Goal I. Access to Higher Education
Dozens of volunteers from SPC, including faculty, staff and students, participated in the Houston Street Fair on Saturday. Recruiting materials and information about various programs at the Main and Southwest campuses were distributed to the public. St. Philip’s College was exposed to hundreds of tourists, military personnel and local members of the community.

San Antonio College student Mary Cokerham is one of 400 students nationwide to be awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation. According to the Foundation, all recipients have demonstrated academic success and participated in community service within the past 12 months.

Jordan Ford, Ltd. owners Mike Trompeter and Marc Cross presented Northeast Lakeview College with a $5,000 scholarship check. Jordan Ford, Ltd. has established one of the first Founder’s Endowed Scholarships for NLC students. The first scholarship will be awarded in Fall 2008 when the college begins classes at its permanent location.

For the second year in a row, NVC hosted the Space TEAMS camp, an interactive experience for children in grades 4-8 to design and rebuild robots. The 2-week program serves about 100 students who form a total of 20 teams. The camp culminates in a competition where students race robots via the programming they have typed into the robots’ makeshift brains. This program—developed in partnership with the City of San Antonio, Edgewood ISD, Southside ISD, Harlandale ISD, Tex Prep, and the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics—addresses the education, workforce and economic development needs of San Antonio youth who come from low-income families. The program specifically targets female students who are traditionally underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

Goal II. Student Support
An energetic retention and enrollment effort was started with the SPC Enrollment Made Easy Campaign. Approximately 13,000 cards were mailed to former students who had enrolled during fall 2006 or spring 2007 but who had not yet re-enrolled at St. Philip’s College. These students were invited to return to the College on July 25th, for focused advising, updating records, and expedited registration. In response, 279 students returned, of which more than 100 students registered for classes, contributing to the current 10% increase in the fall 2007 enrollment when compared to the same period in August 2006.

Goal III. Workforce Development
San Antonio College is partnering with the Bexar County Medical Society (BCMS) Staffing Services to respond to the major shortage of personnel required to staff clinics and doctors’ offices. Students work externships that include partial pay and benefits while acquiring experience. San Antonio College finds placements for its Allied Health students through BCMS Staffing, which pays half of their pay and benefits. Doctors and clinics pay the other half, while helping to create experienced employees for their offices.

PAC’s Department of Financial Services is finalizing Federal Work Study agreements for hiring students to serve in community centers such as the Rosemont at Palo Alto apartment complexes, as reading tutors.

Dr. Federico Zaragoza was the commencement speaker for the Greater San Antonio GED graduation ceremony held at the Municipal Auditorium on July 21, 2007. Approximately 300 persons attended the ceremony.

Goal IV. Capacity To Serve
A San Antonio College Facilities Department awards recognition ceremony was held where 61 employees were recognized for a combined 711 years of service to the Alamo Community Colleges. This ceremony was held in conjunction with SAC Facilities Appreciation where Dr. Zeigler and other key SAC staff served cake and ice cream to the facilities personnel.

For your information, earlier this week, institutional Research moved from 811 West Houston Street to 7990 Pat Booker Road.

PAC’s Children’s Library Summer Program “Matter Matters 2007” completed its second session. Fifty 3rd and 4th graders from area schools attended the free program that focused on chemistry and related laboratory activities. The program was funded by an ACCD Foundation grant, Palo Alto College, and the City of San Antonio’s Free Lunch Program.

Dr. Federico Zaragoza, Vice Chancellor of Economic and Workforce Development; Dr. Abel Navarro, Director of the Alamo Quality Institute; and Mark Hagen, Coordinator of International Programs, were presenters at the annual conference for TIES International Maquiladora and Advanced Manufacturing Consortium (Training, Exchanges, Internships and Scholarships). The conference took place in Cuernacava, Mexico, on July 30 and 31. Dr. Arturo Nava Jaimes, coordinator for Universidades Tecnológicas at Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education office; and Nora Pinzón, manager of educational programs at USAID/Mexico, also attended the meeting.

Goal V. Organizational Communication
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, 8/11, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
The Audit, Budget and Finance Committee Meeting and the Building and Grounds Committee Meeting from August 1

Sunday, 8/12, 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Special Board Meeting and the Building and Grounds Committee Meeting from August 1