Sullivan elected community college board chair
Burr Sullivan, of Lexington, will lead the community college board for two years. {Contributed photo}
Burr Sullivan, who was elected to a six-year term on the N.C. Board of Community Colleges by the N.C. House of Representatives in 2017, was recently elected to a two-year term as chairman of the 22-member board.
In his four years on the board, Sullivan has served on most of the board’s seven standing committees, including as chairman of the strategic planning committee.
As chairman of the board, the Lexington business leader will serve as a member of all the committees and lead the group in designing the next four-year strategic plan for the community college system that will begin in July 2022.
“It’s basically a blueprint for where we want to go in the next four years,” Sullivan said. “The community college system is a tremendous resource for this state. It’s an exciting time to be leading it.”
North Carolina has 58 community colleges with 525,000 students on nearly 100 campuses.
Sullivan said the state community college system is facing a couple of major challenges. The first is enrollment, which was hurt by the pandemic, as were all institutions of higher learning across the country. The second challenge is U.S. Census-related changes. In the past 10 years, 95 percent of the nearly one million people who moved to North Carolina settled in only 15 of the state’s 100 counties so there are hurdles in demographics and geography.
“We’re going to need some strategies to appeal to more adults over the age of 25. We’ve got to appeal to those people who may have started college but dropped out or now need retraining for new jobs.
“Two-thirds of all jobs being created today need training beyond high school, so that’s an opportunity for us,” explained Sullivan, who served for years as a member of the Davidson County Economic Development Commission and on the State Economic Investment Committee of the N.C. Department of Commerce.
Sullivan, who retired in 2017 after nearly eight years as chief executive officer of the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce, said his years at the chamber put him in close contact with Davidson-Davie Community College, including the school’s Small Business Center and advanced manufacturing curriculum. He worked with the college to help develop job training programs for large manufacturers such as Egger Wood Products and Atrium Windows and Doors.
“I learned a tremendous amount about the college while I was at the chamber. It greatly increased my awareness of how community colleges are helping lift people out of poverty.”
Sullivan served for several years on the board of advisors of Valley Career Academy, a STEM public high school in Davidson County affiliated with the community college. He is currently treasurer of the Valley Career Academy Foundation.
“Public education and economic development work hand in hand,” he assured, noting most of his volunteer work has been in those two areas, as well as health care. He has served on the board of the Life Center of Davidson County.
“Most medical technicians and even many of the RNs in this state have come through the community college system,” he added. “So, this position really aligns with my major interests.”
Sullivan, a graduate of Marshall University in West Virginia who earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received an honorary degree in May of this year from Davidson-Davie Community College for his longtime community service.
