Jordan meets with legislators, pushes long-term initiatives
By Tim Esterdahl
testerda@mscd.edu
Metro President Stephen Jordan asked lawmakers on Tuesday to approve the $8 million budget that the Colorado Center for Higher Education board has recommended during a special meeting that outlined his goals.
Colorado lawmakers met with Jordan during the first "college caucus" in Metro history. These eight lawmakers were encouraged by Jordan to approve CCHE recommended funding as part of the $74 million budget created by Referendum C. Jordan also presented his goals for the future and what Metro is currently working on.
"This was a great way to have some representatives and legislators to get to know more about Metro during this important legislative session," said Cathy Lucas, Metro spokeswoman.
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Metro President Stephen Jordan met with Colorado senators and representatives to discuss his ideas about how to appropriate the $8 million budget the CCHE has received due to the passing of Referendum C in the statewide election last November.
Metro is currently under-funded by $18 million. When comparing budgets, the nearest 4-year college gets $8 million more in funding than Metro and Jordan wants to close that gap.
Jordan said he has several initiatives to meet his goal of becoming a preeminent urban college. These include increasing full-time tenure-track faculty members, working closer with the community and using the City College of New York as a model.
Jordan plans to increase the number of full-time faculty from 38 percent of the classes taught to 60 or 65 percent. This would allow the campus to have more accessible professors rather than having professors who work at several different colleges.
This would call for an increase of staffing beyond the initial 60 full-time tenure track faculty that are currently being hired and are already funded.
Another initiative is having marketing and Spanish students work with local businesses as they could help those businesses grow while providing real life learning experiences.
Jordan pointed to CCNY as a model to achieve his goal as it has a national reputation for serving its community and turning out nine Nobel laureates despite having the lowest admission standards and tuition in the state. The CCNY is also an urban college that serves a diverse population.
This caucus is the first of several planned to be held monthly throughout the legislative session.