Q1 2020 CW Review

Q1: OCTOBER  JANUARY, 2020 ISSUE #154

CW’S MISSION The College of Westchester graduates individuals who have completed transformative and purposeful educational experiences that provide the foundation for successful, relevant professional careers. As an academically student-centered, culturally diverse college, CW is committed to providing the highest quality of education for all career and entrepreneurial-minded students through the delivery of a carefully constructed and focused curriculum, informed by regional employers. The College supports and encourages academic excellence, career advancement, professional integrity, financial responsibility, and good citizenship through a distinctive and highly personal campus environment.

Inside The President’s Corner Page 1

Digital Footprints: 10 Steps for Making the Most of One’s Professional Online Presence Page 7

2019 Employee Appreciation Awards Page 13

President’s Corner Mary Beth Del Balzo

Goals for 2020

There are many wonderful opportunities for growth at CW. My biggest professional goal at CW continues to be enrollment growth. We have two initiatives that target that goal: Welcome back from what was probably a much needed break. I am grateful for you, and glad that we all had a chance to take a huge breath of fresh air at the same time this holiday season! I hope the holidays were joyful and fun for you and your loved ones.

Full Ride Scholarship including tuition, books and fees.

Firstly, our new Empower Award Program is a full tuition scholarship program for our most needy scholars. It also includes books and fees. We have partnered with a number of high school districts and their superintendents, principals, counselors and administrators to better serve our population of students. While this program officially starts in Fall 2020, we expect a large number of incoming students will take advantage of the program, which we expect will grow enrollment significantly.

With an eye on the future success of CW both for students are for all of us, here is a summary of our focus, as well as each of our functional areas at CW, reported on by our Cabinet.

Nursing. We have put the pedal to the metal and are pursuing a nursing curriculum at CW. While we have been discussing this initiative for several years, we are now pursuing in earnest.There continues to be a high demand for nurses in our area, and not enough college programs to meet that need.

Several partner colleges are interested, and a number of corporate and community partners look forward to working with our grads.

2019 Achievements and things to celebrate I was happy to have a chance this past fall to visit with many of our gateway instructors and our newest day college students, as well as with some adult college students. What a great treat. Thanks to the faculty members who graciously hosted. It is amazing to witness the level of enthusiasm of both our faculty members and our students. I always leave those class visits feeling invigorated and uplifted by you and your students. Students are inspired by your prompts, instruction and leadership in the classroom, which guide them to thrive, learn and grow.

Attendance. We talk about how attendance makes a difference. It does! Attendance was better this fall. We all talked about it, we all witnessed it and we are now Page 1

experiencing the results. Comparing attendance to student academic success continues to make a difference in student performance. When students attend class at least 81% of the time, they graduate.

Tutoring. It also helps significantly when students are tutored. In The Learning Center, on average in 2019, over 17% of day college students sought out and took advantage of tutoring. On average, the grades of day college students who were tutored went up by about 24% -- pretty amazing. In adult college, just over 7% of students sought out tutoring. Grades increased in those students by an unmistakably significant 42%.

Student Learning Outcomes. We continue to assess and target Student Learning Outcomes, and strive to do so both inside the class with very specific learning outcomes, as well as outside of the classroom, students learn what they need to learn to be competent in their major area of study, as well as outside of the classroom, such as research, presentation and interviewing skills.

Job Opportunities and Career Field Placement. Job opportunities grew this year.

Most recent in-field placement rate (2017-18) is 89%, 2016-17 was 88.7%, 2015-16 was 88.9%. Earnings are up across most areas, most significantly among grads of Computer Network Administration and BBA in Business programs. The 2018-19 cohort data will be available in early March, and we expect a continued increase in professional success among CW grads.

Total Enrollment. Total Enrollment grew this year. Our low point was 2018, and 2019 turned that around. We are hopeful and working hard to continue to grow enrollment.

Overall trends in college enrollment indicate that enrollment is down over all sectors of higher education. Our enrollment over 2019 has been rising slowly, with a 7% increase over 2018. There are two reasons for this.

The first is an increase in new student enrollment, a combined effort of admissions and marketing. The second is better retention of students who attend, which is the direct responsibility of faculty, advisors, and support staff such as our success coaches, library, learning center and mental health counseling. Also, more students are choosing online college. While online enrollment is only about 11.5% of our overall college population, that group continues to grow.

