NRCC History Book

20 T he business management program at NRCC was recognized regionally, in Virginia, and within the broader community college system as innovative and extremely student and community centered. Both Dr. Jutta Green and I realized that none of our students cared how much we knew until they knew how much we cared about them. We were both students of the community college movement from its inception in Virginia. We understood that many of our students were first generation, many questioned their ability and preparation for college-level work, and, thus, many lacked confidence to succeed in a college setting. We were adept at building confidence in our students so learning could occur. In addition, Dr. Green and I understood the need for application-based learning. Our students needed to feel, see, experience, apply, and taste their learning modalities. To that end, two initiatives we were quite proud of introducing into the management curriculum were the importance of “the human resource” and community service. The first initiative drove home the point that the only asset in organizations that can appreciate is “the human resource.” We embraced what we referred to as the Total Individual Growth (TIG) paradigm of human resource development. TIG suggests that everyone has a mental/emotional self, a spiritual self, a physical self, and a financial self. To have employees realize their full potential and grow in value both in the organization and in the larger community, leaders need to focus on nurturing each of these constructs. Dr. Green and I believed that we were developing servant leaders well before the TIG paradigm came into vogue. Each semester in our Principles of Management class we had teams of students learn collaboratively. They adopted a manager and shadowed them as they learned management theories and concepts from the textbook. Students invited their manager to speak to the class. One manager who spoke was the dad of Amber Dobbins Clark who advanced into a teaching position upon my move into administration as dean of humanities, social sciences, and business information technologies at Wytheville Community College. Ralph Dobbins was the elected Sheriff in Pulaski County, and he mesmerized the students in the class from his opening comments. He asked, “How would you like to have to be elected every four years when likely you and your deputies had arrested or had family members arrested.” Ralph reinforced how servant leadership required a caring empathy for folks, not for what they had done to be arrested but more so for the circumstances in their lives. Ralph was the epitome of a servant leader and was re-elected unopposed several times. His career path led him to be part of the team that supervised the regional jail initiative in the New River Valley, and Ralph served as superintendent of the regional jail once it opened until his retirement. The second initiative of the management curriculum was teaching teams of students to draw on their passions and creativity to make a difference in their community. Some of the teams held a yard sale to correspond with the Lord’s Acre sale at the fairgrounds in the fall. They raised several hundred dollars and adopted the Women’s Resource Center and its Executive Director Pat Brown as their community service project. The Women’s Resource Center was formed to serve abused and battered women and their children. The Center had its own school for the children since, in many cases, it was not safe for either the mom or child to leave the Center. These students were quite proud to support this initiative and learned so much about servant leadership through these course requirements. One final piece of our program’s history was our final exams. We required our students to reach out to someone who had made a difference in their lives and let them know how and when that happened. Our motive was to reinforce celebrating good as opposed to criticizing the bad. Research confirms we tend to tell 20 people about a bad experience but only tell two to three individuals about a good experience. To this date, Dr. Green and I realize how extremely privileged we were to leave some footprints out there. Being remembered fondly by students and having a positive impact on our community both contribute to a wonderful legacy in our retirement! That is the true fabric of New River Community College, and we were both richly blessed and appreciative of this career path we embarked upon. BRUCE BROWN Professor of Business Management Employment at NRCC: Full-time 1976-2006

Chapter 1