MHCC interim president faces financial aid and budget challenges

Michael Hay had barely begun his term as interim president of Mt. Hood Community College this summer before facing his first major challenge: dealing with problems in the distribution of financial aid.

Students were having to wait longer than usual for funds. Hay said it was “definitely a challenge” but that the college has improved the system significantly since the problems arose.

To address the problem, Hay said the Financial Aid Office added more full-time and part-time employees and borrowed workers from other departments to meet the need. He also said financial aid still has a ways to go.

Hay did say that timely submission of materials by students is critical and those who applied on time got their aid on time, with some exceptions.
Asked how the rest of his summer has been in his new position, Hay said the summer term, when some believe the campus turns into a ghost town, was actually a very lively time for Mt. Hood. With 8,000-plus students on campus, he said it provided a good start in his new position.

And, according to Hay, as of the first Monday of fall classes there was about 11,500 students registered. Hay said this is about dead even with last years enrollment, and in fact we are up 1.3 percent in full time equivalent students.
This is contrary to projections of the board last year which stated enrollment would be down.

Regarding the operation of on-campus services, Hay said his background in retail gives him a dislike for lines. He said the bookstore is much more tolerable this year and if lines are moving, people are more likely to be happy than if they are at a standstill.

His aspirations have not been limited to recovering from blunders of past leaders.

Hay said he chooses not to look into the past to see what needs to be fixed but would rather look ahead to see what can be achieved.
He said he would like his talent pool — college faculty and staff — to help him reach individual students and help them achieve their aspirations.
Hay said, “I want the college to be student-centric and I appreciate all the students who have decided to attend MHCC, because I know they could have gone somewhere else.”

His goals for education are to cater to student expectations and specific needs for future employment.

He said the college needs to look ahead and think about the future of their programs, such as organizational health, and consider all of the room for improvement in the quickly evolving fields.

“Students can now expect to hold anywhere from seven to nine careers in their lifetime,” said Hay, “and MHCC needs to carry relevant programs that resonate with today and tomorrow. Today is a much more transient world and the college should be catering to that.”

Hay said it is important to come up with new products for the customers, the students, and add new twists on already existing products.
He wants to focus on efficient expansion and contraction: expansion of programs that are working and contraction of programs that are not yielding desired effects.

Hay also mentioned types of cutting edge programs he would like to see on campus. He said he is excited of the indicated direction that health informatics and the gaming program project for the college.

Hay said it is more than just the cool factor that they give but also the progressive aspect that he appreciates
He said he understands budget limitations and went into detail about the challenges faced by the college caused by legislative changes in fund disbursement to public educational institutions. Hay said the old method paid community colleges based on enrollment but newly implemented laws will be result-based.

He said according to new laws, the state will change the education funding criteria.
Now eligibility for funds will require the college to increase completion of degrees to 50 percent, Hay said. He also said this has caused him to push staff to create plans with students on how to plot a path to success.

The new requirements are based on economic good for Oregon, which includes employment rate, Hay said. He said the reasoning for this is to prove that students are getting degrees and then getting jobs where employers appreciate their work.

The second requirement, Hay said, is community interface, which has not been defined how it will be measured but will include how many registered voters in the immediate area there are. It also includes the crime rate of the area and how active the community is in outreach and public aid.
Hay said this system would drastically change the percentage of state funding the college receives each year.

After Hay talked about the budget woes of the college, he said that working at MHCC has been great and it has been a positive change in his life and is a pretty noble profession. He said his job has been engaging and has made him felt connected and involved with the community.
Concerning hiring a permanent president, Hay said the district board will make definitive hiring criteria available by late October or early November and it will then begin the hiring process.
Hay said he intends to apply for the position.

The position was opened up by the departure of former college president John Sygielski, who decided to step down last year after three years on the job. Sygielski now holds a similar post in Harrisburg, Penn.
Hay was selected as his temporary replacement.

Hay has been at the college for three years and that helped him apply for the temporary position.
Hay previously served as the vice president of technology but before heading to MHCC he worked two jobs in the same field, working for three years with Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco as executive of client and platform engineering. Before working for Kaiser Hay was the senior director of network infrastructures at Gap, Inc.

Hay graduated from the University of Southern California and before that was a community college graduate in Santa Barbara, Calif.