TO: FROM: DCCCD BOARD MEMBERS JOE D. MAY DATE: SEPTEMBER 11, 2015 RE: WEEKEND MEMO #71 COMMENTS FROM JOE D. MAY Good afternoon! We ve had a busy week across the District as students settle in, take their first exams, and start to enjoy student life... from Student Government Association to clubs to service learning. I encourage you to support them as they pursue their degrees and certificates, so they can find good jobs and earn good salaries. As a district, we are currently involved in America s College Promise, and I am now serving on the White House College Promise Advisory Board where we can contribute more to the national movement that supports community colleges. I ll share more about that involvement next week. Today is a solemn day as we remember all of those people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Thank you. Joe May (Note: For the best viewing experience, please use the latest version of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, or Apple Safari.) North Lake College Our Students The North Lake College Gallery is currently featuring the 2015 Student Spotlight Exhibition. Five North Lake College students were hand-picked by the art faculty to participate in the exhibition which showcases their new and existing artwork. The display of paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and digital artwork, created by students, Kushal Bastakoti, Jessica Brown, Mitchell Harper, Byong Kim, and Brenda Mattioli, are on exhibit through September 17. A reception for the artists was held September 9.
On September 4, North Lake College TRiO Student Support Services sponsored a workshop, entitled Effective Time Management. Students learned strategies on how to organize and prioritize time by focusing on successful academic habits: organizing lecture notes, study skills, and life balance. Retired North Lake College TRiO Coordinator Anne Brown gave the presentation at the workshop. Shani Suber, North Lake College communications faculty, presented Apps for Success in the college Student Life Center on September 3. Students were encouraged to bring their own devices to the interactive workshop which provided information on the latest and most useful apps to create a focused and organized semester. The event was sponsored by North Lake College TRiO Student Support Services. Our Employees On August 29, the first Writers in Training course, offered in partnership with Dallas Area Rapid Transit and North Lake College, was held. Writers met at Union Station in downtown Dallas to take the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth and back. Prior to the ride, participants had completed a prewriting exercise, which could include an outline, rough ideas, or brainstorming. That way, they could make the best use of and take inspiration from the train ride. Writers interested in fiction or nonfiction, novel writing or just wanting a chance to express themselves had an opportunity to write on topic, under deadline, with the chance to have their best work published online. The theme for the train ride was On the Go. Joanna Cattanach, journalism faculty at North Lake College, is the creator of the program and was an instructor on the ride. Richland College Employee Success Congratulations to Dr. Michael Crawford, Richland College associate dean/choral director in the School of Humanities, Fine & Performing Arts, on being honored with the 2015-16 Richland College Excellence in Teaching Award for Associate Faculty at the college s annual Convocation on August 27. Crawford was recognized for being an outstanding choral director and mentor, and a student success-centered supporter whose music passion, musical knowledge, choral directing, energy, and performance excellence are contagious. Gregory Lush, Richland College theatre professor, is performing in the Shakespeare Dallas production of King Lear at the Samuell Grand Amphitheater, September 16-26, and at the Addison Circle Park, October 1-11. Lush is playing the role of Edmund the Bastard. Productions of King Lear have fascinated audiences for more than 400 years, as one of the deepest artistic explorations of the human condition. Employee and Student Success/Sustainable Community Building Richland College art professors are collaborating with the history professors in The Blood of Heroes Never Dies art installation to create one ceramic poppy for each Texas soldier killed in World War I, totaling 5,171 poppies. To date, student, faculty, and staff volunteers have created 3,044 poppies to be installed in and around Lake Thunderduck for a Veterans Day dedication ceremony on November 11 and to be sold to raise money for Puppies Behind Bars, a project that helps prison inmates train service dogs for wounded veterans. Under the creative leadership of Jen Rose, Richland College art professor, the volunteers are creating poppies in weekly ceramics sessions. Sustainable Community Building In its ongoing commitment to build sustainable local and world community, Richland College has expanded the number of water bottle refill station fountains to eight. The stations, strategically located across campus, provide a running total of the number of bottles refilled. So far, students, faculty, and staff have refilled the equivalent of 43,963 bottles of water, sparing plastic bottles from the landfill and attendant recycling energy costs. The Richland College Student Government Association proposed this highly successful sustainability initiative. 2
