By James Jones
Harlan Daily Enterprise

A new campaign aimed at raising money for Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College officially kicked off Thursday evening at the college's Harlan campus.

The new campaign, "Fulfilling the Promise," is under way at Southeast and a number of other community colleges in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.

College president Bruce Ayers said Thursday's event was aimed at giving the community a better understanding of the changes taking place at all five campuses and where the college hopes to go in the future.

"I have said on so many occasions that this campaign is not about the college, it's not about our faculty, it's not about our students," said Ayers. "Invariably, once we get funding from the community, that has a way of filtering to our students."

The kickoff also featured a video narrated by Walter Cronkite that highlighted the role Southeast and other community colleges play in their respective communities. The video emphasized that KCTCS schools are helping to provide knowledge and skills that will provide Kentucky with a more highly trained workforce.

The money raised through the campaign will be used to fund endowed student scholarships, student leadership workshops, the Southeast Scholars program, the EXPLORE College fund endowment, an Equipment & Technology Fund endowment, an unrestricted endowment fund and capital projects on each of the five campuses.

A portion of the Harlan campus was named "The Bank of Harlan Support Services Center" in honor of a $70,000 pledge from The Bank of Harlan. The funds will be used for books and software for the library on the campus. "This is an especially important time in the life of Southeast," said Ayers. "It's much more expensive to operate our college than it is to operate some of the others in our systems, primarily because we do have five access campuses that are scattered from Whitesburg to Middlesboro.

"We are state-assisted, not state-supported. The state provides less and less income for us almost each and every year. In fact, over the past four years we have lost almost a million dollars in state funding because of the various cuts we have sustained."

Ayers explained that when members of the community pledge money to Southeast, they are not just aiding the college, but they are aiding the communities as well. He said many of the students who are educated at Southeast will become future leaders in Harlan, Cumberland, Middlesboro, Pineville, Whitesburg and other areas. The "Fulfilling the Promise" campaign involves a number of people external to the college in leadership roles. Among those are Rayburn Doss, chairman of the board for the Southeast Foundation and owner of Doss-Fuelco, who will serve as the overall chairman of the campaign. Robert W. Vaughn of Vaughn & Melton Consulting Engineers, Inc., will provide campaign leadership in Bell County. Sandy Miller, of Leo Miller & Associates, Inc., will provide leadership in Harlan County, and Carl Bank, CEO of Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation, will lead the efforts in Letcher County.

Many other community and Southeast personnel will be involved in the campaign as well.

Southeast's goal for the campaign is to raise $4,725,000.