Archive for February, 2008
Faith and religion topic of discussion for March 11 senior citizens’ event at Richland College
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The Emeritus Program at Richland College (RLC) will host its Spring 2008 Symposium at 10 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. on Tues., March 11 in the Fannin Performance Hall. “Creating a New Common Ground in our Search for Understanding” is for retirees and ages 65+ and costs $15.
The symposium will include a discussion of interfaith and cultural understanding by three keynote speakers:
Dr. Yusuf Ziya Kavakci, Imam, Dallas Central Mosque
Dr. George Mason, Senior Pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church
Rabbi David Stern, Senior Rabbi, Temple Emanu-El
Moderator: Dr. Paul Benson, American Religion Historian, Mountain View College
The event also includes a box lunch and musical performance by classical guitarist, Carlo Pezzimenti.
To register for this event, call the Continuing Education Department at 972-238-6147 or 972-238-6146.
Published by Anitra Cotton on February 19th, 2008 tagged Events, News | Comment now »
This week’s RLC update
Community and Economic Development - Richland, partnering with GISD via the THECB-funded College Connections program, hosted more than 100 students and parents at an information night at the GISD Special Events Center on January 30. The event allowed participants to learn, in Spanish or English, about the FAFSA application process, learning assessment in college-level/developmental education, decisions on college majors through career assessment, and tips on easing transition stress from high school to college for both students and parents. Participants browsed the information area to obtain materials about college programs and services from Richland Educational Transitions, Continuing Education, Human and Academic Development, Testing Center, Admissions, and Financial Aid staff.
Student Success - Richland’s Core Curriculum 2009 Committee convened more than 100 students this week in a student forum to learn what students think the updated core curriculum should offer, and the enthusiastic student participants were appreciative of the opportunity to share their observations. The committee also posted a modified version of the student-forum PowerPoint presentation on eCampus so students unable to attend the forum can participate in the process and submit their observations. In addition to Core 2009, the Richland Institutional Student-Learning Outcomes Task Force polled students about their ideas as to what the institutional student-learning outcomes should be. This information parallels the information gained from faculty during the January 10 instructional discipline breakout sessions.
Employee Success - Richland Fulbright Scholar Anastasia Klenova from Saratov State University (SSU), Russia, completed a busy fall semester teaching ESOL, sharing Russian history, culture, and contemporary life with students and faculty at Richland and other DCCCD campuses, and serving as a guest speaker at the Jewish Community Center, True Lee Missionary Church, and English Speaking Union. She is currently involved in implementing three joint RLC/SSU on-line courses with Richland instructors Fred Newbury, Carole Lester, and Matt Hinkley and will share her presentation about contemporary Russian life at the upcoming Dallas Russian Winter Festival and opening ceremony of a Dallas Sister-City/Saratov photographic exhibit at Richland.
Institutional Effectiveness - Doctoral students from Block 63 of The University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) visited Richland February 3-4 to tour of the campus with President Mittelstet and engage in a series of conversations with key Richland personnel, based on advance questions the students formulated after reading Richland’s 2005 Baldrige Application. Discussion topics addressed Student Success, Employee Success, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Fiscal Performance, and Performance Excellence. Richland’s Institutional Effectiveness/Research staff also presented at the Texas Association for Institutional Research annual conference in Galveston February 4-7, covering the topics of Using Baldrige Discipline to Improve Through Benchmarking and Environmental Scanning and Deploying an Institutional Strategic Plan.
Richland Collegiate High School (RCHS) - University junior-level acceptance letters continue to arrive for seniors graduating from RCHS and Richland in May. Lauren Anderson has been accepted to the University of Miami and will receive a scholarship of $24,000 a year for four years. Kristine Pollock has been accepted to Sam Houston State University and is awaiting a scholarship announcement. Also, RCHS Senior Caitlin Taylor, who has been accepted to The University of Texas Biomedical Engineering program, was featured last week in The Dallas Morning News “Good Kid” section.
Published by Anitra Cotton on February 12th, 2008 tagged Award/Honors, Events, News, Richland Collegiate High School | Comment now »
This week’s RLC update
Community and Economic Development - GREENRichland hosted Richland students, faculty, and staff January 30-31 in participating with 1,000 colleges and universities in the nationwide observance of Focus the Nation, a landmark event for all American higher education, designed to engage students, educators, and community leaders in meaningful, action-oriented teaching/learning/community-building dialogue on global climate change. Richland activities included a student referendum, Choose Your Future, on priorities for action; faculty-led panel discussions with business and community leaders on the issues of economic, faith, social justice, and governmental/political implications in the global warming issue; and The Focus the Nation webcast, The 2% Solution.
Student Success - The Richland African American Latino Student Alliance and Student Programs and Resources office will host their annual leadership workshop, Get a Grip!, on Saturday, featuring award-winning speaker, educator, and author Joe Martin. Professor Martin will address Characteristics of Leadership; Growing as a Leader; Crisis Management; and Performance of a Leader. The Alliance Leadership workshop is conducted each year to provide an opportunity for leadership conversations between students, faculty and staff and to inspire leadership in Richland students.
Employee Success - Congratulations to two long-time, founding members of the Richland faculty on recent honors they have received. Richland Theatre Professor Chuck Sheffield was named Featured Designer of the Year by the Texas Educational Theatre Association at its annual conference in Dallas this past weekend. Chuck was also honored recently by the Southwest Theatre and Film Association with its Distinguished Service Award. Physical Education Professor Bill Neal was honored January 26 with the 1st Annual Bill Neal Classic Wrestling Tournament held at Kimball High School. More than 80 boys and 60 girls competed in the inaugural event at which Bill conducted a wrestling clinic for eight local high schools. Richland’s wrestling program spanned 1972 to 1984, during which time, Richland won seven state championships.
Institutional Effectiveness - Richland’s Institutional Effectiveness leadership team recently received the results of the biennial Campus Quality Survey administered to all employees in fall 2007. Survey respondents rated 59 items on How It Is Now and How It Should Be, and the team is examining differences between the two ratings for gaps in performance and opportunities to improve. The results reveal that 82.07% of all employees indicated satisfaction with employment at Richland, a slight improvement over the 2005 rating of 81.75%. Additional results indicate that 90% of all survey items had performance gaps below 1.00, indicating good agreement between How It Should Be and How It Is Now. Six survey items had performance gaps of 1.00 or greater, indicating a lack of agreement. The team is triangulating these results with the Modern Think Survey results and the spring 2008 ThunderValues Survey for greater insight into common themes of success and opportunity.
Richland Collegiate High School (RCHS) - Representatives from Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, Mountain View, North Lake, Richland, District Office, University of North Texas, Early College High School at Mountain View College, RCHS, and Cedar Hill ISD met at the Bill J. Priest Institute Wednesday to discuss common issues related to Early College High Schools and RCHS. Among the issues the group addressed were: providing “highly qualified teachers;” documenting college courses on high school transcripts; “seat time” rules to earn funding from the Texas Education Agency (TEA); the disruption of students schedules for TAKS testing; the cost of providing college textbooks for students; handling registration blocks imposed by the colleges’ business offices; meeting TEA rules regarding nutrition and college food services and vending machines; smoking on campus regulations; and graduation ceremonies for graduates of both the high schools and the colleges. The productive meeting will lead to further cooperative discussions of these issues to develop a united approach to the TEA.