PVCC Puma Press: October 2004

“We need people who mean something to us, people who, when we’re with them, it’s like being at home,” says Dr. Mary K. Kickels of the way she wants the atmosphere at PVCC to be.

This type of environment is ideal for the vision Kickels and PVCC share for developing a learning-centered college.

Kickels, the former vice president of academic affairs at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos, Illinois, officially became the president of PVCC Sept. 1, 2004. Kickels replaces Dr. Paul Dale, who agreed to serve as interim president following last year’s death of President Gina Kranitz.

Under Kickels’ direction Moraine Valley became a Vanguard Learning-Centered College, chosen as one of 12 internationally for excellence in pursuing the concept of being learning centered. This concept means providing a learning forum where all administrative decisions, academic, fiscal or otherwise, are valued by how constructive they are in helping students learn.

The learning-centered concept was adopted into PVCC’s mission in 1997, a fact that impressed Kickels.

She says the learning-centered philosophy is effective because it makes each student a “partner” with faculty. “There’s a sharing in the learning experience,” she says.

Chancellor of MCCCD, Dr. Rufus Glasper, says that he recommended Kickels as president to the governing board because of the similarities between her personal philosophies and PVCC’s. “At a Vanguard college, her goals were the same as Paradise Valley’s, a learning-centered college,” Glasper says.

Kickels comes to PVCC with a resume that entails both corporate and academic experience.

After teaching at high school for 10 years, serving as chairwoman of the English and speech departments, Kickels participated in many levels of the academic world, including a seven-year stay and vice presidency at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois.

Kickels then worked a 13-year stint in the corporate world as an employee of Britannica Education Corporation. At Britannica Kickels worked several positions, including producing several media materials for the company, which gave her the opportunity to collaborate with such corporate-world icons as Rosebeth Moss Canter, who at the time was editor of the Harvard Business Review, and W. Edwards Demings, who’s conclusions about productivity in the automobile market have yielded the coveted Demings Award.

Upon Britannica’s selling of Kickels’ division to the Chicago Tribune, she returned to education. Kickels says she went back to the work she enjoys the most. “I really loved seeing things happen at community colleges,” she says.

........................
‘It wasn’t as if people were just saying she was great for the job. It was more of them being truly sorry to lose her.’
—Chancellor Rufus Glasper
........................

Kickels says the business world did a lot to prepare her for the fiscal aspects of running a college within the bounds of being learning-centered. Kickels says her ventures in the corporate world have helped her learn “to respect the bottom line.”

Kickels also says the business world helped her learn to network and develop relationships with colleagues from all over the world.

Mrs. Linda Rosenthal, president of the Governing Board also lists Kickels’ business background as an asset, but says she was really convinced of Kickels’ qualifications after attending a fact-finding visit to Moraine Valley, which included several members of the MCCCD and PVCC communities, ranging from the level of student all the way up to Dr. Glasper.

“ Probably a hundred people in the course of a day (at Moraine Valley) extolled her many qualities,” says Rosenthal. The qualities Rosenthal lists include descriptions of Kickels as outgoing, hard working, innovative, and caring Glasper says he was also moved by the trip to Illinois. “It wasn’t as if people were just saying she was great for the job. It was more of them being truly sorry to lose her.”

Kickels says she was happy at Moraine Valley, but that changed quickly when a colleague decided to nominate her for the position at PVCC.

“He said, ‘I think that from what you’ve done at Moraine Valley College and what I know of the college at Paradise Valley, you two are in synch,’ “Kickels says. “It just kind of happened over night.”

Kickels says her immediate concerns will be educating people about the bond on the ballot in November and the outcomes of a visit by the Higher Learning Commission to occur Feb. 28, through March 2, 2005.