TORRINGTON – The Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) Board of Trustees met Tuesday evening, promptly at 5:45 p.m. for the required monthly meeting to discuss current and future business relations of the college.

The meeting began with the honorable recognition of EWC’s Outreach Program, by Vice President of the Douglas campus, Dr. Margaret Farley. Introduced to the Board by Dr. Farley were outreach coordinators Tamera Stenson, Katie Thomas, Brandy Donner and Kim Conzelman.

Present at the meeting was EWC President, Dr. Jeff Hawes, who spoke with high acknowledgement and praise of the Outreach coordinators. Dr. Hawes noted due to the incredible work of each coordinator, a precedent has been set for future positions, and one EWC is adamant about having more of.

“As for the policies and things we’ve expanded on at the college, we are trying to figure out how to better serve our high school faculties, and not complicate the jobs of these individuals,” Hawes began. “We were at 13, and now we are down to four. We haven’t reduced the number of districts, but I have been meeting with superintendents. They all have had to take on some extra challenging roles and gleam that information to better serve what they do so we may continue to expand opportunities. Even though additional work is required, we may have to find certain support to make it even better, whether its technology or staffing. How do we forge strength in these relationships? I am very confident we are going to come back with how we better help serve that with financial resources, as well as coming up with plans for the future.”

The meeting continued with the presentation of the President’s Report. Dr. Hawes continued advocating before the board and all in attendance, the crucial notion of building strong foundational relationships with other colleges and high schools. Having just returned from two weeks of participating in various college conferences nationwide, Hawes further noted having these relationships will bring long term benefits, security and resources for all included.

“There are things I would like to share,” Dr. Hawes continued. “There are a lot of resources and there are updates I would like to share from the conferences. The Board’s support of helping me serve on that will bring dividends to this organization. In many respects, it’s a change to make sure we are staying on the forefront, and the Board supporting us in doing that will bring value back to this district. On this report, I’m actually going to defer that there are over two million dollars in these proposals. Last week our college received a lot of phone calls from other institutions, and I talked to a number of companies. With what I came across I immediately made a referral that has been an intensive process for months, and something that institutions can be available for.”

EWC Vice President of Administration, Patrick Korell, commented in concurrence with Dr. Hawes. Korell further noted the extreme importance of proper organizational budgeting practices are in compliance with both state and federal regulations; most notably when it comes to crisis situations like Covid and technological attacks.

“We brought the jurisdiction to the state of Wyoming and have built in some protections,” Korell said. “In the end once they’ve submitted a product, the engagement fees ranged by most companies are substantial. It was very important that we had the accountant from this firm sign off on the paperwork, as well as our organization and the accounting firm, Employee Retention Credits (ERC). There was a period where people who cheated the IRS were able to pay without penalty and just walk away from the transaction, or withdrew their applications. You can have a direct or financial impact whether you retain or devote area resources, and keep your campus open which we were able to document.

“It’s been a fairly exhaustive process,” Korell continued. “But our accountants were able to ask questions and really concentrate on whether the Board of Trustees is a governmental authority. I’m not an attorney or judge anymore, but it is absolutely clear that you are a governmental organization that has governmental functions and designation. The last kicker I think that’s important, is making sure that our first quarter is very well documented. We were not only near our internal order, but the state said these orders were effectively done.”

The meeting proceeded to conclude with the discussion of updating various EWC staffing policies, as well as food service concerns for international and military students during breaks and holidays. Information security, auxiliary services, accessibility, security training, and visitor use of institutional resources were all on the table for further discussion and motioning.

“These are not meant to be scare tactics, it’s for only college intended purposes,” Dr. Hawes said.

Starting with the info security policy, Dr. Hawes further stated, “This is one that is much more critical at this point, because this is a finding. The role of the info security is supporting the college admission, while fostering anything that may compromise the integrity of institutional resources. Several of these policies will be put under the leadership of our Chief Information Officer, which makes sure we are compliant.

“Anything electronic such as digital canvas library resources in our organization have to meet those accessibility clauses, and there is a lot to this,” Dr. Hawes continued. “With security training, every employee has to do this moving forward. We can’t escape it, and we all touch the same data. This security awareness does all that on the security front, and this recognizes that the Board is being compliant. How we give access to files and ID systems will be under consultation with our contractors.

“With auxiliary services, the question is where do we want to employ those resources? Do we want to subsidize those auxiliary services? This is not a very easy thing to do here. By raising the food service fee, it will not impact students on institutional scholarships. You could double the food prices, but we are going to double what we commit to in that area. It will impact those that are paying out of pocket for that education. The student whose paying out of pocket is the evaluation I look at. Running auxiliary services means the Board may say we want to keep it there, and that’s a fair assessment. I’m not going to say what my recommendation would be. It could be close, as the Board says we might need some more information. There are still questions we need answered. With food service and when it comes to the board, where is your interest? We are making that commitment. Do we want to do it in the budget? If the Board wants to commit state aid to subsidize the food service, that’s where I think we are going to have to answer. Do we have to feed students over Thanksgiving and Christmas? I’m happy to do it. We’ve seen an improvement with some of the services over the last few months, and at the same token we are going to meet the needs of our students.”

The meeting was adjourned at 8:14 p.m. and will reconvene on November 14.

For further questions or information regarding EWC, feel free to call 307-532-8200, or visit www.ewc.edu.