April 2007 District-Wide Employee of the Month Honored

Pictured: (l to r) Dr. Adolfo R. Barrera, Vice President of Student Affairs at Palo Alto College and Lydia Treviño, Student Success Specialist III and District-Wide Employee of the Month, Palo Alto College. (Photo by Lana Myers)

At a recent Alamo Community Colleges' Board of Trustees meeting, Lydia Treviño from Palo Alto College was recognized as the April 2007 District-Wide Employee of the Month.

SAC Students in Free Enterprise Win Regionals

At the Students in Free Enterprise Club (SIFE) Regional Competition on April 4, the San Antonio College team was named the SIFE USA Regional Champion in overall competition.  The team was also recognized as a finalist in the SIFE USA Sam's Club Entrepreneurship Competition and the SIFE US GE Consumer Products Program Sustainability Competition.  The team will go on to compete at the SIFE USA National Exposition on May 6-8 in Dallas.
       
"During the academic year, the San Antonio College SIFE team organized 19 projects in the community, including a week-long, campus-wide project titled Stamping out Piracy," said Dr. Charles Hunt, faculty sponsor.  He added that the team won the regional championship based on their report to a panel of judges about their year-long community outreach projects. 
       
As a part of the anti-piracy project, team members and volunteers surveyed students about whether they downloaded movies or music illegally, what they thought about the impact on the industry and the penalties if caught.  The team used these interviews in a PowerPoint presentation, shown in a campus-wide campaign to stamp out piracy.  They also created 60-second PSAs entered in the National Anti-Piracy Contest sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America and SIFE.  Winners will be announced at the national exposition in May.

SAC's Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society Nets Double Honors

Pictured (l to r) Matthew McCleery (Beta Nu Vice-President), Susan Spencer (advisor), Robert Dodge (06-07 Fellowship Officer), Joe Cardenas (06-07 President), Heather Mueller (Treasurer), Paul Marmesh (President)

At the Phi Theta Kappa International Convention April 12-14 in Nashville, the San Antonio College Beta Nu Chapter was named one of the Top 100 Chapters, out of a total of more than 1,200 chapters in the world.  
       
At the PTK Regional Conference March 22-25 in Midland/Odessa, the SAC Beta Nu Chapter for the third time in its history was named a "Texas Top Chapter." This award is given to the best 15 chapters, out of more than 200 in the state, for exemplifying excellence in scholarship, service and leadership.
   
Also at the regional conference, the chapter received the "Five Star Status" Award, which is only given to extremely active chapters and is the highest award a chapter can receive, the "2006 Pinnacle Silver Chapter" Award, and the "2006 Pinnacle Platinum Chapter" Award. 

SAC Speech Team Scores in Tournament

Joseph Holloway

At the Phi Rho Pi National Tournament held at North Harris College, April 9-14, the San Antonio College Speech Team won a top Individual Events Sweepstakes (Gold) award and an Overall Sweepstakes Award (Silver) in the middle school category. 
       
In addition, Joseph Holloway was recognized with the Bovero-Tabor Award for being the Top Speaker at the tournament, which included more than 650 participants.  This is the first time a San Antonio College student has won this award.  Holloway also received a Student Fellowship Award, which was voted on by the students at the tournament. 
   
Faculty advisors Jolinda Ramsey and Misty Popovich wrote and directed the play "Stuck," which won First Place (Gold) in the Interpreter's Theatre, out of 20 other plays. 
     
In addition, Joseph Holloway won two Gold Awards (Program Oral Interpretation and Poetry Interpretation), Ojiyoma Pinnock won one Gold award (Interpreter's Theatre) and two Silver awards (Interpreter's Theatre and Dramatic Interpretation), Ines Zrinski won one Gold award (Interpreter's Theatre), and Laura Cabaniss won one Bronze award (Prose Interpretation).

Aerospace Academy Students Win and Place in SkillsUSA Contest

Photo from left to right: Zachary Trede, Marissa Gutierrez, Jose R. Rivera (advisor) Mathew Cooper, and Ivan Cerda

Two Alamo Area Aerospace Academy dual credit students from St. Philip’s College are the first and second place winners of the 2007 Skills USA Leadership competition in the Aviation Maintenance Technology Skills Contest which was celebrated in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Marissa Gutierrez and Ivan Cerda, also from the AAAA, competed in the Aviation Maintenance Technology Information Contest where Gutierrez, placed second.
Three of the students are from NEISD and are currently enrolled in the Alamo Area Aerospace Academy at St. Philip’s College NEC, the other hails from St. Philip’s College Southwest Campus.

SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry representatives; working together to ensure America has a skilled work force. It helps each student excel.
Zachary Trede and Mathew Cooper won the first and second place in the competition respectively. While they ended only three points from each other, their closest competitor ended some 20 points behind.

Trede is preparing to represent the state of Texas in the national competition which will take place in Kansas City, Missouri from June 25 – 30, 2007.
This is the second year in a row that a student from the AAAA wins the state competition.