Penny Wills
President, Northeast Iowa community college
By BRIAN COOPER
TH executive editor
Penny Wills is looking for partners.

The new president of Northeast Iowa Community College, Wills seeks partnerships with business, with other educational organizations and with communities.

Wills, who once dreamed of being an astronaut, today considers partnerships as key to helping the college attain new heights.

She recently discussed those and other goals with the Telegraph Herald. Here are highlights of the conversation.

TH: Did you find NICC or did NICC find you?
PW: Oh, they found me. I feel so fortunate that they did find me. I was recruited from Oregon to Georgia. I was there for seven years. Excited about that. Then I got a call from the search firm about this position.
Penelope H. 'Penny' Wills Age: 52
Occupation: President, Northeast Iowa Community College. Previously vice president for student development of Floyd College, Rome. Ga.
Family: Wife of Ron Wills. Daughter of Frank and Connie Collier Hornschemeier (both deceased).
Hometown: Cincinnati.
Education: Doctorate in administration in higher education, Michigan State University. Master of Science in counseling, Miami University of Ohio. Bachelor of science in elementary education, University of Cincinnati. Graduate of McNicholas High School, Cincinnati.
Professional associations: Association of American Community
Colleges; Society for College and University Planning; National Association for Student Personnel Administrators.
Community leadership: New member, Greater Dubuque Development Corp.
Hobbies: Reading, tennis, travel, her dogs, baking.
I was very happy in Georgia, but also was ready to go ahead and I didn't realize how much I was up for a challenge, a real positive one. To be able to join Northeast Iowa, that is a dream come true.

TH: What do you consider to be the primary challenges you have coming in as a new president?
PW: It's one thing if something is broken. You can look really great quickly. Nothing's broken at NICC. The challenge is to take that institution and now take it to the next step. I'm fortunate to see that they have done some very good work on their accreditation standards. Accreditation has never been questioned at NICC.

TH: What are the biggest challenges for you personally?
PW: I think trying to be everywhere at all times. In my heart, I'm an educator. I've always been an educator. Except for the time I wanted to be an astronaut. I would love to have that dialog with the faculty and with the staff and be internal to the college and foster that. Yeah, that's the role of the college president, but it's only one part of that.

The other part is I'm the public face of the college, and I've got to be out and about. I love it, I enjoy it a lot, but how to go ahead and be out there and be open and available and approachable to a whole range of people. And everybody in the community to be able to tell me what you want.

TH: Was education something you always were interested in entering, or did you have a little curve in the career path?
PW: I'm very much a traditional career path with education. I was thinking you might ask is that something I always wanted to do. Yes and no. Yes, I wanted to be an educator because the good nuns (at school) told me I could be one of three things: a teacher, a nun or a nurse. I can't handle blood. I'm very happily married, so that eliminated another option. And so I focused on education.

Early on, when I was young - really young - I wanted to be an astronaut. I had everything in fact, I probably had the archives of different mailing and press kits from NASA. But when I realized you had to have 20/20 vision at that time ... That was such a disappointment. My mother said, "No, you be the best at any profession; you can do it." So then I got into education.

TH: In those days, a space launch was a big deal.
PW: Yeah, oh, it was. It was. What an inspiration to our generation that that happened. You thought you could do anything. It wasn't only the work ethic, but the dreams that went along with it. You put that with JFK times, etc. What a wonderful time. I just feel real fortunate to have grown up during that time. Also to have a mother that was ahead of her time. She just believed in women and that you could do anything you wanted to.

TH: What high school did you attend?
PW: McNicholas High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the only co-ed Catholic high school in Cincinnati. We made Sports Illustrated for losing all athletic contests for two consecutive years in baseball, basketball and football.

TH: Every single one?
PW: Every single one. A pep rally was just a real joy at our school.

TH: Wow, that's impressive. What line of work was your father in?
PW: My father was building superintendent of Bill Ford Publications in Cincinnati, Ohio, for that plant there. He was there for 27 years, I believe. My mother graduated from high school as valedictorian of her class. Dad never graduated from high school.

He always was very proud of us, all of his daughters, but he never really understood what I did. I still remember the time when I told him I was going to become vice president for student development at a college in Georgia. He said, "I know about the vice president, so I hope I raised you better than this." He said, "Remember who works there and remember the people, all of your staff." And that's always stayed with me. What a work ethic he had.

TH: You have two main campuses about 100 miles apart and all these satellite offices. We're really not talking about "the" community but many communities.
PW: Many communities.

TH: And how do you manage that?
PW: Well if I figure that out, I'll tell you. It is so critical that the person has to enjoy their job, believe in it and have the passion. If it isn't, you'll die in this job.

One of the things that I try to do is make a commitment that I was going to be in this community every week no matter what.

TH: You mean the Dubuque community?
PW: The Dubuque community. And I've been able to meet that. But now, what I want to do is go ahead and set a specific couple of days every week that I'm here. Because I've got to know what the pulse is.

I want to know what it's like to shop here. I want to know what it's like to go to the symphony. I want to know what it's like to go and be a part of the United Way operation. I want to know what the needs of this community are. I think you have to be a part of this community.

