Goal I. Access to Higher Education
Jan Starnes of SAC received a Superintendent's Award for serving on the NEISD College and Career Awareness Task Force. The group developed a college and career awareness curriculum to be used throughout the district from preschool to high school. She also arranged a meeting between key administrators at NEISD and SAC, resulting in increases in their dual credit programs and a commitment that all graduating seniors will apply to college. "This was a successful venture, and many relationships were developed between NEISD and SAC through this endeavor," said Starnes.

Goal II. Student Success
The SPC Chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success inducted 44 new members on Thursday, May 3. Fifty family members and friends attended as students were being inducted as Founding Members of the Chapter.

Members of the SPC “Breaking Through” initiative attended the Peer Learning Meeting in Portland, where Mary Cottier, Chair of the Mathematics Department, presented at the session entitled “Understanding the Process of Contextualization”. The President-Elect of the California Community College Association for Occupational Education has requested that Cottier and other members of the initiative present at their annual conference in October. Later this month, Dr. John Carnes, Dean of Applied Science and Technology, Dr. Janet Flores, Associate Professor of Developmental Reading, Lauri Humberson, Instructor in English, and Renita Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, will present at the NISOD conference on the same topic.

St. Philip's College has been identified as a “Learning College” for the “Breaking Through” initiative. The initiative seeks to make colleges stronger, smarter and better to allow low-skilled, low-income adult students to successfully rise through the ranks of higher learning toward a brighter future socially, economically, and personally.

Goal III. Workforce Development
The ACCD Nursing and Allied Health Task Force presented their recommendations to Chancellor Bruce Leslie on May 8, 2007. Among the Task Force recommendations were that the ACC consider the use of stipends, career paths, 12-month contracts and year-’ round recruitment to attract and retain nursing faculty.

Goal IV. Capacity To Serve
Dr. Eduardo Conrado, Director for the Department of International Programs submitted the semi-annual report for the USAID-funded project, TIES (Teaching, Internships, Exchanges and Scholarships). Under the TIES contract, ACCD and its partners have provided training to 189 maquiladora workers through 10 courses and six faculty from the Universidades Tecnológicas in Mexico have completed an 18 credit hour Masters level certificate on workforce education in higher education.

District IT reports that all preparatory work including planning, software development, testing, communications, and organizational readiness related to the migration to the Microsoft Exchange Email system has been completed. The data migration for the first phase of this project will begin on May 11. These are the first steps required in moving to a unified, robust full-featured email system for all personnel and students.

Goal V. Organizational Communication
Dr. Leslie visited NVC on Friday, holding the last of his Alamo Community Colleges Performance Management System presentations. The presentation provided the opportunity for Dr. Leslie to share his vision and thoughts on Baldrige and Strategic Planning. Valuable input was received from the Colleges; similar presentations will take place at each college every semester.

Dr. Leslie met with Reverend E. Thurman Walker, a fervent supporter of SPC and higher education. Dr. Leslie and Rev. Wallker discussed issues such as how to strengthen the partnership, increase community involvement in college initiatives, our vision and strategies to increase enrollment from students residing in the immediate SPC area.

SAVE THE DATE! Northeast Lakeview College will hold its design expo on July 14, 2007 from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Alamo Community Colleges on Cable. This weekend on Time Warner Cable Channel 98 and Grande Cable Channel 19:

Saturday, 5/19, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. – Awards and recognitions, plus program highlights featuring the SPC Culinary Arts program from the regular May Board Meeting and the SPC Southwest Campus Groundbreaking

Sunday, 5/20, 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. – Remainder of the regular May board meeting