Retention. Retention improved in all but online. Early signs indicate that the latest Fall day class is a great group of students who will continue to matriculate and experience much academic success at CW. The anomaly with online appears to be that retention was phenomenally high and has now adjusted to a more “normal� %, though we strive for excellent retention regardless of any norm.

Thank you for wading through this info. It is because of you that our students are staying, completing college and succeeding in the fields for which we train them. Now here are the highlights of accomplishments and goals from each department:

Academic Highlights Submitted by Dr. Warren Rosenberg 2019 Accomplishments First full year of new Gateway Course model which include grading methods, room selection, Gateway staff meetings and faculty staffing assignments has been a success and is reflected in SOS results and student retention improvement.

Consolidation of class sections has improved the efficiency of both facilities and faculty utilization and helped us remain within budget.

We’ve continued to explore and expand the opportunities for students to Page 2

participate in intercollegiate activities such as the Clemson and i3 Scholars program, SANS Cybersecurity Challenge, IBM Master the Mainframe Competition, Google Marketing Challenge, and entry into the Mid-Hudson Regional Business Plan Competition.

2020 Goals: Implement the recommendations from the 2019 School of Business Quadrennial Review for program revisions at the A.A.S. and B.B.A. levels.

Continue to pursue new program development including certificate and degree programs in Nursing and non-credit workforce preparation programs.

Continue to implement improvements in student life which will include exploring the feasibility of partnering with the NBA2K League, Knicks2K, and MSG Gaming for an intercollegiate CW eSports team

Admissions Highlights Submitted by Matt Curtis 2019 Accomplishments Improved process for transferring key data regarding new students over to the Advising and Success Coaching team.

Improved timeliness for completing new students’ financial aid verification process working with admissions and new student financial aid.

Maintained 100% compliance with Immunization records Hit the road with President Del Balzo and Provost Rosenberg to visit more than 10 high school district superintendents and administration in forging new initiatives directly with the school districts expanding the scholarship offering programs Page 3

2020 Goals Achieve CW College goals for new student enrollment.

Focus on Increased Referrals for 2020 to impact new student enrollment.

Expand the regional employer participation in the Corporate Education Partnership program.

Business Office/ HR / Bookstore Highlights Submitted By Dr. Louis Commisso 2019 Accomplishments Successful transition of new CFO and Director of Administration, Dr. Louis Commisso.

Implemented a common annual review date for staff which will be January of each year.

Continuation of Title IX training for faculty, staff and students.

Continuation of Diversity training for faculty, staff and students.

Partnered with Out with the Old Textbooks, an organization that provides the opportunity for students to sell-back their used textbooks.

Revised internal procedures which has allowed for the timely reporting of monthly financial results.

Implemented new procedures to comply with the new Westchester County Earned Sick Leave Law. 2020 Goals Implement a new streamlined purchase order procedure, which will allow for improved monitoring of expenses.

Evaluate and consider replacing ADP for payroll processing with a new web based time management/ HR system.

Focus on succession planning and cross training in all key areas.

Career Services Highlights Submitted by Michael Sandick 2019 Accomplishments Overall placement rate for graduates in field of study was 89%.

Organized and held 12+ career events for students and graduates designed to both prepare and help them to obtain jobs in their field of study. These events included Career Readiness Expo’s, Career Café’s for each major, Portfolio Review Days and Full/Part-Time Career Fairs.

Employer evaluations given at the end of each career event rated the preparedness of our students to enter the workforce as above average and they all wanted to be included in our future events.

2020 Goals Meet our in-field placement rate of 89% Continue our initiative of Career Readiness preparation for students both individually and in a group atmosphere helping them to be more self- aware, motivated and skilled in their job search.

Expand our outreach to BS degree students focusing on spending more individualized attention on their internship and job preparation. This will help to ensure that they obtain strong internships which will lead to solid employment in their field.

Institutional Research Highlights Submitted by Michael Sandick 2019 Accomplishments Continued to centralize institutional data collection, analysis and dissemination process.

Proactively conducted research/environmental scans to help inform policy/program decisions.

Continued timely and accurate compliance with all federal, state, accrediting body and all other external

reporting – received commendation from IPEDS for timely completion of surveys.

2020 Goals Continue to expand institutional dashboards in response to departmental needs.

Continue to educate the CW community about the amount and type of real-time data currently available to them.

