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San Antonio College News

SAC Opens New Writing Center

With direction from Frances Crawford, the SAC Writing Center opened its doors this week for students, faculty and staff. Coordinators and tutors are available to help students better understand assignments, build plans and get organized, recover from writer’s block, learn proofreading and more. Additionally, faculty from other disciplines can learn new ways to incorporate writing into their curriculum. Even members of the community are welcome to visit to talk about their writing.

Located in Gonzales Hall, room 203, tutors are also offering services online via the free Second Life platform that has elements of video games, but the presence of real people. Represented as avatars, tutors can hold real time discussions with students sitting at a virtual table. San Antonio College is the only community college represented in the virtual world pilot program coordinated by Education Services Management Group with eight other colleges and universities. 
More at www.accd.edu/sac/english/wc/default.htm

SAC Hosts Academic Decathlon

Again this year, the Texas Academic Decathlon State Finals for Medium and Small (High) Schools was held at San Antonio College over the weekend.  Approximately 360 number of student contestants representing schools from all over the state participated, and over $100,000 in scholarship funds was awarded to the amazing high school students.

Coordinated by Rick Hopkins and numerous event chairmen who helped oversee the interview and speech contests, the Alamo Community College District was represented as follows:
• San Antonio College – 67 volunteers (faculty and students)
• Northeast Lakeview College – 56 volunteers (faculty and students)
• Northwest Vista College – 27 volunteers (faculty and students)
• Palo Alto College – 22 volunteers (faculty and students)
• St. Philip’s College – 5 volunteers (faculty)
• District Offices – 2 volunteers

The 2010 Texas Academic Decathlon is scheduled to be held again at SAC, February 26-28.

Faculty Attend "Building a Better Texas"Conference

Last month, several faculty attended the Texas Community College Teachers association (TCCTA) “Building a Better Texas” conference in Austin. Presenters included Nursing Education professors Sheryd J. Jackson and Maricela Aguilar who discussed “Project Cuidar: From Dreams to Reality” to the Vocational Nursing and Associate Degree Nursing section. They report that since the conference, numerous requests come into their offices asking for more information about the project designed to increase nursing education opportunities for individuals who are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

SAC Food Pantry Opens

With donations of food and shelving materials from L&M Bookstore Manager Pat Puig, and oversight from PTK Faculty Advisor and Economics Professor Susan Spencer and Dr. Alice Johnson, GALA Faculty Advisor and Dean of Learning Resources, Phi Theta Kappa-Beta Nu has opened a Food Pantry. Located in the Catholic Student Center adjacent to SAC, the Most Reverend Oscar Cantu, Auxiliary Bishop of San Antonio, gave a blessing at the grand opening.

The Catholic Student Center donated room on the bottom floor of its building and will continue to cover utility and pest control costs, but will not charge rent. For weeks in advance, Spencer, along with PTK members and other student and employee volunteers laid new floor tiles, painted and reorganized the space, and built a ramp to ease transportation and access in and out.

Completely run by donations and volunteers, anyone with a SAC ID will be able to pick up a food bag with non-perishable goods during operating hours.

SAC Planetarium Serves as Expert Resource

In mid-February when falling debris from the collision of a non-operational Russian military satellite and an in-use U.S. communications satellite appeared as fireballs across parts of the Texas and Kentucky skies, local news KSAT-TV called astronomy experts at the SAC Scobee Planetarium. Coordinator Bryan Snow made the evening news with his statement, “It's very rare that two satellites will collide above the earth. However, we have been putting so many satellites up there - communication satellites, weather satellites, spy satellites - that it was just a matter of time before a collision occurred.”

Animal Expert Visits SAC

On Friday, Feb. 27, over 1,300 individuals lined up outside McAllister Fine Arts Center for a chance to attend the SAC Fine Arts and Cultural Events Series presentation by Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin. That evening, a capacity audience of one thousand filled the auditorium to hear his “Tales from the Field” speech complete with live reptiles including snakes, an alligator, an oversized lizard, and other reptiles. The SAC Media Services department provided personnel and video equipment so audience members could see live and up-close Corwin interacting with volunteers and reptiles on stage.

Workshop Discusses Collaborations for Alignment

On Saturday, Feb. 28, Dr. Conrad Krueger (Dean of Arts & Sciences), Roger Stanley (Chemistry/Earth Sciences/Astronomy), Lorraine Lopez (Mathematics) and Jerry O’Connor (Physics/Engineering/Architecture) attended a San Antonio Mathematics and Science Education Partnership (SAMSEP) workshop hosted by UTSA at Lee High School. Attendees discussed ideas for collaboration to improve student success in K-12 and higher education.