Dear HCC Family,
Each year, the new academic year symbolizes new beginnings, and this year is no different. I am delighted to “Welcome” each of you–students, faculty, staff and administrators–back from what I hope was a wonderful summer and a successful year. Now let’s embark together upon a busy and exciting 2010-2011 academic year.
We can expect more great things to be accomplished this year, and I want to share some of them with you. More importantly, please join me in moving HCC into the brightest year in our history. As we continue to embrace our mission of being the most relevant community college in the country, essential to our community’s success, we must not forget our core mission of “serving students.” Our mission, “students first,” will continue to be our primary focus as we soar to the next level.
First, “thank you” to new and returning students for choosing HCC as the gateway to your future. During the 2009-2010 year, we reached a record-break enrollment of more than 72,000 students. This Fall 2010 we will exceed that number. Knowing about activities and initiatives at HCC designed to open doors, offer opportunities and smooth the pathways while you are at HCC will ensure that your time with us is used most effectively. Take some time to learn about these resources.
Second, I want to empower each of you in your respective role to provide input to ensure HCC continues to produce graduates who become contributing citizens, advance to the next level in local colleges and universities, or venture into a more global arena as we expand our partnerships with other countries. Faculty, staff and administrators, your contributions to HCC are important as you dedicate your time, creativity, and talents to our students and communities.
Third, there are many outstanding initiatives that will be forthcoming in 2010-2011 to share. I invite you to visit our website at: www.hccs.edu and learn more about where we are going and how these initiatives will affect your success at HCC. Now let’s review a few highlights for the coming year.
In the area of Student Services and under the leadership of Dr. Diana Pino the following highlights are significant:
• Textbook Rentals: Starting this fall, students will be able to rent many of their required textbooks from the HCC Bookstore. Barnes and Noble, the operators of the Bookstore, predict that a new textbook costing $100 will rent for approximately $47. Later this fall, a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for bookstore services will require an HCC bookstore operator to provide multiple options for students to constrain textbook prices, including downloading or leasing of digital textbooks.
• Statway: We are one of 19 community colleges across the nation that is participating in a major grant project entitled Statway. Funded by major donors and coordinated by the Carnegie Foundation, Statway will involve the creation, testing, and implementation of a new math pathway for students leading to college level Statistics rather than College Algebra. The pathway is aimed at students who intend to major in the liberal arts, social sciences, business, and various career programs. The goal is to double the proportion of developmental math students prepared in one year to succeed in further academic study or occupational pursuits.
• Campus Living: In partnership with the University of Houston, all HCC students can enjoy campus living at the UH Moody Towers residential facility starting fall 2010. This is a great opportunity for our students to have the best of both worlds: the experience of dormitory living while studying at a community college. Applications are now being accepted for up to 80 HCC students.
• Student Records Automation: Degree Audit – By September, all academic plans (AA, AS, AAT), all AAS plans, and all Certificate plans for programs that have no AAS plans will be automated. This will allow counselors and students to view an electronic degree audit rather than relying on a paper copy. This year, there will be a focus on catching up on our transcript evaluation of transfer work to ensure accuracy of the degree audits.
In the area of Instruction and under the leadership of Dr. Charles Cook:
• CurricUNET: After a year of development, we will introduce CurricUNET to all faculty this fall. CurricUNET is a web-based repository of all HCC curricula, containing syllabi and student learning outcomes for all HCC courses and programs. Once fully operational, users will also have access to other member colleges’ curriculum (including Miami-Dade, the City Colleges of Chicago, San Diego City College, and others). The development of CurricUNET has coincided with instructional preparation for reaffirmation of HCC accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and new state legislation requiring all college instructors to post their syllabi and resumes on-line.
• Real Time Faculty Withdrawal of Students: This process gives faculty the ability to withdraw their students online from their faculty centers, offices and homes. In the current process, faculty must complete an online application that is emailed to their respective campuses where campus personnel then drop the students by hand. The new process will eliminate the “middleman” by processing the withdrawal in real time and provide efficient customer support services to our faculty, staff and students.
