Collecting Bad Debts
Deborah Gore has been working since January on our bad debt files and has sent 3,653 accounts to collection agencies totaling $596,956.  We have been able to collect on 450 of those accounts totaling $30,639.  This is a very difficult task and we are making significant progress in this area of collection.  Great work Deb.

Budget Transfer Process Streamlined
Anne Jorgens reports the Datatel Budget Transfer screen usage continues to increase as staff at all locations become familiar with it.  This new Datatel screen allows staff with budget access the ability to prepare their own budget transfers “in” Datatel, which works in a similar way to the Datatel requisition process and includes the same approval hierarchy as requisitions.    The Datatel budget transfer (BE) process is paperless and replaces a formerly lengthy procedure with virtually overnight approval.   Anne reminds staff training for this new Datatel screen takes only 25 minutes and she will come to your site for training.  Please contact her at Ext. 2116 to arrange for your training session.

Grant Administration Overhead Amount Increases
It's the little things that count--or maybe the not so little things.  Just ask Doris Williams when it comes to administrative overhead on federal grants that West Hills receives.  In the past, the district was able to claim up to eight percent of the grant for costs incurred in managing the grant.  Thanks to some recent work done by Doris, the district is now about to receive up to 36 percent of the grant amount in administrative overhead.  The work was always being done but in the past the district was forced to not only absorb some of the costs but also to account for every minute of time spent on the grant. 

Grants are now reimbursing for our administrators or staff time to administer and maintain these grants. The amount of money depends on the grant. For instance a $ 1 million dollar grant could provide us $ 360,000.  It also saves us time by not being required to track every single minute as the 36 percent has now been certified.

Way to go Doris!

Employee Menu Inquiry Options
Tammy Weatherman has asked that everyone take a look at the Employee Section of My Westhills.  There are two new inquiry buttons to make getting information easier.  The first new inquiry button is called “Budget Inquiry.” You are now able to get all your budget information via the web.  As you click on the dollar amounts, you have the ability to see the detail that makes up the total amounts from the payment vouchers to the requisitions.

The second new inquiry button is the “Reimbursement Claim Inquiry” button.  By clicking on this button you will have access to any vouchers that have been either paid to you or vouchers that are outstanding or pending payment.  You have the ability to see every historical transaction, or you can limit the transactions displayed by selecting the “from” and “to” dates.

Basic instructions for using these screens will be available in the near future.  In the mean time, go ahead and test the screens.  If you have any questions, you may contact Tammy Weatherman at extension 2117.

Amazing things continue to happen in our Child Development Department. 

We have received our license for the new CDC at WHCL.  It should open next week and is a beautiful facility with room for 24 children—half in an infant program for children six weeks to 12 months and the other half in a pre-toddler class for children from 12-24 months.

Nancy Jeffcoach, site supervisor, will lead a team of 10 employees working in the center.

In addition to the rooms where early education is provided, there is an adult classroom, observation rooms, a family resource room, a kitchen with laundry facilities and office space for Nancy and WHCL early childhood education faculty members.

See photos here >Lemoore Infant Room >Lemoore Toddler Room or stop by for a visit.

This follows on the heels of our dedication in April for the expansion of the CDC at WHCC.  (See last month’s newsletter for details.)

On a personal note, Delia’s daughter, Lissette, celebrated her quinceñera, during spring break with a religious ceremony and a dinner dance.  Happy 15th Birthday, Lissette.

The long-awaited summer/fall printed schedules have been delivered to all homes in the district and in surrounding communities.  Extra copies are available through Student Services on both campuses.

We are in the process of purchasing a Spanish-language version of our application for admission.  CCC Apply (the California Community College statewide application vendor) has released the version, which will allow students to toggle between English and Spanish to complete the application.  We should have it available by the end of May.

 

Belated happy birthday wishes are in order for Maria Lourenco who turned one year younger on Thursday, April 27th!

The month of May is Financial Aid Awareness month. The Financial Aid Office will be out in the community conducting outreach at the Farmer's Market in Hanford.  Please come by and see us on May 11 and May 25.

Also, this month the California Student Aid Commission will be on our campuses from May 22-May 25 conducting an audit of our 2004-2005 Cal Grants.