Continue timely and accurate compliance with all federal, state, accrediting body and all other external reporting.

IT Highlights Submitted by Kelly Walsh 2019 Accomplishments Migrated off of Campus Cruiser and implemented new Staff & Faculty Portal Cutover over to new (READY Education) version of CW Everywhere Mobile app Cyber Security: Finalized several important policies and processes, created CSA page on portal, secured cybersecurity insurance, implemented multi-factor authentication for VPN users, etc.

Cutover to new, hosted phone system Migrated to Exchange 2016 Replaced and upgraded all Xerox devices Facilitated several classroom computing initiatives (laptops carts, larger classrooms, planning for more tech pilots on 2020 2020 Goals Develop 2021 – 2023 Strategic Technology Plan Complete migration to Campus Nexus Implement 1 or 2 Flexible Classroom Spaces & trial BYOD computing in Business Program Participate in Business Continuity Plan development Implement new backup system Page 4

Classroom A/V Improvements - 1st floor & 5th Floor Replace entire network server farm and SAN storage

Marketing & Media Resources Highlights Submitted by Nancy Trim 2019 Accomplishments Developed program specific video ads on social media channels.

Increased student inquiries on newly developed event driven marketing on cw.edu homepage.

Developed and launched “CW topic expert” blog stories.

Increased YOY inquiries from prospective students and returning students.

Developed and launched variable data personalized Constant Contact email.

2020 Goals Update cw.edu to content management system, Drupal/Version 10 Create Faculty Notes Section on cw.edu, share in CC email Launch Empower Campaign

Student Financial Services Highlights Submitted by Dianne Pepitone 2019 Accomplishments Significant improvements were achieved with federal verification completion as well as overall student financial aid paperwork initiatives that were developed to better serve our students and CW. This has promoted strong financial success and stability and has fostered better student satisfaction.

In 2019, we had the opportunity to work with three new outside agencies (Gear-UP HESC, White Plains Hospital, National Guard) with the result of assisting students in repaying tuition costs Page 5

We changed our reporting method for 1098-T (in short, the 1098-T is an IRS tax form filed by eligible education institutions to report payments rec’d/due from the paying student), from “Amount Billed” to “Amount Paid”. This has made a positive impact on student satisfaction with respect to students receiving their tax forms to be filed with the IRS. We have completed a full year of participating and award of the NYS Enhanced Tuition Award for CW students to assist in additional funding for their education.

Successful completion of CW annual internal Title IV audit in May 2019 for calendar year 2018 with zero findings.

Division of Veterans’ Affairs compliance audit conducted in 2019, zero findings.

2020 Goals Timely completion of federal verification as well as NYS TAP outstanding award issues.

Assist CW students with timely completion of 2020-2021 FAFSA/TAP application refiling.

Adhere to new federal operational impact regulation with regard to Informed Borrowing Confirmation Process which will require all student and parent borrowers to view how much they currently owe in federal student/parent loans, and to acknowledge that amount before a school can make a first disbursement of the Direct Student/Parent loan.

Expand and have a more robust default prevention and repayment initiatives focus for student loan borrowing and debt.

Amazon is Amazing: Help Support the College of Westchester Charitable Foundation Do you like to shop online? If so, chances are you’ve done shopping on www.amazon.com once or twice, or a hundred. Amazon really is amazing. Not only can you find virtually anything you are looking for on this site, but if you’re a Prime Member, you can also have your stuff on your doorstep in two days. Can’t beat it!

Another amazing thing about Amazon is that through their AmazonSmile program, they will donate .05% of your purchase to the charity of your choice. This is a great way to donate to our very own College of Westchester Charitable Foundation. It’s very easy to do. To register your charity, go to www.smile.amazon.com, and you will be prompted to select the charitable organization from almost one million eligible organizations, and College of Westchester Charitable Foundation is one of those organizations. From then on, for all eligible purchases, AmazonSmile will donate .05% to the charity.

AmazonSmile is a website operated

by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices, and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.

Thanks in advance for your support of the CWCF Foundation!

