Thomas Cedel and Steve Kinslow

Thomas Cedel and Steve Kinslow

Friday, 07 September 2007

Thomas E. Cedel, President of Concordia University Texas

Thomas Cedel came to Austin from another member of the Concordia University system, where he was a dean and executive vice president. He also served 26 years in the United States Air Force, retiring 10 years ago from his post as senior analyst for the assistant secretary of defense. Cedel said the decision to move the Concordia campus from Austin was difficult, but that it will lead to more growth.

"This is all a walk of faith," he said.

• Education: Bachelor’s in biology from the University of Pittsburgh and Doctorate in philosophy and biology from the University of Pittsburgh
• Family: Married, two adult children
• Contact Information: 486-2000

Q. How has the reaction been from current students and faculty about the move?

A. Wonderful. Everybody’s been on board. The students are ready to leave. They’d leave today if we could move. We obviously can’t get to it that quick. But it’s been very positive.

Q. What about the alumni reaction?

A. Good. I mean, certainly people are attached to the old campus. It’s been there for 80 years. I had a set of alums that came through a couple weeks ago, and they were back kind of giving Kilian Hall a hug. They said, ‘Once we came out here, we knew why you’re doing this.’

Q. How have you been welcomed by the Northwest Austin area?

A. Both Cedar Park and Leander have been wonderful about us coming out here, and people have been very, very positive. We have a great baseball team, so if we can engage people with our sports programs and our fine arts programs, that’d be really a good thing. Plus this whole preserve — our science guys are just going nuts about that. I want to be the go-to place for environmental science someday.

Q. As you look to the future, what are some of your goals for Concordia?

A. Contributing in the community really is going to be a big one. We want to be good neighbors. And we’re a faith-based institution, so we want to integrate not only into the community, but into the faith-based community around here and hopefully help them. So I think those are big goals.

Q. How do you hope this changes the way people view Concordia?

A. We’re making a big decision to better serve people. I hope people view us as visionaries. We’re a U.S. News & World Report top-tier school, and we want to be better.

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Steve Kinslow, President of Austin Community College

Steve Kinslow knew at an early age that education was important and something he wanted to be a part of throughout his life. He began his teaching career in a junior high classroom in Big Spring. Kinslow is now president of Austin Community College, a position he has held for the past two years of his 31 years with the college. He said throughout his career he has learned that it is the relationships with students and the community that are most important.

• Education: Bachelor’s from the University of Texas at Arlington; Master’s from Southern Methodist University and Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin
• Family: Two godsons and a grand-nephew
• Contact Information: 223-7598, ceo@austincc.edu

Q. What are the most important aspects of your job as president of ACC?

A. I think the most important thing that the president of the college does is long-range planning and resource allocation for the district. Those have always been especially important at ACC because of the history of our college, having started without local tax support and yet having pretty phenomenal growth in the communities that we serve. It has been a real challenge for our district over the history of the institution. My chief priority is continuing to enhance ACC’s long-term master plan. We’ve done a very good job as an institution in aligning our enrollment targets with capacity issues and positioning the college to secure land in other portions of our service area. The other is the continuing expansion of our district’s taxing area.

Q. Why is expanding the taxing district important?

A. We’re unique in comparison to most of the urban community college districts in that, while we have 30 school districts that comprise portions of our eight-county service area, four of those school districts are currently in district. Portions of Round Rock, portions of Pflugerville and portions of Eanes School District are in district. We need to continue to educate communities about the return on investment in economic development by being a full partner with the community college taxing district. That’s not an issue in Leander and Cedar Park because those leaders recognized the value long ago.

Q. How has ACC’s mission evolved with the growth?

A. In the last three to four years, you’ve seen a real shift in the level of community partnering. For instance, the new clinical education center among ACC, the University of Texas and Seton family of hospitals where there’s an interdisciplinary center now at the old children’s hospital on 15th Street in Austin. That mission had evolved to many more community partnerships. The other area I would say has changed is a much more assertive partnering with independent school districts to create early college start opportunities for high school students.