We have started packaging 2006-2007 financial aid awards. Students who have completed their FAFSAs and turned in their paperwork should be receiving award letters soon.

As usual, we are frantic in the Grants Office. Spring is major grant writing season! We submitted two federal grant applications. One was a renewal for the CAMP Program. This grant does amazing things for our migrant students. As one of only two community colleges in California to have this award, we also are the largest program in the nation serving 100 students annually. CAMP students have a 97% retention rate and higher completion rates and GPAs than mainstream students. I know we are all very proud of the hard work and dedication of the district’s CAMP staff. When you see them, congratulate Eliseo Gamino, Juan Rubio, Anna Silvestre, Ana Espinoza and Rafael Flores.

Under Dr. Gornick’s direction, Pedro Avila was submitted as a candidate for the Chancellor’s Office Technology Leadership Award. I’m sure we all recognize how Pedro assists in validating our educational efforts. María and I value Pedro’s seamless assistance as we email him “desperately gasping” on the subject line “Are you here?” “Call us!”  He must think we’re sinking as we ask for “last-minute” data that we find is needed when we proofread the grant proposal for final send-off! We know he’s a champ, let’s hope Sacramento agrees! Congratulations Pedro!

Saturday May 6 is the WHCCD baseball game at the Fresno Grizzlies. All employees and their families are invited.  The game starts at 7:05 p.m.

Plans are underway for an employee recognition appreciation picnic to be held Sunday, June 25th for all employees and their families. This special event is still in the planning stages, but promises to be memorable. Watch out for further details!

Alternate work scheduling plans are also in development for the summer session, so keep your eyes peeled for those options to be announced as well.

Julie Wheeler has resigned from HR to join her husband Jason, as he begins new duties for a permanent change of station in Oak Harbor, Washington. Their puppy, Priscilla, will join them there. Julie and her family spent the last seven years stationed at Lemoore Naval Air Station. Her last day at WHCCD is May 31st so please take a moment to wish her well in her new life on the frontier. There will be no replacing her entirely and we will all really miss her smile and her expertise.

Mike Parker gave us all quite a scare when he developed a serious case of pneumonia.  After spending two full weeks in ICU, Mike was moved to a regular room and is now out of the hospital.  He’s hoping to return to work in a few weeks.  We all wish him well.

HP has inspected and approved our server rooms in Coalinga and Lemoore.  They will be out the week of May 8 to begin installing our new SAN system.

Tony Garcia has moved into our new PC/LAN III position and will assume network management duties.  Congratulations Tony.  He just completed initiation by fire as he dealt with the connection problems we experienced last week between Coalinga and Lemoore.  We will be hiring a replacement for the PC/LAN II position Tony vacated.

Happy birthday wishes in the month of May for ITS employees Keith Stearns and Paul Blair.

Learning Resources Help Desk

What does the Help Desk do exactly?  Well for one thing, help a lot of students attending West Hills Colleges.  Idelle Mahrt at the WHCCD Help Desk answers emails and telephone calls from hundreds of students every semester, with our peak times being at the start or end of each semester.  Most of the calls or emails are from students trying to log into their online classes, log into their My West Hills account, or log into their whccd.net email.  Idelle patiently repeats these login instructions several times a day.  As she will readily tell you, she gets many other questions as well including “what’s the cafeteria serving for lunch?” 

The Help Desk serves students taking classes at any location within the West Hills Community College District.  Sometimes we are their first point of contact, helping them find the online application, or pointing them to the right area when they need an academic, student services, or athletic question answered.  Finally, all WHCCD employees get an email every few weeks entitled “Did you know?…” that explains how to use different features on their CISCO IP phones.  Idelle does such good work she won the CSEA 2005-2006 Classified Employee of the Year award.  Great Job Idelle!

Where did April go?  It was a great month full of fun, adventure and just plain old hard work!  Thankfully, Jim Marvin has been carrying a big part of the writing load and the coverage in our local newspapers has reflected it.

Early in the month, WHCC graduate David Lainhart was named the California Community College male scholar/athlete of the year.  David was featured in a Dialogue article (http://www.westhillscollege.com/district/news_&_events/dialogue/index.asp). We also produced a video news release about David’s award, which was aired on KJEO-TV, Fresno.  Watch for a copy of it soon on our website.  Another WHCC athlete will receive a national award next month and we have worked to produce video for the presenting organization.  We’ll also be doing a video news release on that in mid-June.