Diversity Initiatives:
• We serve a uniquely diverse student body representing cultures, ethnicities and belief systems from across the globe. To continue to address the variety of differences brought to our campuses by students, faculty and staff, HCC must continue to take an active role in preparing students for a global workplace by encouraging the development of global competency skills in its students and employees. On April, 9 2010, I charged the members of the new HCC Council for Diversity and Inclusion with the responsibility of making recommendations that will foster a systematic “positive culture” of understanding, respect and acceptance of others unique differences. The standing council will advise my office regarding issues of diversity, equal opportunity and inclusion and facilitate programs and services that meet the changing needs of individuals in a diverse community. I encourage each of you to participate in this important initiative in whatever way possible and beneficial to the institution.
International Initiatives:
• HCC continues to value the importance of our international students and partnerships with other countries. As we enter the 2010 academic year, I am pleased to share with you the addition of another significant partnership where our expertise in international education has been recognized and sought. We will begin classes in Qatar this fall and will have over 40 employees from HCC participate in the opening of this institution. As we progress through this partnership, HCC students and faculty will have opportunities to broaden their international relationships through various media including teaching or studying abroad. Join me in congratulating those employees who are among the first to work on this initiative.
Professional Development Opportunities:
• In August we launched the HCC Chair Excellence Institute made possible by a Chancellor’s Innovation Grant to offer a vehicle for professional development to instructional chairs. An Executive-Level Speaker Series will be introduced this year for administrators as the Leadership Excellence Institute goes on a one-year hiatus. And a 6-module supervisor refresher training series kicks off this fall.
Going Green:
• As a signatory of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), HCC will expand our existing recycling efforts this fall by formally implementing Phase 1 of a system- wide recycling program. This effort presents an opportunity for HCC to meet its commitment of promoting a sustainable future and positions us to be good stewards of the environment as members of the PCC and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Please join me in being more environmentally conscious at HCC by recycling.
In the area of Information Technology and under the leadership of Mr. William Carter, we continue to make strides in improving processes and applications. Two significant initiatives for the coming include:
• mobileHCC: mobileHCC is an application that is available on the Apple AppStore for mobile devices. The App provides all faculty, staff and students access to HCC course schedules, employee directories, maps, new, events, images and videos. Phase II of mobileHCC will provide real time data to facilitate registration, attendance taking, and grading via the iPhone, Blackberry, iPad, iTouch or other mobile device.
• SmarterMeasure: This is a third party software that will serve as a pre requisite to Distance Ed Developmental Ed Students. DE students enrolling in DE developmental classes will be redirected to SmarterMeasure where they will take the assessment instrument. Scores will be loaded into PeopleSoft and used for advisement purposes. ADSA will develop the redirect, use single sign on technology to create students’ profiles in SmarterMeasure and create an import process to load the scores. Once scores are in PS, students will be able to complete enrollment in the appropriate development classes.
Human Resources new mandate:
• Implementation of Texas Senate Bill 9 requirements to fingerprint HCC employees.
The new law requires that HCC perform an expanded criminal history check that will now include fingerprinting of all new and current employees. The legislation was enacted to ensure the safety of all children, teachers and staff in Texas public schools. Since employees are present on public school campuses and public school students attend class on HCC campuses, this legislation applies to us. During the coming months, we will be implementing a fingerprinting examination process in accordance with Senate Bill 9.
HCC Foundation:
• The HCC Foundation continues to make strides, via the HCC Alumni Association, in its outreach to the College’s 77,000-plus alumni and to build the Association into an organization that can support the College and the Foundation’s fundraising efforts.
• The HCC Foundation is moving forward in its campaign to fund the Opportunity 14 Scholarship Endowment—raising in excess of $2.7 million to date—so that the scholarship will be available to young Houstonians for generations to come. The Opportunity 14 scholarship has enjoyed a promising first two years, allowing hundreds of low-income students from across the city to enroll at HCC and begin their college education.
HCC Police Department:
• Parking Passes will now be required of everyone parking on HCC facilities. Parking passes can be down loaded on- line for faculty, students and staff this year. Visit our website or call for more information.
• Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to program HCC-Police dispatch into your cell phone for escorts, emergencies or suspicious activity. The number is: 713-718-8888.
• Encourage faculty, students and staff to update their information in people-soft and authorize emergency notifications from the college so you can keep up to date in the event of emergencies, dangerous weather, or school closings.
These are only a few of the many highlights, significant projects and initiatives that will play an important role setting the tone for the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year. Please visit our website at: www.hccs.edu for additional highlights and information that may be of interest to you as a student, faculty, staff or administrator. Beginning in September and throughout the year, I will be visiting each of the colleges as I do each quarter and look forward to an opportunity to visit with you.
