Central State passes 1st deadline
University, state working on plan for enrollment, grad rates.
Central State WILBERFORCE — University is hiring an administrator to oversee freshmen and developing academic partnerships with other colleges and universities as part of a state-backed plan to increase enrollment, retention and graduates.
The historically black university is moving forward with the Ohio Board of Regents on a 17-month plan to advance the school’s mission as it transitions leadership with its first female president set to begin July 1.
The university and state have agreed to postpone some critical aspects of the plan originally under a May 31 deadline — such as defining performance measures for the school and affirming a student body size 500 larger than the current 2,500 — until after the new president, Cynthia Jackson Hammond, is on campus, said Charles Shahid, an executive on loan from the regents office to work with the school on the plan through February 2013. The May 31 deadline was the first of three outlined by Ohio Chancellor Jim Petro.
Jackson Hammond is replacing John Garland, who is retiring June 30 after 15 years as president at his alma mater.
Given the decades-long cycle over which the government plans to buy the Joint Strike Fighters, the first of those could be retired by the time the Defense Department buys the last ones, he said.
Hoffman, trained as an electrical engineer, flew T-37s and F-16s as a pilot and instructor before rising into executive ranks during a career that took him across the United States, to Europe and to the Pentagon before he arrived at Wright-Patterson in November 2008 as the AFMC commander.
Wolfenbarger, a 1976 graduate of Beavercreek High School, served as his vice commander from December 2009 to September 2011.
Hoffman this week will head to his native Wisconsin, where he plans to build a house. He said he hasn’t determined what he will do after returning to civilian life.
His retirement is part of a generational shift at Wright-Patt.
Thomas Wells, a civilian executive who served as the first director of the 711th Human Performance Wing that oversees the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, retired Friday. Lt. Gen. Thomas Owen, commander of the Aeronautical Systems Center that manages key Air Force weapons and aircraft programs, is retiring effective Sept. 1.
In the Daily News interview, Hoffman addressed a recent controversy involving the shuttering of the Wright-Patterson Aero Club, the base’s general aviation flying club. Hoffman approved a recommendation by Col. Amanda Gladney, Wright-Patterson’s base commander, to close the club because it has been losing money. Club members said they believed they could turn it around and make it profitable for the long haul, but Gladney concluded that couldn’t be done. Base officials said the club will be shut down this summer and its planes sold.
Hoffman said he understood that members were upset by the closing of a club that has existed since the 1950s at Wright-Patterson, home of Huffman Prairie, where Wilbur and Orville Wright flew and perfected control of their early airplanes. But the Air Force is scrutinizing expenses more closely in light of tightening military budgets, he said.
“My question to the taxpayers is, ‘Do you want us to subsidize private flying?’ I know the answer to that question,” Hoffman said. “It’s our responsibility to make sure that the things we provide, for quality of life, maintain themselves.”