On hot summer days, when he’s not working, Graydon Stanley can be found on his pontoon boat on Lake Coeur d’Alene reading a book, listening to music or just enjoying the day with his wife.

Stanley, vice president for student services at North Idaho College, is a father of two from Twin Falls. He came to Coeur d’Alene in 2012 when he accepted his position at NIC, and he’s never looked back.

“We didn’t grow up in places that are close to water, so we love Coeur d’Alene,” he said. “I was dean of students at the College of Southern Idaho for 28 years. The only other place I ever wanted to go to in Idaho was Coeur d’Alene … So in 2012 when the opportunity came up for vice president for student services I applied.

“We still pinch ourselves in the morning when we look out at the river; it’s like we’re on a vacation still.”

NIC has a lot on its plate right now with budgeting, enrollment issues and recent sexual assault incidents. The Press checked in with Stanley to ask about what’s going on.

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What is NIC focusing on right now?

More than anything else right now we’re focused on developing the budget for the next two years. We’re waiting for what the Legislature will provide.

We do a real inclusive [budget] process.

Last week, all the people in my division proposed their budgets and presented them in front of each other, so anything new or different they ask for, it’s real transparent. Then we ask all those directors to rank the budget proposals, so somebody who works in student activities will look at something from admissions, trying to decide what’s a higher priority. It’s a pretty unselfish process.

The most important thing at the institution here is enrollment and particularly retention.

So proposals that had something to do with retention would rank higher, and then the next big concern we have in student services is safety. So there were some proposals related to campus safety and Title IX; I would expect those to rank higher. So we’re in the middle of doing that and I’ll review those then we’ll give them back to the president’s cabinet. I like the process, I like the inclusiveness and selflessness.

What’s going on with the Student Wellness and Recreation Center?

We’re really excited about that.

When I came to NIC I was aware they had been trying to build a student rec center for the past 13 years, and at the College of Southern Idaho, that was one of the things we built, and so I was really anxious to work with the students to get that done.

The students proposed it about two years ago and the board voted in favor of it and now we have this Student Wellness and Recreation Center that will open in the fall.

I am ecstatic about that because I have seen what it does for students and I know what a good investment it is and the students will see it as some of their money well spent.

NIC is currently asking the Idaho Legislature for money to hire a Title IX Coordinator, why?

[Title IX] has been in front of us for the last seven years or so. The U.S. Department of Education has been pushing Title IX. Most of us that have been around for a while, the only time we heard about it used to be associated with equality in athletics; that the opportunities for women be equal or proportional to the opportunities for men.

But it has grown, appropriately so, to make sure there wouldn’t be any discrimination associated with gender by sex, and that has grown so dramatically in the last five years in a huge number of regulations, new emphasis on instead of being reactive, being proactive — teach students, teachers and all of us how to treat people with respect and equality.

The problem is, these are appropriate expectations, but colleges didn’t necessarily come with the resources to enact them.

So that brings us up to this year. We requested a line item for a Title IX coordinator and the governor recommended it as well, so we’re optimistic that that’s one of the line items the Legislature will fund.

This won’t be the first one we have. My first year here I appointed a Title IX coordinator. So somebody already on staff was appointed to that position. He’s been through extensive training and he has served in that capacity, but we just have to borrow resources from other places to train him and he does that along with his job.

This will allow us to dedicate a person to that position, which it really does require. The demand of the position really requires somebody dedicated to that.

What else is the college doing to address sexual assault since it’s been an issue for NIC recently?

I’m really proud of the work we’re doing in that area, and some people may think that’s ironic because we’ve shown up with some incidents.

It’s always horrible when somebody’s had an incident with sexual harassment or assault, those are tragic, but they’ve been occurring for a long time in a lot of places. The fact that we’re building an awareness, we have training and we’re dealing with that, we’re going to be better.

Our belief is that part of the reason we’re seeing more of Title IX incidents is because of the awareness we are building. Employees know and students know these are the laws and these are the processes.

If you put it up, ‘this is what you’re allowed to do,’ your instance rates are going to go up: people now know they have a safe place to be able to say these things and they report it.

I know for myself and some others, if we’ve done something wrong, we want to know. We’re trying to do the right thing. So because of the awareness we’ve built, if somebody reports something that means we need to fix something, we’re going to be that much better as a result of it.

Will you explain NIC’s decision to, instead of focusing on recruiting students, turning your attention more toward retaining students?

While [enrollment] is important, we’ve been stable there for a couple of years, but keeping them there, helping them get a certificate or a degree, you’re going to see a ton of efforts on that end.

We’re really looking closely at best practices in retention. There are a huge number of students that come into the institution that have a hard time completing classes and graduating.

Because a lot of students we serve are first generation, they can be under-prepared, under-motivated. We know we need to have a lot of mechanisms in place to help them stay, to help them be successful.

We are looking at that all the time — looking at career exploration, early alert systems, student cohorts — best practices that help students stay in college and get their degree.

I think we’ll spend more resources on that and campus safety. Those are the places our money’s going to go; for the success of our students.”