Goal I. Access to Higher Education
The Department of International Programs’ CASS (Central American States for Scholarship) teachers completed an intensive language and culture unit in which they one-of a kind, hand-made books from personal family and community stories. This project is part of an initiative for creating community-based local libraries from local history and culture, essential for creating literature traditions and reading resources in remote communities with oral traditions but no books. Teachers will share their many projects and plans for returning home in September.

Goal II. Student Support
Dr. Leslie, Fabianke, and College administrators met with SAISD leaders to debrief on the 2007 College Connections initiative and to plan for next year. Everyone was pleased with the outcomes and looks forward to a continued and expanded partnership in 2008.

Goal III. Workforce Development
St. Philip’s College received a $200,000 grant from aircraft giant Boeing for workforce training. Boeing plans to build a new 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The project expects to employ about 400 people with an economic impact of more than $40 million dollars. Through the aviation program at St. Philip’s College’s Southwest campus, students will be trained to build that aircraft.

Goal IV. Capacity To Serve
Meetings were held with Judson ISD to discuss the schematic design of the Early College High School at Northeast Lakeview College. The team, made up of NLC faculty and staff, the architects, engineers, and project managers, will meet regularly. Although site visits were made to other early college high school facilities, the design for NLC will be unique to San Antonio and Judson.

Installation design and planning sessions to implement the Vista instructional management system were completed this past week. Vista is an upgrade of the current WebCT system and is provided by Blackboard which resulted due to their consolidation. Vista is a rich, full featured software system enabling E-learning or Internet instruction from anywhere.

Goal V. Organizational Communication
Thank you to those Trustees in attendance at the press conference on Friday regarding the nursing program. All the major media outlets were represented and our objective of being open and transparent with our students and the public was accomplished. The meeting with the Express News Editorial Board scheduled for Friday was cancelled due to a number of the members being unavailable; Dr. Leslie and Leo Zuniga will meet to determine whether a meeting with the editorial board is still needed. In a related item, the Department of Economic and Workforce Development worked with the Chancellor and Associate Vice Chancellor of Employee Services on finalizing a nursing brochure and letter to ISD nurses.

Dr. Leslie received a positive response from attendees at the SA Chamber of Commerce luncheon last Tuesday. A similar message and presentation, with slight modifications depending on the audience, will be used as Dr. Leslie presents to various groups. Dr. Leslie was invited by AACOG (Alamo Area Council of Governments) to speak briefly at its July Board meeting. The message focused on growth in our 8-county service area and the need to accommodate the increasing number of students. Dr. Leslie took the opportunity to open the door for follow-up meetings with each county judge or representative.

Last week, Drs. Leslie, Loston and Zeigler, met with Dr. Agnese, President, University of the Incarnate Word, to discuss centers for baccalaureate programs, strategically located close to ACCD colleges. Incarnate Word currently has centers next to SAC and SPC; a location for NLC is in the planning stage.

Mr. José-Pablo Fernández, Founder and Executive Director of CCA Alliance, and Dr. Leslie met with Henry Cisneros to discuss partnership opportunities. CCA Alliance is a program whose mission is to educate Hispanic parents through school-based and online programs that help them develop life skills, improve job opportunities, and ultimately help their own children succeed academically.

Other meetings that took place last week include Dr. Leslie and Mayor Hardberger discussing ACCD’s role in economic development and Dr. Leslie and Bill Greehey, Chairman of the Board for Haven for Hope meeting to discuss the possibility of bringing educational programs to the Haven. The Haven for Hope provides homeless people with the necessary resources and skills to be self-sufficient.

A press conference was held to announce receipt of a $359,495 Self-Sufficiency Fund grant administered by the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The Self-Sufficiency Fund grant helps individuals transition from public assistance back into the workforce. Alamo Community Colleges partnered with a three-member healthcare consortium for the grant; the funds will be used to create 136 patient care assistant, public health aid and health educator jobs.

We have an increasing number of events and activities district-wide and are taking the opportunity to showcase such events on Time Warner Cable channel 98 and Grande cable channel 23. This section of the Chancellor’s Weekly Report provides a schedule of the programming for our regularly scheduled times of 12 – 2 pm on Saturday and 9 – 11 am on Sunday. Programming varies due to the timing of Board and committee meetings, groundbreaking ceremonies, etc. The programming for the coming weekend is as follows:

Saturday, 8/4, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
First half of Special Board Meeting from July 17, 2007

Sunday, 8/5, 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Second half of Special Board Meeting from July 17, 2007 and Building, Grounds and Site Selection Committee Meeting from July 17, 2007