Goal I. Access to Higher Education
PAC’s Career and Transfer Center met with representatives of Stephen F. Austin State University’s articulation team to begin the process of developing transfer and planning guides between the two institutions.

Among the contributions reported recently by the Institutional Advancement Office was a $10,000 gift from James & Gwen Cowden for the Dr. Frank Bryant Nursing Scholarship Fund Endowment.

SAC received a $597,530 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Hispanic Serving Institutions Assisting Communities Program to build a community center to serve low- and moderate-income residents in the college’s surrounding neighborhoods. The Mi CASA (Career Advancement and Self-Sufficiency Assistance) Center will be an 1800 square foot building located on W. Evergreen adjacent to the Seguir Adelante Community Center, with construction planned to being in late spring/summer 2008. The Mi CASA Center will provide comprehensive career advancement services and wraparound social services designed to lead to further training, college enrollment, and eventual self-sufficiency.

Goal II. Student Support
On August 18, 2007, Sandra Thomson, NLC Reading Coordinator-Communications Department, conducted an in-service professional development workshop for adjunct reading instructors at Northeast Lakeview College entitled Touching an Elephant: An Approach to College Reading. In response to research-based best practices in developmental education, Ms. Thomson has developed a self-paced, mastery program for community college developmental reading students. This project, funded through Achieving the Dream funds, will provide the training of reading faculty on an innovative approach to teaching developmental reading designed to increase the success rate of students. Ms. Thomson has piloted this approach and has seen positive results. This project will be implemented for a full year, and data will be gathered and analyzed to assess the impact of the approach. It is anticipated that the model could later be replicated in other developmental courses.

The First Time in College Program hosted a St. Philip's College Convocation with Jonathan Sprinkles (the 2006 College Speaker of the Year) as the motivational guest speaker. The convocation theme was “Never Give Up!” Incoming freshmen were informed of the services that St. Philip’s has to offer and they participated in trivia games based on the history of SPC. Door prizes were awarded.

Goal III. Workforce Development
ACCD Economic and Workforce Development programs will be featured at the upcoming National Coalition of Advanced Technology Centers National Conference (NCATC) that will be held on October 3-6, 2007 at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel. Dr. Henry Cisneros, Dr. James Brazil, and Dr. Federico Zaragoza will be amongst the keynote presenters.

Goal IV. Capacity To Serve
During the major flooding event at SWC on August 16, three members of Materiel Management (Tony Bravo, Pedro Constante, Paul Dunn) and Ray Vann (SPC Facilities) helped rescue two motorists from their vehicles that had driven into the overflowing and indiscernible retainage ponds in front Harmon Street at SWC. This occurred during the evacuation of that campus due to serious flooding. Both vehicles completely submerged within 15 minutes of entering the ditches. Thanks to the quick reactions of our staff, these motorists, one of whom could not swim, escaped a dangerous and potentially life threatening situation without injury.

On Tuesday, August 14, Dr. Eric Reno, President-NLC, attended a meeting regarding the Bexar County Amateur Sports Facilities held at UTSA’s Downtown campus. Focus areas included partnerships and operations of recreational and sports facilities within Bexar County.

A District-wide convocation held on 8/20 marked the beginning of the new academic year and celebrated faculty accomplishments and promotions. Approximately 800 faculty representing all of the Alamo Community Colleges attended the morning event, where Chancellor Leslie presented a strategic planning update and Dr. Henry Cisneros served as keynote. Both speeches were very well-received and will be available soon for viewing on Dr. Leslie’s website. Convocation can also be viewed this Sunday on Channel 98. A special thanks to Roberto Zárate for attending the event.

Goal V. Organizational Communication
SAC Foreign Language Chair Anna Budzinski joined other instructors Len McClure (Chinese), Yuko Kawabe (Japanese), Francesca Bronder (Italian), and Pierre Schmitz (French) as guests on “San Antonio Solutions,” which aired on KTSA-AM 550 and Jack-FM 102.7. The instructors provided an overview of the variety of courses offered in response to student and industry demand and the current economic and political issues in the world. In addition, McClure (who lived in Asia for more than 20 years) and German Instructor James Dunn were featured guests on KABB’s Fox News First, channel 29, discussing the Chinese language and culture, and German instruction at SAC.

Dr. Adena Williams Loston instituted Professional Development Week at SPC. This new week-long program included activities designed to encourage an environment of transparency and accountability as well as shared values and common goals. The SPC week began with the President’s All College meeting, “Moving from Good to Great” and Baldrige criteria; departmental meetings focusing on curriculum review, academic standards, academic integrity and district/college goals; orientation to SPC for new employee; and a New Faculty Prep Program. The Professional Development Week was designed to revitalize the College with a clear and organized focus on student success.

The Department of Public Relations, through the office of Rep. Robert Puente, Dean of the Bexar County legislative delegation, coordinated a meeting between Chancellor Bruce Leslie and Mr. Roberto Zárate, Chairman ACCD Board of Trustees and members of the Bexar County legislative delegation.

FYI, audio from the Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education meeting held in Austin on August 15, 2007 is available on Chancellor Leslie’s website under “Presentations.” Both Dr. Leslie and Mr. Zárate provided testimony; the website directs the listener to the two specific segments (total audio is over 7 hours).

Dr. Leslie met with Guadalupe County Judge Mike Wiggins, the first county judge as part of the larger strategy to meet with the eight county judges in our service area. The other seven appointments have been scheduled.

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, 9/1, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
The Academic Accountability and Student Success committee meeting from August 21 and the first half of the August 21 regular Board meeting.

Sunday, 9/2, 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
The last half of the August 21 regular Board meeting and the District Convocation from August 20.