Our radio campaign is now in full swing.  We’re running on KISS Country, New Rock 104.1, La Kalle, KOQO (Spanish), KSEQ and B-95.  Between now and the end of July we’ll have about 2,000 spots on the air promoting summer/fall registration.

All homes in the district and surrounding communities including Hanford, Corcoran, Armona and Laton should have received a summer/fall schedule by now.  Separate versions were done for Lemoore (51,000 copies) and Coalinga (28,000 copies).  Many people work hard to make these happen including the deans, their assistants, Maria and Darlene and of course Tom and Karan in duplicating.  We’ve streamlined the process so the information in the printed schedule is less than a month old when it arrives in homes. 

We’ll be holding an editorial board meeting with the Hanford Sentinel on May 4th to discuss Measure B and other West Hills issues.  If you are so inclined, letters to the editors are welcome at all of our local papers including the Sentinel, The Lemoore Advance and the Coalinga Record.  The best letters are short, concise and tell of personal experience.  If you have questions about writing them, please don’t hesitate to give me a call (2134).

Jim made a trip to Bakersfield to interview Dr. John Collins, one of the early West Hills’ students, and Walt Johnson, a very popular coach at West Hills in the 1960s.  Watch for these and other stories as we prepare to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the district in 2007.  Don Forth is working on a publication that will highlight the district’s accomplishments as we celebrate our diamond jubilee.  If you have old photos or memorabilia you would like to share, please let me know.

On a personal note, I took my son to Washington, D.C., during spring break in hopes of encouraging him to do an internship there.  We visited three Congressional offices—Jim Costa, George Radanovich and Devon Nunes.  (see photos) When I told them I was with West Hills, the staff members were very complimentary about West Hills and all the good work we’re doing.  If you’re headed to D.C. (or Sacramento), take a few minutes to drop by and visit our local legislators and say hi.  They love having constituents visit. 

And don’t forget to register to vote!  Deadline is 15 days before the election.  Here’s a link to register online:  http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm

Improvements to Online Services
Our web and IT teams have been working to upgrade “My West Hills” to the latest version of Datatel’s web services. The new version will have a better user interface and additional online services for our students. This project is scheduled for completion in early August. We will be delivering demos and training during the month of July.

Website Maintenance
Suzy Shirk is in the process of modifying all homepages with a new layout. These changes will help improve our website’s usability and marketing efforts. The WHC Lemoore website was the first to undergo this redesign. Next will be Coalinga, District and Online websites.

Student Learning Outcomes Data Collection System
Last Friday the Coalinga SLO team had a chance to evaluate the first of three SLO data collection systems. TracDat was the first system evaluated. TracDat functions as an “electronic file cabinet” for SLO assessment data. The team will be evaluating two more systems before making a recommendation.

April was a busy month!  Title V hosted a Career Fair in Lemoore and the VTEA and the Coalinga One Stop program were able to assist with the Career Fair in Coalinga.  Speaking of VTEA, thanks to the many vocational faculty and deans who participated in the recent VTEA planning session for the upcoming academic year; the meeting proved to be very productive! On the grants front, we submitted a grant to the Robert Woods Foundation that would assist us with our nursing education endeavors and we have another Robert Woods Foundation grant pending that will also help train incumbent workers to become allied health professionals.   President Warkentin submitted the official letter of intent to start an RN program.  This letter was accepted and we will be meeting with representatives from the Board of Registered Nurses in May.  This meeting will provide us the direction for our self-study.  

During this month, I have worked with Dr. Tricoli and his administrative team to plan for the implementation of the Fresno County Training Grant that will train 100 individuals in precision agriculture, water management, heavy equipment operator, welding technology, corrections, office technology and janitorial skills.

There has been a lot of focus by our legistators on vocational training programs over the past few months.  Governor Schwarzenegger established the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley by Executive Order in June 2005 to address the economic challenges in the eight counties that comprise the San Joaquin Valley region. The Partnership is preparing a Strategic Action Proposal for submission to the Governor by November.  We have been working very closely with the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley and the Regional Jobs Initiative to ensure that the message that Workforce Development and Career and Technical Training go hand-in-hand is heard by all parties involved.