BEATRICE – The new University of Nebraska system President has kicked off a tour of communities across the state, making his first stops in Nebraska City and Falls City Monday morning.


"We talked about some future vision concepts for the university, about access and affordability, quality and academic excellence. We talked about some of the challenges that we face, of course, in the area of future budgets and inflationary costs. But, the number of accolades, gratitude for things the university has done...individual anecdotal stories about my child, my next door neighbor's child, my cousin....all of whom who just had remarkable stories about the university...it was just heartwarming."


Dr. Jeffrey Gold also met with a group of about fifteen at the Southeast Community College Academic Excellence Center in Beatrice. Gold says he sees collaboration between the university and community colleges as a critically important partnership.


"How do we provide access to the most affordable, high quality educational needs for both traditional students coming out of high school...and for returning students, non-traditional students who want to upscale or change their careers. The more that we can do that in partnership to make sure it's very high quality, it's affordable, and frankly meets the future workforce needs of the state, the better off we're all going to be. Making sure that we have students who can transfer back and forth, what we call forward and reverse articulation is important....and again, building meaningful partnerships, where people like Dr. Illich and I speak frequently...and we do. So, that's really what the future is all about."


Gold’s visit to Beatrice was hosted by SCC President Dr. Paul Illich. Gold said there are systems already in place to help students transfer from community college to a state college or university, but that one area where improvement is needed is in higher education advising, to better help students through degree completion and into a career.


Gold said those in higher education have an obligation to care about a students’ education and future as if they were their own son or daughter.