El Centro College Michael Trevino, Wilkin Funez, and Professor Bethan Salle (El Centro College environmental science faculty) spent the summer working on a prototype stormwater filter for use in public storm systems. The project was funded by El Centro College s STEM grant. Trevino, the inventor of the filter, designed the prototype to remove pollutants from stormwater. The prototype was recently tested and proved to be effective in filtering oils, nitrates, large suspended particles, and salt, and it also improved ph for synthetic wastewater. In response to and at the recommendation of the business/arts community, the Industrial Arts Department at El Centro College Bill J. Priest Campus will offer the Saturday welding class, Metal Sculpting: Exploring the Art of Metal and the Business of Art. The 12-week course includes welding fundamentals with a focus on the business of art. This class is designed to serve a creative person looking for a new medium of expression, an accomplished artist who can benefit from the DCCCD extensive workshop, and anyone interested in creating a creative consortium to explore the art of metal sculpting and the business of art. The class is scheduled to begin mid-september. Karen Mongo, El Centro College dean of curriculum and assessment, who is currently serving as a state tri-chair for the Faculty Collaboratives project with Liberal Education and America s Promise (LEAP) Texas, has been invited to participate in the Association of American Colleges and Universities upcoming Faculty Collaboratives meeting in New Orleans, LA. Funded by the Lumina Foundation, the Faculty Collaboratives project will build the capacity of faculty to apply degree qualifications profile and tuning principles to the redesign of general education programs and to the assessment and transferability of student learning outcomes or proficiencies. The five states currently participating in the project are California, Indiana, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. On October 7, El Centro College will be recognized and honored at the annual Texas Community College Instructional Leaders Conference awards ceremony in Austin for its Wholesale and Manufacturing Sales Representative Level Two Certificate program, integrated with the Customer Service and Sales skill standards. The college will receive a certificate from the Office of the Governor of Texas in recognition of its innovative leadership in integrating industry-defined skill standards into its curriculum to meet the needs of Texas employers for a highly skilled, competitive workforce in a global economy. Only 28 colleges in the state offer a program that has earned this designation. El Centro College Fashion Marketing faculty, Wade Hyde and Marilyn Sullivan, led the effort to integrate the skill standards into the curriculum. Brookhaven College Employee Success The Brookhaven College School of the Arts has showings throughout the Dallas area with three different professors included in ongoing and upcoming gallery showings. Marla Ziegler will exhibit at Craighead-Green Gallery from September 12 to October 10. Lisa Ehrich will also be part of an exhibit opening on September 12. The showing will be at the mod.artists gallery where she will be included with three other artists for the first anniversary of the gallery. Beginning September 19, Du Chau will exhibit at the Liliana Bloch Gallery. Currently, he has a piece in the Biennial 600: Sculpture exhibition at the Amarillo Museum of Art. This is a juried show with works selected from artists residing within a 600 mile radius of Amarillo, TX. Daniel Rodrigue, journalism and photography professor at Brookhaven College, was one of 20 photographers featured in the Masters of Light exhibition at the Kettle Art Gallery in Dallas. The show, which ran September 3-5, included two of Rodrigue s photographs. The Masters of Light exhibition featured photography professors and teachers throughout North Texas. 3
Eastfield College Advance Student Success Three Eastfield College baseball players have been selected to play in the 2015 Texas-New Mexico Junior College Baseball Coaches Association (TXNMJCBCA) All-Star Games, which will be held September 25-26, at Weatherford College in Weatherford, TX. Pitcher Blake Barr, who compiled an 8-3 record last season with a 2.78 earned run average and who finished second in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III ranks with 99 strikeouts, was named to the Texas pitching staff. Also selected to the team was shortstop Casey Maack who tied for the Division III national lead last season with 12 home runs and was fourth with 59 runs batted in. Third baseman Connor Scruggs was also chosen; he is the Eastfield College Harvesters second-leading hitter, with a.366 batting average. Maack was also selected to compete in the first TXNMJCBCA Home Run Derby. The Et Cetera, Eastfield College s student newspaper, has received more national recognition by being named one of three finalists for the Pinnacle Award in the category of Two-Year Less-Than-Weekly Newspaper of the Year. In addition, digital media student, Jonathan Wences, is one of three national finalists for a Pinnacle Award for Best Editorial Cartoon. The Awards, which are given by the College Media Association, will be presented at the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Association National College Media Convention in Austin on October 30. The Et Cetera was also previously named a finalist for three Associated Collegiate Press awards, including the prestigious Pacemaker. The Eastfield College Library kicked off the 2015-16 Student Success Series, September 2-10, with workshops on campus resources, time management, service learning, math success, student email services, ecampus