In many ways, the long work of Association members and Executive Director Mihlbauer to build a unified voice and positive working relationships reached a new level as the 1990’s gave way to the new decade and millennium.  “I really felt we could take a leadership role to build new partnerships because of the solid base the members and staff had worked so hard to create,” Paul Gabriel reflected.  “I didn’t take the partnerships for granted.  However, I couldn’t have taken them for granted anyway, because veteran members kept reminding me it wasn’t always this way.”

Building a Curriculum for Board Members

Formalizing a trustee curriculum and establishing a new assistant director for member learning position at the Association have been major drivers of change in the early 2000’s.  The Association’s commitment to design a curriculum - a “DACUM” process - in December, 1999, focused trustee programs more on the specific “competencies” reflecting trustee excellence.  Led by WIDS, the Wisconsin (now Worldwide) Instructional Development System of the WTCS foundation, the Association identified the characteristics, duties and tasks representing excellence in trusteeship.

Partnering with WIDS helped the Association members “walk the walk” of technical college curriculum design, as well as better informing trustee programs through measurable skills and competencies.  This work continues to guide Association learning programs and led to invitations to present on the Association’s experience at ACCT regional and national trustee conventions in 2000 and 2001.  Perhaps most important, the WIDS/DACUM process helped broaden Association programming from the sharing of pertinent information, which the Association members said the organization had always done well, to include more programming to build trustee skills.

And Then There Were Three

The development and implementation of an assistant director position focusing on member learning and communication took the Association to a new level of capability.  In spring, 2000, Association President Linda Christman, MATC-Madison, created an ad hoc committee on Association activities and staff resources.  It assessed the allocation of current staff to major activities, the ability to meet the Association’s mission and vision given those resources, and the need for change, if any, to the mix of activities and staffing.  Led by Past President Bob Beaver, Mid-State, the committee concluded that the Association needed to invest in its member learning and communication efforts while also increasing the amount of time the executive director spent coordinating lobbying and advocacy efforts on the system’s behalf.

In spring, 2001, the member boards made a major new commitment to the Association by authorizing creation of an assistant director position for member learning and communications.  The position became a reality with the hiring of Steve Tenpas.  Steve came to the Association from the UW Hospital and Clinics in Madison, where he served as training manager.  Paul Gabriel has noted that

2000’s – The Partnership Years