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Digital Footprints: 10 Steps for Making the Most of One’s Professional Online Presence K. Walsh, CIO, Asst. Professor Students, Educators, and Professionals of all Stripes Can Learn, Share, Connect, and Enhance Their Professional Presence by Leveraging These Techniques We often remind our students that they need be careful about what they post on line, and inform them of other steps to manage their online profile. This is very important advice. While it is easy to focus on the possible negative aspects of posting things online, there is also a very positive and useful angle to posting online. It can be a great way to learn, share, connect, develop a following, and possibly even position yourself as an expert in your field. This can also help lead to career opportunities and growth.

These steps and techniques can help you establish an impressive professional presence online.

1. Know Your Passion

It all starts with being deeply interested in a topic. What are you immersed in and can't learn enough about? Your job, your field, some new development in your profession? Of course, it does not have to be career-specific, it could also be a hobby or other interest. The bottom line is that you have to be passionate about it. If you are so into something that you become a bit of an expert on the subject, Page 7

then there is probably an audience that will want to learn from you.

Of course, if you get too specific you will narrow your audience, so keep that in mind. For example, while some scientists develop expertise in a very specific type of plant, chemical process, geological formation, etc., this doesn't necessarily bring with it a large group of followers.

You may need to step back and widen your area of interest/expertise. For example, if you are amazingly informed about the Patagonian Wolf Flower, you might want to widen your horizon and learn about more types of Patagonian Flowers.

2. Set up a Google Alert

The next big step in developing a constantly expanding understanding of your area of interest is to read, read, read and keep learning. Thanks to the advent of the interwebs, there has never been more information available to us (albeit not all necessarily accurate information).

One great tool that can bring new information right to your In Box is a Google Alert. It only takes a few moments to set one up, and then you will get a short listing of relevant new content in your in box daily, weekly, or “as it happens” (your choice). And don't worry, you don't get a zillion results like you do when you search on Google, you just get a handful of results.

3. Find and Follow Relevant Hashtags and Experts on Twitter

Social media has numerous downsides, but it can also be a great source of professional connection and learning.

Twitter is particularly useful for this since it works well for following hashtags (“#edtech�), people, and organizations.

4. Share Great Content

Now that you've got good content coming your way not only are you learning new things every day, you're likely to have content you can share with your following! If you don't have a following yet, well you've got to start somewhere and sharing great content is essential.

Of course, creating your own content is a vital step above simply sharing content from others, so look for opportunities to do so. As for types of content to create, that will vary depending on what your area of focus is. Some things lend themselves to visuals, which can work well on most platforms, as does video. Text content works well on Twitter and Facebook, but is more likely to get noticed with a good visual attached (Pixabay.com is one of many great places to find royalty-free imagery to help your content *pop*!).

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5. Engage on Other Social Media

Platforms That Make Sense for Your Area of Expertise. For example:

• Instagram: This popular

platform is the place to share visuals and get noticed. Over 70% of Instagram's audience is under 34.

• Facebook: While its

popularity has declined a bit in recent years, it is still very widely used by a wide demographic range. All forms of content can work there – text, audio, video, images.

• LinkedIn: The long running

social network for professional engagements has recently become much more of a social media platform. If your audience is professionals, you can reach them there.

• Snapchat: Hugely popular among younger folks. Note: you can't link to Snapchat content (unless something has changed that I am not aware of), so it is a rather contained format.

6. Use a Social Media Aggregator like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite for Efficiency

Now that you've got all these feeds coming in and want to share all that great content you're curating, it would be nice to make the process more efficient. Check out Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. These tools let you set up columns to ‘listen' to different hashtags and users that you follow, and also schedule tweets and shares! Tweetdeck focuses on Twitter use but Hootsuite works with Twitter, Page 9

Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. With a tool like this, you can take 15 or 20 minutes and schedule posts across multiple platforms throughout the day while also easily perusing your content feeds from others. Super efficient.

7. Follow, Follow, Like, Like

Be sure to keep following and liking good content and sources you like. Social media sharing can be rather circular in that way. As the old Genesis song goes, “I will follow you if you follow me“.

8. Find Your Rhythm

It is important to be consistent. Figure out when works for you each day and set aside some time. Then stick with it.

9. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

If anyone reading this has a product or service that wish to sell and is considering this from a social media marketing perspective, this is a very important point to consider. Media mogul Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a great book a few years back about this. The basic idea here is to avoid only sharing your stuff. A chorus of “look at me, look at me” quickly gets boring. Vaynerchuk's analogy is that the little bits you source from others and share are like the “jabs”, and then when you do post something about your product or service, that's the right hook. If you can get people to follow you because they learn from you, are amused or inspired by your content, and so on, then when you have something of your own to share it is more likely to be appreciated and clicked on.

