Maricopa Community Colleges • Office of the Chancellor • Community Advisory Committees • Vol. 5 • March 2013
Chancellor Update: Corporate College As you may have heard, we are beginning some exciting initiatives this year. One of them is our corporate college – a new entity that will provide customized technical training Dr. Rufus Glasper to local employers. I have appointed current GateWay Community College President Dr. Eugene Giovannini to lead this effort. While our colleges currently offer a wide range of corporate training packages, many of them are pre-determined based on the most common requested areas. The corporate college will allow us to quickly develop and implement training solutions for new and existing Arizona businesses based on specifically identified needs. It will also provide consultative services to businesses, and continuing education to professionals, and will oversee district entrepreneurial activities and initiatives such as the business incubator on the GateWay campus. In addition to working with employers that are moving into the Valley, it will offer professional and continuing education programs to established corporations and associations. The goal is to help narrow the skills gap – the difference between needed and available highly skilled employees. I expect to find a successor for Dr. Giovannini by July 1, 2013, at which time the corporate college will officially begin offering its services and he will assume full-time duties there. Until then, he will continue to oversee GateWay while establishing the corporate college. For more information on GateWay’s presidential search, visit http://www.gatewaycc.edu/ presidentsearch. I will continue to provide updates on our new programs and initiatives in future newsletters.
Chancellor Update All Arizona Academics Marketing Campaign STEM Celebration
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Professor of the Year SSE Update News Briefs
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Twenty-Five Maricopa Community College Students Named All-Arizona Academics At its 18th Annual All Arizona Academic Awards Luncheon, the Phi Theta Kappa organization and its partnering sponsors honored more than 75 academic all-stars from Arizona including 25 from the Maricopa Community Colleges. Partner organizations include: the American Association of Community Colleges, Arizona Community Colleges, the Arizona Board of Regents and USA Today. The awards ceremony was held on February 20 at the Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa. To be eligible for the award, students were required to: • Maintain a minimum GPA of 3.5 • Be in good academic standing, • Be working toward an associate’s degree, • Demonstrate leadership, and • Interact with their community as a college ambassador. Students selected as Academic All-Stars in their state are also eligible to be chosen as a national scholar, which includes a feature in the USA Today each spring and eligibility for additional scholarships. For more information about the awards, visit http://www.ptk.org/ become-a-member/scholarships/academic-teams.
CAC Meeting Calendar 2013 CAC Meeting June 27, 3-5 pm Rio Conference Center
CAC meeting December 19, 3-5 pm Rio Conference Center
CAC Meeting September 26, 3-5 pm Rio Conference Center
Read CommunityConnection online: http://www.maricopa.edu/chancellor/cac.php Community Connection provides news and information about the Maricopa Community Colleges and the Chancellor’s Community Advisory Committees to the community. Community Connection is published and distributed quarterly.
Chandler-Gilbert | Estrella Mountain | GateWay | Glendale | Mesa Paradise Valley Phoenix | Rio Salado | Scottsdale | South Mountain Maricopa Skill Center | NorthWest Skill Center | SouthWest Skill Center
New Campaign Focuses on Current and Former Student Success As part of the Maricopa Community Colleges 50th anniversary celebration, the new advertising campaign highlights the success of current and past students, and the breadth of the colleges’ reach in the community. See the campaign online at http://celebrate.maricopa.edu/meetingsuccess Meet Esther Mbaikambey
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Owner and Operator Fu-Fu Cuisine, Phoenix and a graduate of a Maricopa Community College Where did the name Fu-Fu come from? Fu-Fu is the name of an African dish made by boiling starchy vegetables like cassava, yams, or plantains and then pounding them into a dough-like consistency. I’m from Nigeria but have lived in the U.S. since1996. Favorite thing about your career? I love to reach out to people and cook them something fresh. They are so happy; I just love the smiles on their faces. What do you do when you’re not working? I love volunteering, to talk with children about the advantages of going to college.
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Maricopa Community Colleges participating in statewide celebration of STEM education As part of Arizona’s Annual Sci-Tech Festival, the Maricopa Community Colleges are spearheading “How it’s Made AZ,” a unique program that introduces the community to local employers who are critical to the success of Arizona’s economy, and to keeping the workforce strong. It’s also an opportunity for you – our community – to join local students, parents, educators, media and others to get an inside look at what the broad and diverse range of parts and products manufactured right here in Arizona. We expect to schedule tour dates for April 2013. Please contact Robin McNulty at 480-731-8208 or via email info@azhightech. com.
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Additionally, the Maricopa Community Colleges hosted NASA’s Destination Station, a series of events during which astronauts shared their experiences from aboard the International Space Station (ISS), located in Earth’s lower orbit. The largest space station ever constructed, the ISS is a research laboratory for studying human health, physical sciences, and earth and space science. NASA’s Destination Station was one of more than 50 Maricopa Community Colleges events being held during this year’s SciTech Festival – Arizona’s largest celebration of science and technology. In total, more than 350 organizations participated.
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For the full list of Maricopa Community Colleges’ events, visit facebook.com/maricopa.edu.
Follow Maricopa Community Colleges on Social Media
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The Maricopa Community Colleges have more than 21,000 Facebook fans and more than 2,200 Twitter followers. For all of the latest news, events and celebrations, visit celebrate.maricopa.edu, facebook. com/maricopa.edu, twitter.com/mcccd, and youtube. com/user/themcccdEDU.
