The anger Volume 93 • Issue 9 San Antonio College A forum of free voices since 1926
Feb. 11, 2019 WWW.THERANGER.ORG
Free tuition for seniors coming in fall 2020 The Alamo Colleges is looking for funding from public and private sources. By Sergio Medina smedina104@student.alamo.edu
Finance sophomore Mario Lopez reaches for a tree while leading computer programing sophomore Okhai Omotuebe across a tight rope during a group activity called “Tarzan and Jane” Feb. 1 at T Bar M Camp in New Braunfels. Lopez and Omotuebe walked five tightropes with new student orientation ambassadors supporting them. The office of student life took 10 students to a leadership retreat Feb. 1-2. Brianna Rodrigue
Political science coordinator wants to add Mexican-American politics to field of study Two government courses overlap with the core curriculum. By Dean Contreras sac-ranger@alamo.edu
A field of study curriculum in political science should include GOVT 2311, Mexican-American and Latinx Politics, Coordinator Christy Woodward Kaupert said Feb. 1. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved a revised field of study July 26 with four courses, GOVT 2304, Introduction to Political Science; GOVT 2305, Federal Government; GOVT 2306, Texas Government; and MATH 1342, Elementary Statistical Methods. A comment period of 30 to 90 days will allow educators across the state to comment on the revised field of study. Kaupert said she plans to make her views known. At this college, students can take political science courses that count toward an associate degree, but there is not a specified field of study. GOVT 2305 and GOVT
2306 are part of the core curriculum. If courses are used in the core curriculum, they can’t be used again in the field of study. Kaupert said for this college to offer a field of study in political science, the field of study would have to include GOVT 2311, and another course to allow this college to meet the required number of courses. “There is a limit on political science courses already and converting some to a field of study requirement makes everything more difficult,” she said. The only other political course the Coordinating Board’s Academic Course Guide Manual allows community colleges to teach is GOVT 2107, Federal and Texas Constitutions, which is not offered at this college. Kaupert said students should meet with their program adviser for assistance regarding their curriculum.
The purpose of the field of study courses, according to The Coordinating Board, is to be part of a wider range of transfer success initiatives. “The FOS should focus on students who start at community colleges and want to transfer. The goal of the committee is to create a guaranteed pathway to the degree and minimize the number of excess hours that students take, Garry Tomerlin, deputy assistant commissioner of the Coordinating Board staff said, in a report from the meeting on the website. “The committee members mostly consists of four-year universities, and they don’t accommodate for the two-year institutions’ courses on the ACGM,” Kaupert said. Most two-year institutions have the problem of the core curriculum overlapping with the final field of study curriculum determined in the meeting. For information about the political science program, call Kaupert at 210-486-1008 or email cwoodward-kauper@alamo.edu.
Course syllabuses also available through college website Website still in need of tweaking, instructor said. By Sergio Medina smedina104@student.alamo.edu Nursing freshman Athena Garza didn’t know course syllabuses could be accessed through the Alamo Colleges website, www.
alamo.edu. She was aware of syllabus access through Canvas, as was psychology freshman Rebecca Parrientes and criminal justice freshman Jasmen Halpin, but none of them were aware of access outside of Canvas. The three of them agreed they wished they had known that.
Gregory Pasztor, radio-television-film instructor, said easy access to syllabuses is something students should be informed about. “I didn’t think finding the syllabus was easy,” he said. “I don’t think most students know how to find their syllabus for their
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As soon as fall 2020, high school graduates in Bexar County could have their Alamo Colleges tuition covered completely through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and the Alamo Promise program. The “last-dollar scholarship” through the Alamo Promise program, will cover tuition expenses not covered by FAFSA for graduating high school seniors for a total of two years or 60 credit hours, Chancellor Mike Flores said in an interview Jan. 30. Only high school seniors enrolled in FAFSA would benefit from by the promise program. “Our students would have to complete the FAFSA — financial aid application,” he said. In case a student’s financial aid does not entirely cover tuition for the semester, then the lastdollar scholarship would pay for the remaining balance. “Last dollar means, if there is a gap — so we’d say it’d cost $2,500, and Pell (Grant) covers $2,000 — then Promise would cover the other $500 and close that gap,” Flores said. “If a student makes too much, or their parents — their Flores household — make too much for Pell (Grant), but they’re still struggling day-to-day to pay tuition, then Promise would cover the full amount of tuition for that student.” Flores said, “If we just look at 70 percent of graduating high school seniors, so 70 percent of 16,000 — that’s our goal, right? — if they were to participate in Alamo Promise, come to San Antonio College or one of the other colleges, then at full implementation, it would cost $13.5 million.” He said the district is seeking external resources to fund the program. Ideally, every senior in Bexar County would be covered, but that depends on the funding available, he added. The goal is for Promise to become a permanent program. “Right now, we’re talking with the city, the county and private sources to pay for it,” Flores said. “So the money is not coming from our existing budget.” The goal is to have yearly, continuous support to fund the program, he said. Students would need a 2.0 GPA to be able to qualify under Promise, he said. Flores said the purpose of the
program is to increase the college-going rate. “That college-going rate right now is anywhere from 35 percent to 55 percent,” he added. SA2020, a local nonprofit that tracks community indicators such as college and graduation rates, reported college enrollment in San Antonio sat at 47.1 percent among high school graduates in 2017. Furthermore, 34.7 percent of adults in San Antonio had a college degree in 2017. The report can be found at https://report.sa2020.org/education/. “One out of three San Antonians currently has a college certificate or degree; we need one out of every two San Antonians to have a degree for us to be more competitive in the future,” Flores said. He said the program would be only for graduating high school seniors in Bexar County. High school seniors will begin to be recruited as early as September, during the academic year 2019-20. “So the first students, if we work with the graduating, the high school seniors this ‘19-20 academic year, would come in summer of ‘20 and would start classes in late August of ’20,” Flores said. During summer 2020, Flores said students would attend boot camps to learn about the six Alamo Institutes, which include creative and communication arts, business and entrepreneurship, health and biosciences, advanced manufacturing and logistics, public service, and science and technology. For more information on the institutes, go to https://www. alamo.edu/enroll/plan/. Flores said a competitive community needs educated citizens, and education is one of the main drivers in improving the quality of life, he added. “Alamo Promise would be a way to ensure that more students come to us,” he said. Once through college, these students will have better income opportunities to support themselves and their families, he added. “That’s really the goal of Alamo Promise, to support students by paying tuition — it tells all graduating high school seniors, ‘We believe in you as a community,’” Flores said.