An Interview with Dr. Deborah “Sunny” Schmitt and Galen Hench

Interim President and Interim Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs
River Valley Community College (Claremont, New Hampshire)
August 2017 – June 2018

“What I’ve learned is to expect surprises. Expect that when you get into an organization it’s not going to be exactly how they portrayed themselves to be when you interviewed. I think they were trying to be honest. They want to put their most positive spin on things.”

Hench: What do you believe are some of the most significant challenges facing community colleges today? How were those challenges manifest at River Valley Community College?

Schmitt: For at least the last four years, River Valley Community College has seen a decline in its enrollment. I was trying to hold the line on that and so I hired a new marketing director and three new recruiting specialists. They met regularly to strategize on how to deal with the declining enrollment across our three distinct campus communities.

There were several contributing factors. There are fewer high school students and the graduating high school class sizes are smaller. Often, students and parents either don’t know the value of a community college education or they have misperceptions about the academic quality. We were battling that just as many other community colleges are throughout the country. Getting traditional high school students to come to a community college was difficult and challenging and one of those things that we were addressing on a regular basis.

Another challenge was that local workers didn’t see that community college was necessary for them to get promoted within their organization. Eventually, I think it became evident to these individuals that that if they wanted to move up further they needed more education. Nontraditional students would come to us and say, “I need more certifications” or “I don’t really like the job I’m in and I want to try something different.” But that took a while. That is a slowly evolving mindset. 

At River Valley Community College, we also have the largest number of allied health programs in the state of New Hampshire. That was one of our real strengths that we could use to attract students. Our campus offered everything from physical therapy to occupational therapy to medical assistance. River Valley has a nursing program, which had a waiting list. That program is offered on two different campuses and both classes were full all of the time.

One of the challenges with allied health programs is finding enough clinical placements. Finding enough clinical placement sites for programs that you would like to grow is a common challenge in career and technical education; finding viable sites for students so that they can get that real-life experience before they graduate. This is absolutely necessary and often required by the accrediting bodies for each of these programs.

Hench: As the interim President and Vice President for Academic & Student Affairs, how did you address some of these challenges?

Schmitt: Well, certainly as the Provost I was strongest on the academic affairs side of the house. I knew that from the start. There were a lot of things that needed attending to including curriculum changes and preparing for a NEASC accreditation visit. That was very high on the list. And working with faculty on program changes as well as curriculum changes was another big one.

When I met with the faculty it felt like they needed somebody who was willing to work with them side by side, to do some of the hard work that they needed. I was very comfortable in that role because I had done that before. I enjoy working with the faculty and so we started to meet regularly. In addition to the regular monthly standing meeting we added additional working sessions every other Friday. Those Friday sessions were spent tackling critical issues. We revised the faculty handbook, we revised the course catalog, and we updated the program syllabus templates. It took quite a bit of time to get all of that done.  

Hench: Was it easier for you to address these challenges because you were an interim?

Schmitt: You know, I didn’t dwell too much on being an interim. I didn’t feel like it was a roadblock for me to tackle these issues with the faculty, with the department chairs, and with the local businesses and industry. I felt like I had a lot of respect and buy-in from the institution and from the Chancellor of the system. I didn’t feel like they were saying “Oh, just fill the position for now and don’t worry about this or that. Somebody else will do that once we have a permanent president.” I never got that feeling.

There was only one situation in which I did not feel like I could be effective initially. I had a senior adviser from within the system who was assigned to help me. We worked very closely together on campus about one or two days a week. At first, that was awkward for me; I had to learn to work with her. Once she came to trust both my level of experience and my decision-making capabilities we were able to find our sweet spot in working together.

Hench: What’s something that most surprised you about this interim assignment? 

Schmitt:  I was integrated into the President’s leadership group in the system. I attended monthly meetings with all the other campus presidents and with the Chancellor and I was pleasantly surprised that I was included in all those discussions and that I was welcomed at the table. I found that my opinion did matter.

Hench: What advice could you offer to somebody who was in similar shoes now is kind of where you were about what it takes to succeed in these interim assignments?

Schmitt: What I’ve learned is to expect surprises. Expect that when you get into an organization it’s not going to be exactly how they portrayed themselves to be when you interviewed. I think they were trying to be honest. They want to put their most positive spin on things. But I also think, from their side, you don’t want to give people who are interviewing a negative impression of your institution.

Ask a lot of questions, try to determine the organizational structure. Definitely ask to see that organizational chart! Does it look like it’s going to work, you know? And where is it not? I think it’s really vital how the organization is structured and whether or not you can get some real work done in that environment. It may not be your traditional structure; River Valley had a very flat model. I think that’s becoming more common everywhere because of budget challenges.