Board Comments and creating advocacy. Here are a few of the comments at past Board Meetings. This is a two minute opportunity to voice concern and let your voices be heard.
Comment by Michael Greene 7.08.26
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I am not here tonight to advocate for my own salary. I am fortunate that retirement income allows me to continue serving as the EMS Program Director and Assistant Professor at Central Oregon Community College. Instead, I am here to speak on behalf of the current and future faculty who will carry this institution forward.
Career and Technical Education programs depend on instructors with extensive real-world experience. They are not simply teachers—they are seasoned professionals who prepare the next generation of firefighters, paramedics, nurses, mechanics, and other skilled professionals our communities rely upon every day.
My concern is succession.
Our Lead Paramedic faculty member will retire this coming academic year. Like me, he has been able to serve because he also receives a public safety retirement. We have both been fortunate to have financial resources that make these positions feasible. We cannot assume that the next generation of highly qualified professionals will be in the same position.
The reality is that many mid-career industry experts face a significant financial disincentive to enter higher education. In many Career and Technical Education fields, professionals can earn substantially more in industry than they can as beginning faculty members. Asking someone to accept a significant reduction in income to teach is simply not sustainable.
In fact, approximately five years ago, a salary survey found that an entry-level registered nurse at St. Charles Health System earned roughly 30% more than an entry-level nursing professor at COCC. That economic reality has not been unique to nursing. Similar disparities exist in Emergency Medical Services and Fire Science, where experienced professionals are often asked to accept significantly lower compensation in order to teach. As a result, we make it increasingly difficult to recruit the very people with the current knowledge, experience, and credibility that our students deserve.
When experienced faculty leave after only a few years, the college loses much more than an employee. It loses institutional knowledge, community relationships, program continuity, and the significant investment required to recruit, mentor, and develop new faculty. High turnover is expensive, disruptive, and ultimately affects our students.
I see this challenge firsthand. One of my colleagues is exactly the type of educator every college hopes to recruit—a respected, mid-career professional who has elevated the quality of education and strengthened our reputation with local employers in just two years. Yet despite working year-round for the college and raising a young family in a two-income household, they still need a second job to make ends meet.
That should concern all of us.
A premier community college should not rely on retirement pensions or second jobs to attract and retain the professionals who educate our workforce.
I respectfully ask you to support a contract that provides a truly livable wage for faculty—not for those of us nearing the end of our careers, but for those who will lead this college for the next twenty or thirty years. Investing in faculty is an investment in students, in our community, and in the future of Central Oregon Community College.
Thank you for your time and your thoughtful consideration.
BRIAN KEECHLE 06/10/26
Members of the Board, I regret that a professional commitment prevents me from joining you in person. As a faculty member entering my third year at COCC—and with over a decade of experience in higher education across Oregon—I chose this institution because I believe in its mission.
My team and I have spent the last two years rebuilding the Manufacturing Technology program from the ground up. We inherited a program lacking structure and industry confidence, and we have worked tirelessly to navigate regulatory hurdles and establish systems that ensure our program’s survival. We do this because we care about our students, but our current working conditions are unsustainable.
I want to highlight three critical areas of concern:
First, the Probationary Period. We are currently subject to a five-year probation. This is an excessive timeline that relies on archaic paperwork and subjective peer reviews rather than objective performance metrics. It creates a climate of instability that prevents us from focusing entirely on student success.
Second, Intellectual Property. As skilled tradespeople, the curriculum we develop is the physical manifestation of our professional experience. Conditioning our continued employment on the surrender of our intellectual property is not just a policy disagreement; it is a fundamental act of disrespect that devalues our expertise and our contributions to this college.
Finally, the nature of these negotiations. We have seen how previous faculty were forced out by burnout and lack of support. The current proposals—which focus on control rather than partnership—suggest a power dynamic that alienates the very people tasked with student outcomes. This is not just a compensation issue; it is about whether this college views its faculty as valued professionals or mere placeholders.
You have a team of dedicated, talented faculty standing before you today. We invest our bodies and souls into our students. We are simply asking: will COCC invest in us with the same level of commitment?
The current path is leading to the same attrition we have seen in the past. We have the opportunity to change that legacy. I urge the Board to steer these negotiations toward a model of mutual respect and long-term stability. Thank you for your time."
KRISTIN DORSEY 06/10/26
I am Kristin Dorsey, a Humanities faculty member, current chair, as well as the faculty lead for our teaching and learning center, CAFE. I am also the most tenured full time faculty member based on a northern campus (Redmond). The joy of this, for me, has been serving the community in which I live. I live in a multigenerational home with my parents and school-aged children just outside of Redmond proper. I order coffee from my students, see them at the grocery store, and run into them at community events.
There are also special challenges to this job. While a lot of people who work on the Bend campus complain about having to occasionally come to one of the northern campuses, I often am driving into Bend several times a week, even when I'm not teaching there. Faculty meetings, committee meetings, trainings are all held more often on the Bend campus (if not exclusively). Post-COVID, I sometimes have the opportunity to attend by Zoom. More often, I'm just expected to be on the Bend campus regardless of where I am teaching. There are relatively strict rules about mileage reimbursements, so most of these trips I am financially responsible for. Trips to Bend from home take about 30 minutes, and trips between Bend and Redmond campuses about 25 (depending on traffic), so there is a huge time cost as well.
I feel responsible for being in the room during college-wide conversations as much as possible. If I'm not, I often find out afterwards that decisions have been made without taking into account faculty or students at the northern campuses. Ask any of my colleagues--I'm the one in the room constantly asking, "what is the plan for R, P, M?" Every time I make this sort of effort, it takes time away from my primary assignment, but to not do so often leaves the northern campuses without representation.
While working on the Redmond campus, I wear many hats. Since we have fewer student services on campus, I find myself doing extra advising, helping students connect to financial aid, registration, counseling, e-learning. Sometimes I'm the only person in my building, and grading gets interrupted by students looking for classrooms, deliveries needing to be signed for, prospective families needing to be greeted and directed. i'm often in my classroom after teaching, helping the part time instructor who comes in after me navigate the room tech. Everyone who works in Redmond does all of this--the ability to work alongside other faculty, the campus director, student services, and administrative assistants is something I love. But these things take time--time that I otherwise would be using for prep or grading.
Finally, in order to connect to my colleagues, I usually have to go to them. This means coming to Bend for our department meetings, Forum meetings and social, department happy hours, retirement parties. I often have to choose between driving an hour (roundtrip), spending the money on gas to be collegial or missing these important opportunities. The ability to check in with other faculty is important to my job--not just a pleasure. So much important work, so many important decisions get made during social events.
Thank you for allowing me to address the experience of faculty at the northern campuses. I wouldn't trade my experiences in Redmond for anything, but they come at a cost to me personally and to my family. The extra time often impacts family time--for instance, grading that didn't happen during the day gets done in the evening instead. Supporting the northern campuses appropriately means understanding the special needs of the faculty working at those campuses and supporting those faculty fully.