PVCC creative writing professor named national Professor of the Year The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of she is an accomplished poet, she not only serves as Teaching and the Council for Advancement and a scholarly critic for our up and coming writers but, Support of Education (CASE) have named Paradise more importantly, she serves as a mentor and source of Valley Community inspiration. We are so fortunate to College professor Dr. have her as part of our faculty team.” Lois Roma-Deeley a 2012 Professor of Dr. Roma-Deeley’s High Notes – her the Year. She is one most recent poetry collection – was a of four honorees 2011 Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. chosen from more Her works have also earned the than 300 distinguished Samuel T. Coleridge Literary prize professors across and awards for the Allen Ginsberg degrees and disciplines Poetry Competition and the Emily nationwide. Dr. RomaDickenson Poetry competition. Deeley has taught Dr. Rufus Glasper, Dr. Roma-Deeley, PVCC President Paul Dale creative writing at “Every day I am witness to the the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 25 countless efforts of students who refuse to give up,” said years. Dr. Roma Deeley. “I see, in very real and concrete ways, those who believe-even if they don’t yet fully understand“Lois has really expanded our artistic community at the power of the educational experience to transform PVCC through collaboration with colleagues and by their lives. All we ask is that the students come to us. And skillfully weaving classroom learning with out-of-class work hard. And dream big.” opportunities,” said PVCC President Paul Dale. “Because
An update on the Seamless Student Experience (SSE) Initiative
Seamless Student Experience
The new my.maricopa.edu site is up and running, serving as many as forty thousand students every day. Since its launch on December 17, 2012, the site has served 4 million pages and handled some 700,000 unique visitors, all while loading pages 24% faster than the old website. Here are some other important updates.
• The first phase of the new Maricopa Financial Aid Answer Center launched on February 16, 2013. The call center will handle all simple/FAQ inquires; it will be available 24 Seamless Student Experience hours a day, 365 days a year. The service is on schedule to roll out to all ten Maricopa Community Colleges and two Skill Centers in summer 2013.
• Tuition due dates and enrollment cancellation are now standardized at 35 days from class start for most colleges. Also, students are no longer being withdrawn from their classes for non-payment after the 100% refund period for the class. After the first week of classes, this new change kept more than 6,600 students enrolled in classes when previously they would have been dropped.
• With more than 80,000 students selected each year for Federal financial aid verification, the college financial aid offices serve a critical role as stewards of this process. A Federal financial aid verification provider has been selected and will begin with the 2013-14 aid year. For students, this means multiple electronic notifications explaining the verification process andStudent the ability to submit documents via Seamless Experience a single, centralized web-based platform (24 x 7), by mail or by fax.
A sincere thank you to all who participated in our March 28th meeting and celebration. This is the first time our district community Advisory Committees met with members of each of the President’s Advisory Councils. In addition to providing important district updates and introducing our Governing Board members, this was a great networking opportunity.
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News Briefs Mesa Program featured on NPR story about Innovation in Education As an installment in its a five-part series, KJZZ reporter Nick Blumberg talked to Mike Callaway, Writing Program Administrator about Mesa’s Accelerated Learning Program. According to Mr. Callaway, statistics from the program’s first year are promising: three out of four students who took the developmental course at the same time as English 101 progressed to the next class. The story can be found online at www.kjzz.org.
Scottsdale Faculty Member Honored as Diversity Champion Darrell Copp, chair of the Department of Communication and Performance Arts at Scottsdale Community College, was named a 2013 Diversity Champion by the nonprofit group Community Celebrating Diversity. He was honored at Scottsdale’s 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner Celebration on January 15, 2013.
Paradise Valley Honors hosts Inaugural Palamino Academic Bowl Eight teams of 4th to 6th graders who have been tutored since October by Paradise Valley Community College honors students faced off in the first-ever Academic Bowl. The PVCC volunteer student-tutors created Jeopardy-style questions about math, science, social studies, geography and reading. The project is the brainchild of PVCC student Aaron Pressley, president of the college’s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa national student academic honor society. Pressley also created and leads the Palomino Teacher Assistant Program that engages PVCC students as classroom volunteers, and he is one of the college’s two representatives on the All-Arizona Academic Team.
District Ideas Well-Received at Legislature, Chancellor Says The Maricopa Community Colleges have presented a number of proposals to the state legislature, and are receiving a good reception, Chancellor Rufus Glasper told the Governing Board. Dr. Glasper, who recently appeared before the House Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee, said that in the past, community colleges have not fared well when it came to legislative appropriations. The Chancellor said that this year, the state’s community colleges have proposed a bill that would distribute money to community colleges for capital expenditures related to workforce development in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas. Under that proposal, Maricopa would receive $11 million in capital funds. Another proposal would allow community colleges across the state to receive funds from the Arizona Commerce Authority to provide job training for new and existing businesses. He added that the District also is pushing a proposal for the state to restore its share of money used for Adult Basic Education. However, any thought of new money must be balanced against the state’s precarious financial position, Dr. Glasper advised. “We don’t know what is going to be happening with funding for community colleges.”
Chancellor’s Community Advisory Committees (CAC)
Committee Objectives • Provide community-inspired counsel and advice to the Chancellor;
Glendale among Higher Education’s Most Innovative Climate Leaders
• Work with the Colleges to strengthen their relationships with the community;
In January, GCC was selected as a finalist for the second year in a row in the Second Nature 2013 Climate Leadership Awards, an annual competition among US colleges and universities that are signatories of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). The awards program is sponsored by Second Nature, a national nonprofit that seeks to create a sustainable society by transforming higher education, and PlanetForward, a media company that publishes news, opinion, and insight about energy, climate, and sustainability.
• Serve as a conduit of information between the Colleges and the community; • Help the Colleges identify community issues and proactively address concerns; and • Work on projects that advance the Chancellor’s objectives. Populations represented by the CACs: African-American, Asian Pacific Islander, GLBT, Latino, Native-American, and Voice (Disabled)