“I want the incoming president to understand the culture at Butler. We are a family.”
After 17 years at Butler Community College from October 1995 to December 2012, Dr. Jackie Vietti returned to Butler as the 2025 Butler Interim President.
“If home is where your heart is, [then] you can always go home again,” Vietti said.
After former president of Butler Dr. Kimberly Krull retired, Vietti stepped in to fill her shoes. Both staff and students were receptive to welcoming a familiar face back on campus. Vietti’s time as an educator has always brought her back to Butler and it’s a place that she holds near and dear to heart – supporting the college in any way she can.
“When I returned, [it] was that maybe [there] was more of a hope that my leadership style hadn’t changed, that my guiding principles hadn’t changed, and so people would know how I would lead in this interim period of time,” said Vietti.
Vietti is a one-of-a-kind president, having accomplished much in the span of a few years. One of those accomplishments has been spending nearly 10 years with the Kansas Community College Leadership Institute – a leadership program that turns educators into emerging leaders. It’s where Dr. Vietti learned the power of personal mission statements.
“No leader should ask people to do anything they’re not willing to do. ... I thought, I can’t ask our participants to do that (writing a personal mission statement) if I don’t have one.”
Vietti mentioned that personal mission statements bring out the qualities of people and showcase their capabilities in any field. She recommends that everyone write a personal mission statement. The primary goal of this exercise is to describe a person’s morals and beliefs while describing a person’s qualifications in a selected field.
Personal mission statements empower people to seize opportunities in any selected field. Collaboration connects those types of people to utilize a wide range of transferrable skills to allow for ideas and concepts to come to life.
“It is people coming together and asking themselves what needs to be accomplished and how they can work together to accomplish it,” said Vietti.
In collaborative projects, it’s imperative to identify the steps of how a project can be finished whether it’s analyzing the need or the opportunity that arises from the project. Effectively communicating with surrounding stakeholders poses the opportunity to ask effective and right questions.
“You have to have the will to stay the course and get it done. ‘It’s supposed to be hard, if it were easy, then anyone can do it,’ [a] quote from League of Their Own, one of my favorite movies.”
Vietti shared that delegation is an emphasis of collaboration.
“At the end of the day, the greatest resource is people, and it all comes down to relationships.”
Vietti believes that by acting on delegative duties, projects are accomplished in a timely manner.
“[I would ask project stakeholders] would you be willing to accomplish it? What resources do you need? And then I will get out of your way and let you go forward and accomplish whatever the task at hand is,” Vietti mentions when asked about what delegation is.
To Vietti, Butler faculty are a “unique, one-of-a-kind" people whose goals and commitment toward student success is something that’s rare to find in educators.
“I think it’s a passion for working with students. Expertise in the field, competence in the discipline, that’s a given at the base level. But our faculty take that base level [to new heights] and beyond that, coupled with such a genuine sense of caring for the students and their success and a genuine sense of caring for colleagues that makes a Butler faculty member,” Vietti said.
As Vietti finishes her contract, which expires in late June, her leadership principles and styles stand as a signpost for how Butler continues to get better at everything it does. While Dr. Vietti’s time this go-around with Butler is short, it’ll create a smooth transition for the next president and celebrate the next era of Butler Community College.
Ella Boozer
- Butler Community College A.A. Multimedia Journalism C/O 2025 - 2024 Kansas Collegiate Media Journalist of the Year for two-year colleges - The Grizzly Magazine Editor-in-Chief 2023-2025 - Butler Creative Television camera operator, director, and photographer
View All Articles
VIEW COMMENTS