Last week Western Colorado Community College Vice President Dennis Bailey-Fougnier resigned in person to Colorado Mesa University President Tim Foster. The resignation resulted from differences of opinion regarding boosting struggling enrollment. No formal letter of resignation has yet been submitted.
“President Foster and Dennis Bailey-Fougnier have a lot of commonality in their vision for where they’d like to see WCCC go,” CMU Director of Media Relations Dana Nunn said. “They had different views of how to get there. Between the two of them, they decided it was better for them to part ways.”
The differing opinions of the best path for WCCC centered around some programs at the community college that have been struggling with enrollment. Though Foster and Bailey-Fougnier did not agree on the method to address the issue, neither party wished to end the struggling programs.
“The issue is how do you best grow those programs,” Nunn said. “What do we do to encourage more enrollment in those programs? Nobody was talking about getting rid of any programs.”
Though Bailey-Fougnier and Foster met with a Daily Sentinel reporter earlier in the week to discuss the issue, efforts to contact the former vice president for further comment received no response.
According to the Daily Sentinel, Bailey-Fougnier said, “We had different philosophies or visions and it just felt like I couldn’t get the community college to where Tim would like it to be, so it was time to step aside and let someone else do that.”
“I think we determined this was not a good fit for Dennis, and so I think he’s going to reconnoiter and look for other opportunities,” Foster said in the joint interview with Bailey-Fougnier.
According to the Daily Sentinel, Foster felt all suggestions for growing enrollment came from him and Bailey-Fougnier only responded with the logistical barriers to those goals.
Bailey-Fougnier and Foster found no reconciliation over the different ways to approach the bolstering enrollment and the conclusion was reached that it was time to part ways.
According to Nunn, there was no question that Bailey-Fougnier was committed to the concept of community colleges.
“One of the things I have heard him say is he would love to get back to where he was working directly with students because that was where he found the most fulfillment,” Nunn said. “Sometimes when you get into administrative ranks you lose contact and sometimes that’s what kept you in the game.”
After Bailey-Fougnier’s sudden resignation, Foster announced Brigitte Sundermann would serve as the acting vice president. From 2010-2015, Sundermann was the vice president for community college affairs, so she is stepping into a position that is already familiar to her.
“For some personal reasons she stepped away from that responsibility but continued working at WCCC and for CMU and she has been gracious enough to agree to step back into that role at least on an interim basis,” Nunn said.
Currently it is uncertain if Sundermann will keep the position indefinitely or serve in the familiar role until a permanent candidate is found.
“We know that she’s committed to at least the end of the semester,” Nunn said. “And then she and President Foster can talk about it and see what happens next.”
