Community College president resigning

Dr. Kim Dale will be resigning as the president of Western Wyoming Community College.

Dale spoke with Western's Board of Trustees during their normal meeting last Thursday, October 19, and presented the board with a letter explaining her resignation and requesting release from her contract.

"After much reflection and a heavy heart, I am requesting release from my current three-year employment contract as president of Western Wyoming Community College, effective July 12, 2024," Dale stated in the letter.

Family circumstances require Dale and her husband to move back to Fort Collins, Colorado. In an email to the Star, Dale explained that they have been traveling back and forth on weekends to support family members, and she feels they are in a position where they need to prioritize family and return home.

"The college deserves to have a president who can be fully present, and I can no longer make that commitment," Dale explained in her email.

Dale was first selected as the new president of Western in the spring of 2019 following a six-month search. Prior to coming to Western she served as the Executive Vice President of Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and she had previously worked at colleges in Colorado. She began at Western in July 2019.

"It is an honor and privilege to serve Western Wyoming Community College for five years as college president," Dale said in her letter to the board. "I am proud of what we have accomplished to move this college forward and prepare for its future."

Dale added that she felt welcomed and supported by the community and will miss the people here. She also thanked Western's Board of Trustees for their support through difficult times, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Thank you for your trust and confidence in my leadership; I am grateful for this career opportunity of a lifetime," Dale's letter continued. "I leave this college presidency confident that the college is healthy and prepared for its bright future."

Western's Board of Trustees participated in a special meeting over Zoom on Monday, October 23, in order to "consider appropriate actions in developing a plan to search for a new College President," according to the special meeting agenda.

During the meeting, the board members decided to pursue hiring a consulting search firm. Board President Jim Jessen explained that he put together a list of potential consultant firms and would like to send a Request for Proposal (RFP) to a few firms. Board Secretary Regina Clark noted that during the last presidential search, ACCT was not as helpful as hoped in some regards, and seemed to bring in a lot of applicants from areas that are far away from and very different from Wyoming, such as Florida, rather than finding applicants in the Rocky Mountain Region. For this reason she recommended against using ACCT again as a consultant.

After some discussion, the board unanimously approved a motion to send an RFP to Academic Search, Polygroup and Spellman Johnson. During the meeting Jessen also determined that the three board members to serve as part of the Search Committee would be himself, Clark, and Board Member Ron Wild. He asked the other board members to give him recommendations for community members who would be interested in serving as part of the Search Committee and would "give thoughtful feedback for what we're looking for in our next president."

Jessen said that there currently isn't a timeline for the search, but that he would send out the RMPs and the board would schedule another meeting to review responses in the future, at which point he hoped to have a better timeline for the presidential search.