I don't want Dubuque or Calmar to ever feel that I'm just this white car that goes into the community and back out. So one of things I'm planning to do is get a small apartment down here so that my husband and I and our two dogs come down and spent the night and spend the weekend here. I've got to earn the trust and the confidence of this community.

TH: You have talked about the partnership issue. What partnerships do you see potentially that help move NICC to the next level?
PW: Just today I had a meeting with the Dubuque superintendent and his associate superintendent. That was wonderful. I know what their need is with the school downtown, the elementary school. They want to work with us. We've got a wonderful early childhood program. They want to go ahead and be able to partner and get different community partners together.

We have other things. Waukon and Guttenberg already are two of the most recent communities who have asked us to develop a center. We already have one in Oelwein, Cresco, New Hampton and Manchester. We have our centers, and obviously one right here and one next door (in downtown Dubuque), trying to serve our communities.

Again, how do we partner? Many of those centers are also one-stop shops. We're working with Iowa Workforce Development, etc., to go ahead and come together with things.

NECAS, the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety, is right in Peosta. One of its kind. It's a wonderful thing to be able to look at that and go pro-active on agricultural safety.

At Calmar, we have the dairy center which is a partnership with the foundation, Iowa State University Extension and NICC. That is the best dairy in the tri-state area. We have over 90 students there. Iowa State had 40, the last I heard, in their whole dairy program. We've got 90.

TH: You've spoken about "engagement." Is that part of your management style?
PW: Yes. I think our society gets so much into meeting mode. It's pretty sad when we look at technology, and I love technology, but there's that phrase that I learned about five years ago and I realize I'm a victim of it: "interruption driven." When you're on the computer, etc., what gets your attention? You've got to be interrupted.

TH: "You've got mail."
PW: Yeah, flashing lights. I think it just adds to more and more of this meeting mode that we're in. We're forgetting about having conversations.

There are individuals that I'm sure you've met that are looking at you and talking to you, but they're seeing who else is in the room. That's not even gracious. That's disrespectful. What have you just told that person? You don't count.

You go ahead and engage the person because you genuinely mean it. You don't know what they need, what they're trying to tell you.

I learned that early on when I was working with a student on an emergency loan. She walked in and I almost played tape No. 56 of, "OK, let's be responsible and pay this back because other students are depending on the money, ta da ta da ta da," and she said, "Excuse ma'am, is that all you're going to say? I need to get going." I said, "No, no, no, you need to tell me more." She said, "My granddaughter's in the car right now and I need to get going." I said, "Excuse me? I don't mean to ask a private question, but you look about 22, 23 years old and you have a granddaughter?" "Yeah, so?" And I thought, "Shoot, I wasn't listening." Here's a woman who has lived how many lifetimes now and she's only 23 years old. She could probably tell me some things about responsibility. No, I was going to go on my lecturette No. 56 and talk to her about being responsible. I stopped the whole conversation and said, "Will you give me permission to back up?" It stayed with me to listen to people, see what they're saying.

It's amazing what information you can get. To me, that's just so critical.

TH: How would you describe yourself as a supervisor?
PW: From feedback I've received from people and from just observing families, etc., I think energy, high energy level. Not oppressive as far as, "OK, yeah, she's in her own world, there she goes." Somebody who uses her background to her advantage in a positive way.

What I mean by that is, the counseling degree I have is the reason why I'm not doing counseling anymore. I think they threw me out of the field. I was a little bit too direct about some things. But to be able to have those listening skills. And try to get people to the table.

I'm the first to admit, I am not the most educated, intelligent person at NICC, but I do know how to get people around the table and people around me to go ahead and work together.

I'm pretty good on detail, yet at the same time, I'm also really good on looking at conceptual things. I love to see possibilities and say, "Oh, what about it? Why not?"

TH: Let's talk about money. Funding for community colleges consistently lags behind the regents institutions. Meanwhile, enrollment and programming is increasing at community colleges at a much faster rate than the regent schools. Is the legislature hearing your message?
PW: I think the legislature is trying to be as responsive as they can at this point in time. I think this next year is the year that they are really going to have to come to grips with it. First of all, our role, we caused some of the problem. We were approaching the legislators as 15 different colleges. Well, who are they responsive to? If you had 15 different people contacting you about this, as opposed to a united group contacting you, which one can you go ahead and divide and conquer and not deal with? Well, in the last two or three years, we have now come together as the 15 community colleges. Everyone that goes down there has one sheet with our agenda on it with what we need as the 15 community colleges. So each legislator is hearing it time and time and time again.

Now, knowing what the general fund looks like, there are only so many ways you can split the pie. I don't want to take anything away from the regents institutions or K-12, but who has the increase in enrollment? It's not K-12, typically, and it's not the regents. The regents all reported a decrease in enrollment. We didn't. And NICC is typically at the top or right at the top of the fastest- growing colleges here in the state. So when you don't have that portion, where can we move to?

