SAINTS PERSPECTIVE, SCCC President Brad Bennett
When I walk across campus, I often find myself looking for trash, flaking paint, and weeds. It’s partly a habit (some people have suggested it might be more than that) but I prefer “vigilant stewardship” to “OCD.” Because Seward County Community College belongs to this community, it is the job each one of us to help it look its best.
Over the years, our Saints team of employees has pitched in to lend a hand to the grounds and maintenance crews. Before students arrive to move into the dorms, we want everything to look tidy and well cared for. When graduation rolls around in the spring, it’s time for another all-hands-on-deck workday. Those sessions have paid off, and campus looks better than ever.
This is an important point, because when I am walking across campus and stooping down to grab a discarded shopping bag or fast-food wrapper, it’s easy to forget how beautiful the grounds of SCCC really are. Like many of us, I can get way too focused on what is wrong in the picture. That’s not the kind of “critical thinking” we are working to instill in our students and it’s not a great default setting for the rest of us.
As we make our way through the summer, with so many projects in progress and so much going on in the world, it is easy to look down and find faults rather than looking around to see the bigger picture. I know our facilities crews are probably a little tired of the ongoing messes associated with updating the Mansions Dorms, cleaning up the damage caused by a leaky roof, hauling off the tree that fell victim to the big wind storm early in July.
In the Hobble Academic Building, our staff has been hard at work doing the year-end financials and prepping for fall. New computer systems have required a lot of training and practice, and I’m so impressed with how smoothly many departments have made the switch. But those long, nine-hour days are long. You often see coworkers getting up from their desks to take a brisk walk around the building in order to shake off the afternoon sleepiness.
At times like this, I have to remind myself that, like with raising kids, “the days are long but the years are short.” Getting too tangled up in the everyday struggle is common and it is important to pause and notice how much progress has been made. For those who watch the physical appearance of campus — including the new facility known as West Campus — it would take a long time to list every improvement that has occurred over the past three years. If you see photos, you will be amazed.
And if you are someone who remembers how tedious it was to transfer large stacks of paper documents to computer data files, it’s amazing to reflect on how much faster and more smoothly the new systems work — once we get the hang of it. Our new phone system will be installed in July, so we will all have plenty of time to learn how that works. My point is that the little things can be annoying or even painful, but in the end, they add up to something really valuable.
SCCC is in great shape, physically, financially, and in its view looking ahead. Our student enrollment increased by 16 percent, two years in a row, and we are on track to continue the trend. In May, we helped 50 high school students earn associate degrees while they were still attending high school. Our online platform, Saints Anywhere, is thriving, with more students every week.
Yes, we’ve got to keep picking up trash, and there will always be weeds to pull. But when you zoom out and look at the big picture, it’s better than any of us could have imagined. Go Saints!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — Brad Bennett is the president of Seward County Community College. He’s been compiling a master plan for facilities development and maintenance, so if you have questions about the exact color of paint to use or when the carpet is due for an upgrade, he is the man to ask. You can reach him at