10. Take Advantage of Opportunities as They Arise

Chances are that as you consume and share quality content that is relevant to your area of specialization, you will connect with like-minded professionals and enthusiasts who share your interests.

If you do a good enough job of creating and sharing informative and insightful content about your topic area, this could lead to requests for new content, interviews, presentations, and more.

If someone asks you to write a piece for their site, be open to it. If someone asks to interview you, go for it. This is a great way to build on your hard work. Write great guest content when the opportunity presents itself (you can also find opportunities to write guest content on your own). Prepare well for interviews.

Create fun, informative presentations. The bottom line is: make the most of these opportunities when they arise. This in turn may even lead to paid opportunities to share your expertise (I got my first paid presenting gig around 2013 after the President of a technical college saw me present at a Campus Technology conference).

So there you have it. Start consuming, sharing, creating, and connecting. See you online!

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2020 basketball Schedule

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Mon Jan 6

Blue Sky Studios 9pm

Mon Jan 13

Tacko Tuesday 8pm

thu Jan 23

versik 8pm

thu Jan 30

Brazon Fox 8pm

thu feb 6

mas tigres 7pm

mon feb 10

Ron Black’s 8pm

mon feb 24

Danone 8pm

Mon Mar 2

Mastercard 7pm

Mon Mar 9

burke 9pm

The School of Business at CW has had some interesting and exciting activity during the recent Fall semester. First, a new club was established – the Entrepreneurial Society of CW, which is focused on helping small businesses in the surrounding communities grow and develop. During the Fall, the new club wrote and approved its by-laws, attended Club Day, began meeting, participated in a conference of area non-profit organizations, and is now ready to grow its membership during the Winter semester.

Next, the Entrepreneurial Society of CW (ESCW) is getting ready to participate in the Mid-Hudson Regional Business Plan Competition in April at Marist College. The ESCW will work with campus chapters of Enactus and NABA (National Association of Black Accountants) to assemble one or more teams to create a business plan and, hopefully, attend this event. The club moderators, Paula Cancro (Enactus), Max Torres (NABA), and Robert Onorato (ESCW) will serve as advisors to the team(s). In addition, Warren Rosenberg, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, has enthusiastically agreed to offer his knowledge, support, and expertise to the effort.

Business Buzz

by, Robert Onorato

competition. So far at least ten applications to be team members have been submitted. Work is now underway to review the applications, choose the team, develop a business idea, and begin work on the business plan. The application deadline is March 20th, after which a committee evaluates all of the applications and determines which teams will be invited to present their plans on April 17th at Marist College.

Look out for more information and updates about the team, its work, and the competition on CW’s social media platforms. Please be sure to support them and wish them well. As Dr. Rosenberg has said, not only do we intend to be one of the teams chosen to present, “But we intend to be one of the winners!” Best of luck to all involved!

The moderators held their first information session for interested students at the end of the Fall semester, and at least twenty students attended to hear more about the

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2019 EMPLOYEE APPRECIATION AWARDS 5 Years of Employment

Krissy Frano

Melissa Lefkowitz

Max Torres

Neal Wasserman

Kevin Zuniga

Not Photographed: Ashanti Dawson , Erwin Duran, William Marc Jones

10 Years of Employment

Dawn Olivier

Sean Capossela

Not Photographed: Albert Armstead, Christian De Matteo

15 Years of Employment

Perry Brown

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Christina Cea

Dianne Pepitone

Not Photographed: Raymond Giles III

20 Years of Employment

Mark DeSerio

Stacy Larson

25 Years of Employment

Annette Casserly

Jason Schoen

30 Years of Employment

Maria Gangi

Employee of the Year

Katie Dorelian

Christy Poniros

Steve Paris

Nancy Trim

Faculty of the Year

Max Torres Page t4

“Throwback” Best Dressed Winner Stacy Larson

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WELCOME TO EVERYWHERE

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Whether you have a question, want to learn about events on campus, or need to reach out to someone, you can connect with your campus community.

YOUR CAMPUS

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Campus services, course information, and more are just a tap away.

YOUR WAY

Customize your app to the way you want it.

With favorites and your personalized schedule, this app will be unique to you.

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