PAUC Meeting

Hello to you all,
I have been a bit lax in my posting every two weeks.  I will keep everyone updated over the summer through the blog of changes coming up and what to expect in the fall.

First new news - We hosted the latest PAUC meeting on campus last Friday.  It was a great meeting with lots of insight into how the other institutions across Alberta are fairing in the new budget scenario.  Some are better, some are worse.  As of right now we are status quo for September, work loads are set for next year and if you haven't received your schedule for next year yet, talk to myself or Roxanne. On a side note, I was nominated and accepted the role of Chair of this committee.  With some major new opportunities with Alberta Ed. moving forward, I think that this committee can have a major influence on how the over-age students gain there high school education.  This new collaboration could be a major step forward between the two sides of the fence.  Now we just have to make it work. 

We have a very large cohort of spring students this year with over 100 new course registrations in the spring.  This is a large increase from last year.  Thanks to all of you who are teaching this spring.

We will be starting renovations in the AN1700 offices in a couple of weeks.  For all of us who reside in this area, we will need to be packed and ready for moving before the end of June.  There will be help moving the materials, but Clarence has asked that it be boxed and mover ready before you leave in May.

I hope that everyone take advantage of the May 22nd event.  It is your opportunity to provide input into the strategic direction of the college moving forward.  There will be no talk of cuts or budgets at this meeting, but it will focus on the future direction of the college. 

I hope you all are having a fantastic spring!  Enjoy the sunshine and I will send out another update in a couple of weeks.

Best
Scott

New Stuff

Hello to you all,

There are a couple of things to update you all on.  First, at the PAUC meeting last Friday we finally got official approval for the MTH092 course in the ACAT guide.  Apparently it had been approved the meeting previous, but I had not received the official word until last Friday.  So now it is official.  As an upgrading group here at LC we met and exceeded our enrollment targets (138%) for this semester so we are solid.  Other organizations around the province are not so solid.  Concordia actually announced that their program will be suspended starting next September.  There was a lot of talk at the PAUC meeting about best practices surrounding workloads and faculty hours at different institutions, as well as admission requirements and prereq's.  It was nice to find out that the same struggles that we have hear are being felt by others across the province.   For you math geeks in the group, check out MyScript Calculator app. for iPad or iPhone.  Does calculations from hand writing, very cool.

Our scholarships for upgrading folks will be changing again.  After some of the feedback received from you folks and from the scholarship group, we will be changing our scholarships to program specific exit scholarships.  There will be three "Lethbridge College Upgrading Transition Scholarships," worth $1000 each that will be given to students moving from the upgrading program into one of the following three programs on campus, LPN, Engineering and Envi Sci.  The program choices can be adjusted year to year but I think these are good places to start.  Traditionally these have been where the majority of our students head to after we get them prepared so I think that it fits very well.  The scholarships will be granted based on overall GPA in our program.  I am excited for this change to occur as last year we only had one application for our upgrading scholarships and this change will make sure that the money ends up where it should be, in the student's hands.  Please promote this in your classrooms and make the students aware that these maybe available to them.

Best
Scott

Congratulations

If you see Ron, Connie or Mary Ann in the hallways give them a huge congrats.  Mary Ann has been with the college for 20 years, and Ron and Connie have been with us for 25.  Congratulations you three on your long service awards and continued excellence in instruction at the college.
Scott

New Admissions Deadline

Hello to you all,

Sorry for the extended time between posts, but, to be honest, there was not a whole lot to report on.  Just a couple of quick updates regarding things you should be aware of.

First the registrar's office past a new policy through academic council last week that changes the program application deadline to the last business day before the first day of classes.  This new policy may affect our enrollments as approximately 15% of our applications for this last semester came in after that new deadline.  Sandy and I are currently investigating a solution and I will keep you all posted as we go.  If you have any ideas, please forward them onto me.  I am going to PAUC next week for our tri-anual meeting.  We will be getting the official transfer approval for our MTH 092 course and I will be asking to move forward with a SCI075 and a MTH082.  We exceeded our enrollment targets for this semester by over 30% and we are on, or ahead of budget for this year so, so far this semester, things seem rosy.  Will see you all in the hallways.

Best
Scott

Christmas Store

Hello to you all,
I have to let everyone know how great the Christmas Store was this year.  We raised over $3300 for student scholarships!!!!  Thank you to all who helped out.  The Christmas Store really does help students in a two major ways, cheap Christmas presents and scholarships for their schooling.  This year there was an added bonus to the store in that we had several volunteers from around the college come and help out.  This made a huge difference.  Once again I would like to thank Roxanne for the countless hours that she puts into the store each year.  Without her, we could never run it.  I would also like to say thank you to Monica for the hundreds of donations she makes each year to the store.  If you see either of these two in the halls, please thank them for their time and efforts.  This was a huge success.  Thank you to all that made this happen.

Scott

Advisor Biology Meeting

Hello Folks,

It was a great meeting today with the advisors.  While they cannot go as far as putting in the pre-requisites for the post-secondary Biology's, strongly recommended will be added to BIO 160, 161, 162, 150, 151, 152, 155 and 157.  The advisors are now very aware of the direct building blocks that our BIO courses provide.  Thanks to all of you who put in input to this process.  It is the first step, and there will be several more. 

Scott

Leadership Meeting

Had a great leadership meeting yesterday.  Lots of good news for us as a school.  I will be working with Sandy and Marko to come up with a alternate, alternate admissions plan for the general studies program so that we are competing less for the same students.  This is huge for us.  While budgets are still tight, as a center we are tracking almost right on budget and it looks as though we will continue to do so.  There are some minor cuts that need to be made, but we will move through basically unscathed.  Good news for Kelly and Jeff as there iPad proposals were given the go ahead, I am excited to see what they can do with them.  MTH092 has been fully submitted to both academic council and PAUC and will receive approval in the next month from both committees.  And last but not least, we have moved through the college's new payment plan with little or no issues.  This is a good thing.  Not only that but many of you probably noticed a jump in your enrollments in the past couple of days.  We have been working hard with the advisors to eliminate some confusion that is surrounding our science courses.  That's all I have for now.  Enjoy your second week. 

Scott