By state law, we can't increase the millage, etc. Can't go that direction. OK. The legislature is not going to go ahead and carve out any more from state support. Well, you look right at tuition. That bothers me so much. I just saw the data and the pie charts. In Fiscal 1990, state general aid represented 49 percent of community college's revenue; in 2003, it was decreased to 39 percent. During the same period, tuition and fees went from 33 to 45 percent. Also, state law does not presently allow us to ask voters to increase our local tax base, and because of a decrease in property values, this amount has decreased from 8 percent to 5.8 percent over the same time period.

So you can see that the burden of financing our future is on the student who, in our case, is probably the least able to afford such increases. That's why they are going to school - to be able to increase their wages and strengthen our economy.

TH: What are the possibilities with NICC? What do you see five years from now or 10 years from now?
PW: Five years from now, I want us known nationally for the excellence in education. People don't know us. Some people in Iowa know us. That's great. Now, one might say, "Isn't Iowa enough?" Oh, as far as accountability, yes. But I want to get the best faculty and the best staff here. Some of them may not be here yet. Some of them may be here and we're actually educating them right now.

And we're doing some darn good things at NICC that the rest of the nation needs to know about. And we're not sharing it. So how do we get that out there?

We've got to get out and learn some things; you get a reciprocity thing. You give; others give, and you learn from each other.

The other thing, as I said, is the partnerships. You'll see more and more of those. We're looking at corporations, etc. And I love this term that I heard here. We're going to create some communities.

There's agencies or there's groupings of businesses that are together. Take all the publishing firms we have here. I didn't realize we had that many publishing firms. Do they get around and talk to each other? Let's create a community forum to talk to each other.

TH: Many times whenever I speak with someone in an interview like this, we talk about quality. I am reminded of that Garrison Keillor quote about Lake Woebegone, where, "all the children are above average."
PW: I know, I love it, yes.

TH: In looking at the academic record of NICC, where do you feel that it honestly fits at this point and where
PW: Where do we need to go? I think we have nothing to be ashamed of by any means. We're way past being pleased with where we are. We have a quality product. Can we improve? Yes. We can definitely improve. That scares me if anybody would say, "Oh, no, we're the best. Trust us." No, we're not.

Having said that, I would say NICC is very good, strong programs, but I would give it about a 75 now on a 100-point scale. The reason being is our faculty and staff have responded so well to the ever- increasing enrollment that they haven't taken time for themselves. Our new faculty and staff have been able to come in and shore us up, but are we doing anything to nurture them and to continue their own professional development? We need to do a much better job of that and we are doing that.

I think in about two years, we're going to be in the high 80 percentiles. Because the staff is eager for it. That's a wonderful situation to be in because sometimes you can get into college and people don't really want to learn a darn thing. They're very comfortable.

TH: Is an athletic program a consideration for NICC?
PW: I think it is in the future. Why I say that is I think athletics play a definite role. For years early, early, early on, community colleges weren't a part of it. Now they are. Many of them have it.

Is it in the next couple of years? Probably not, because we need to get the rest of the infrastructure in place. I do not like to just say, "Come to NICC, but we're not going to support your education." Just bring the numbers in. No, I'm just as concerned about retention. And as you mention, with quality and excellence. That comes as a whole package.

TH: What do you like to do when you aren't president of NICC?
PW: One of the things I love to do is cook and bake. My husband is an excellent chef and he loves to cook. So one of the requirements in our house is a big kitchen. And we got it. Oh, I love it. I love to be in there. I love to create.

I got into baking my own homemade dog biscuits. So my dogs are very well-loved and taken care of.

I like to play tennis. I have not done it for the last year because I broke my foot in November a year ago. Reading is what I really love to do as well. Those are some of the things.

TH: You and Ron have been married for more than 20 years. Where did you meet?
PW: New Mexico.

TH: At school?
PW: He was at New Mexico State University, in the Computer Center. I was over in student development. He needed to produce a report; I wasn't pleased with how it was being produced. My side of the story is that I got him in trouble. His side of the story was he was told to go up and meet this person who was being a little pain. A little pain. Then we went from there.

It was wonderful. For both of us to be older in our lives. I was 29. I believe he was 35 at the time. First marriage for both of us. I think it was his mother who finally said, "Will you just get married? You're with each other all the time anyway." We were best friends. It was great. And it is great. I'm just very fortunate.

TH: I'll have to interview him sometime for his side of that story.
PW: The south has a wonderful saying. There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth.

TH: As we wrap up here, it's obvious you enjoy your job, and it has almost a honeymoon sound to it. But there probably have been some days that are better than others.
PW: Oh, there have been challenges right out of the get-go. But yet, it all depends on what attitude you bring to the challenges.

I look at them and say, OK, here's a seemingly impossible situation. We're not the first ones on this earth to deal with this. Now, let's just relax and get the best minds together and look at it. Let's get the emotions out of it and step back. And not do analytical problem solving, but rather be creative about it.

Basically, get people out of this meeting mode and let them have conversations and let them relax and say, wow, this could work this way - yeah, it could. And to empower people.

I think that's my chief role - to empower people. Whether they're with the college or outside the college. How do we empower them? And to give people that boost or push, whatever, to freedom? It's amazing what people can think of.