and econnect navigation, The Et Cetera student newspaper, note taking, and navigating through probation. Upcoming topics include tips for becoming a successful college student, cyberbullying, the HQA5R active reading system, relationship goals, NoodleTools, mental math, creative writing, and Photoshop. The Student Success Series is coordinated by Eastfield College Librarian Kwashawn Barnett. Meet Community Educational Needs On August 22, Eastfield College Police Chief Michael Horak and Sgt. Jose Hernandez, along with Joel Klump from Continuing Education, helped raise money for St. Jude Children s Research Hospital at a benefit breakfast at Chili s restaurant in Casa Linda Plaza. They brought the Eastfield College Community Police car and the Continuing Education Police Academy car, and distributed police badge stickers to the children. Afterwards, Chili s management expressed its gratitude to Eastfield College for supporting the important and successful community event. Mountain View College Student/Academic Success In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Mountain View College Office of Student Life will welcome guest speaker Leslie Sanchez on September 22 from 11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. in the college Performance Hall. Sanchez is the author of the critically acclaimed, You ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary, and the Shaping of the New American Woman and, also, Los Republicanos, which accurately predicted key shifts in the Latino vote prior to 2008. In speaking on the topic, Dream Big, poignant and often funny Sanchez tells her personal tale of determination, luck, and a pursuit of a higher education, which brought her to where she is today. Her success can be anyone s success, she states. It is all a matter of attitude. Following her talk, there will be a Q & A Luncheon from 12:30 to 1:50 p.m. in Room W-38. RSVP to the Mountain View College Office of Student Life at 214-860-8715, as space is limited. Employee Success The Mountain View College Veterans Affairs Office received a 100 percent Veterans Affairs (VA) compliance audit success rating. In the audit, student files were examined to ensure that Mountain View College s veterans and dependents were only taking courses that would complete their declared degree plan. The VA certification history for each student was also reviewed to ensure that 4
he/she was only attempting courses that were not completed in the chosen degree, and/or was not attempting courses that already had a passing grade recorded at time of certification. The Mountain View College VA certification process for dropped courses and non-punitive grades was reviewed, as were academic suspension reports and financial accounts. No findings were detected in these reports or any of the other areas from fall semester 2012 to the present. The military transcript evaluation process was 100 percent complete for each veteran that was audited. In addition, Mountain View College was compliant with the VA 80/15 program enrollment ratio that is required. Congratulations on a job well done! Cedar Valley College Our Workforce Commitment Cedar Valley College is excited to announce the relaunch of its Cedar Valley College Center at Cedar Hill (CVCC@CH) as a collaborative effort between the college and Cedar Hill to identify business and technology needs of employers and community members. The public is invited to come visit the facility on September 29 from 4:00 to 6:30 p.m.; the Center is located at 207 N. Cannady Drive in Cedar Hill. Points of new emphasis include: portfolio skills and certifications in information technology; strong support for small businesses and entrepreneurs, including availability of workspace; workforce readiness and assessment; skills development for incumbent workers; programs for youth and seniors; availability of CVCC@CH for community events and activities; and a future emphasis on healthcare technology education and training. Our Student Success Cedar Valley College Suns Baseball Team sophomore, Davis Wilson, has received a trio of postseason accolades, including National Junior College Athletic Association Third Team All- American, First Team All-Region V, and First Team Metro Athletic Conference honors. Wilson finished the 2014-15 season for the Suns hitting.331 at the plate, with 5 home runs, 31 runs batted in, and 11 stolen bases. The Cedar Valley College baseball team will open its 2015-16 season on January 30, against Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, TX at 2 p.m. Our Student Life The Cedar Valley College Office of Student Life officially welcomed back students, faculty, and staff with the Fall 2015 Kickoff Party on September 8 (12:30-2:00 p.m.) and the Fall 2015 Evening Kickoff Party on September 10 (5:00-6:30 p.m.). Also, the Cedar Valley College Service Learning Fair was held on September 8 in the college Courtyard. There were numerous information booths with valuable literature on the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, Student Government Association, college social clubs and organizations, Career Services, and other student leadership opportunities. For more information, please contact the Office of Student Life or Miyoshi Holmes (director) at 972.860.8237 or mholmes1@dcccd.edu. District Office District Information Technology and District Marketing are making improvements to myportal and the district website. Read all about The Great SharePoint Migration in DCCCD Today. The article can be accessed at https://myportal.dcccd.edu/lists/datatelportalnews/customdispform.aspx?id=802#s4- workspace. 5