced. As a district we are implementing a lot of different steps and to try to overcome it. I think this is a challenge that everyone is experiencing and the state is trying to do it, all the other colleges are also dealing with it. The district has been working really hard on circumventing it, in terms of preventing it, trying to be proactive on authenticating and validating students.
Answers were edited for clarity.