Finally, I am full of optimism about HCC’s future and the direction we are going. There is a place for each of you to make significant contributions and achieve success. As I enter my 4th year as chancellor of this great institution, I join the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff and administrators in making a commitment to “students first” in all we do. Your success is key in determining the success of our city, state and nation. Thank you for your commitment to the college. Welcome back and have a very successful 2010-2011 year.
Sincerely,
Mary S. Spangler, Ed. D.
Chancellor
Houston Community College
Additional Significant Highlights 2010-2011:
• Learning Communities Tracking: ADSA is providing a means of identifying both classes and students to facilitate the tracking by OIR of students enrolled in Learning Community classes.
• Self Service Student Planner: The self service planner provides students with a tool to plan their courses for an individual term, multiple terms, or for the entire stay at HCC. After students add courses to their planner, they can proceed directly from planning to enrollment. The process allows students to plan, save and modify their course schedules ahead of registering and provides another online tool to make HCC’s services more effective.
• On-line Withdrawal System – As of July 26th, students will be able to withdraw from one or more classes online. While it is still encouraged for students receive advisement from instructional and counseling faculty prior to withdrawing, students will no longer be required to “see” someone before they will be allowed to drop.
Students will be invited to click on several links to learn more of the implications of dropping on the 6 drop rule (http://imc02.hccs.edu/gcac/drop.htm), on veterans, on financial aid, and on international students.
Students will be required to acknowledge the implications of withdrawing from a class. This will provide better self-service for students! Phase two of this development involves a process by which faculty, who wish to enforce an absenteeism policy through withdrawing a student for excessive absences, will experience a much easier withdrawal process.
• Financial Aid: Financial Aid has made great strides already in serving our 2010-2011 FA applicants. The financial aid processing turn-around time has improved from approximately 6 weeks to 3 weeks. These improvements have resulted from increased automation and improved document assignment and tracking. As of July 30th, 13,797 students have been awarded as compared to 6,852 this time last year. Staff is ensuring greater consistency in the customer service experience at the campus level by working in a proactive team-based structure. Financial aid is recognized as both a recruitment and retention tool. As such, financial resources have been set aside to continue to enhance processes and services. It is projected that with these resources, the turnaround processing time for the aid year 2011 will reduce to 7-10 days.
• As a follow up to the on-line withdrawal system students will be provided information related to the implications and possible consequences of dropping their courses. The following will occur when a student selects the “drop” option during an enrollment request:
Students will be required to select a drop reason in order to complete the withdrawal request (the drop reason will cue whether the dropped course will count toward the 6 drop rule or not).
• Chair Excellence Institute: On August 6, 2010, Dr. Walter Gmelch, Dean and Professor from the School of Education, University of San Francisco, delivered the keynote address to launch the opening event for the HCC Chair Excellence Institute (CEI), a program designed to offer HCC instructional chairs a vehicle for professional development. The CEI, led by Dr. David Diehl, Director of the HCC Center for Teaching and Learning
Excellence, and an Executive Council of outstanding HCC faculty and chairs, was made possible by a Chancellor’s Innovation Grant.
• Develop and Implement Executive-level Speaker Series. The purpose of this program is to provide leadership development opportunities for HCC administrators.
• Mandatory Supervisor Refresher Training Series. Six Learning modules (fall, spring and Summer 2010-11 and 2011-12 fiscal years) are being developed and will be conducted for all supervisors. The goal of the training is to equip managers with the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to consistently and confidently act in accordance with HCC policies, procedures and practices, such that the rights of individuals and HCC are protected. Three modules will be conducted in 2010-2011 and three modules will be conducted in 2011-2012.
• HCC Foundation continuation: In particular, the HCC Alumni Association is planning to launch a magazine this fall, in coordination with the HCC Communications Department, to celebrate HCC achievements and highlight donor recognition. The semiannual magazine will feature a print and online component with distribution to HCC alumni as well as community leaders, corporate decision makers and supporters and friends of the College.
• Finally, beginning the month of September and throughout the first semester, I will be visiting each of the colleges and would love to have an opportunity to visit with you. Notices around your college will be place notifying you of the date, time and location of my visit will be coming soon.