Tammy Weatherman asked that we these instructions with you that give directions on how to use the new reimbursement claims tracking form on the website. > Download Instructions

• Pre-school promotion ceremonies were held in all locations last week.
• Department of Education review of all programs is now underway.
• We’re enrolling now for summer programs in Coalinga and Firebaugh.
• We’re getting ready for K Camp in Huron and Coalinga.  They will be held in July.
• Interviews will be held soon for the Coalinga site supervisor’s position and the Family Resource coordinator.  Conne Cleveland and Mina Macaraeg are serving in those positions on an interim basis.
• We’re missing Madonna Cardenas but she reports all is going well with her pregnancy.  She even sent ultra-sound pictures of 33-week baby Zoe!

Donna Isaac has returned from sixth grade camp.....no harm done!  She reports that she had a great time and an enjoyable experience with her group of girls.  Be sure to ask her about the "Pitch Black" experience!

 

 

 

*June 27 - Board meeting @ 3:00 p.m., District Office 

Enrollment Services is busy ending the Spring 2006 semester and gearing up for the Summer 2006 and Fall 2006 terms. It’s been a very busy year and we are looking forward to some vacation time.

Good food is never in short supply at the Farm of the Future.  If we’re not growing it—we’re eating it!  A couple of pictures from our annual farm breakfast show the crowd that attended for breakfast and student demonstrations from the precision agriculture program.  Our students are being hired by farms and businesses in the area and some have starting salaries in the $40,000 plus range.  Our next set of classes begins at the start of the fall semester.

The heavy equipment program graduated a big class of students in May too.  The program continues to operate this summer on a limited basis with students working on the Coalinga Parks and Recreation Department park on Cambridge Ave.  Plenty of jobs are available for the heavy equipment graduates as well.  Another class will begin in August.

Joy led a “train the trainer” seminar on irrigation on June 6th.  Eight ranches were represented by owners, foremen and irrigators who learned about best practices in drip irrigation including maintenance of the systems.  The seminar was offered in English and Spanish and those attending were sent home with training materials in both languages to use as they train employees in their operations.

Our Ag Ambassadors represented us in the Horned Toad Derby parade on Memorial Day weekend and they have visits planned to the California Ag Teachers’ Association conference next week and in August they will be in San Diego at the ERSI conference for GIS users.  Our students will be giving a demonstration on the use of GIS in agriculture at the conference, which will be attended by colleges and universities from throughout the country.  City and regional planners and government agencies will also be represented at the conference.

Our students pitched in with the Measure B campaign using their knowledge of GIS to help precinct walkers find homes in the district more efficiently.  Steve Coon, Matthew and Anthony McKemy and Michael Howard donated more than 24 hours each to help with the campaign.

 

Financial aid staff represented West Hills at the Hanford Farmers’ Market on May 11th and 25th as part of “May is Financial Aid Awareness Month.”  The visits qualified West Hills for additional BFAT funds.

The “I Can Afford College” campaign will kick into high gear in late July on a statewide basis.  For a preview of television and radio spots that will be used, go to icanaffordcollege.com.

The President’s Scholarship fund is $51,000 richer after the final results are in from the annual Taste of the Valley and Golf Tournament held last month.

But the results of the annual event, overseen by Cheryl Bass, is not in dollars and cents, but in the amount of help top scholars can expect from the twin events held at the Kings Country Club in Hanford.

With 176 scholars funded to date – with 65 being added to the ranks this year – each will receive full tuition, $250 a semester in books and a big welcome from the faculty, staff and administration. According to the rules of the program, students applying for the scholarships must have a 3.5 GPA during four high school semesters and maintain a 3.2 GPA while at West Hills College.

The rain on Sunday afternoon made the Taste of the Valley portion of the event a challenge,” said Cheryl Bass, who headed the event for West Hills College, “but the community supported us. We moved from the outside to the inside of the club house – it was a wonderful event.”

The Taste of the Valley featured 11 restaurants with fare from BBQ ribs to a chocolate fountain favored by sweet-toothed diners, but the big draw of the two-day event was the golf tournament with 112 entrants.
In spite of the fears of a continuing storm from Sunday night, Monday dawned clear and cool, “perfect for the golfers,” Bass smiled.

Presidential Scholars are scattered around the Valley, but Lemoore and the two Hanford high schools have benefited by 105 of the total.

The Grants Office continues steadfast. We were fast at work and submitted a USDA Rural Economic Development grant for vocational construction programs and a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Youth build grant. The Youthbuild grant is a collaborative effort with Self Help Enterprises, Westside Tule Enterprise Community, City of Coalinga and West Hills College Coalinga.
The month of May proved to be challenging for Cathy as she was “home alone” for almost two weeks. María and her younger sister from Texas attended a church pilgrimage through Mexico. They visited cathedrals from San Miguel Allende to Puebla and the Basilica in Mexico City. In the meantime, Cathy struggled to remember all the Spanish she learned as a six year old, and walked the Coalinga Spanish “Vote Yes on Measure B” precincts!

Human Resources

Don’t forget the employee recognition picnic planned for Sunday, June 25th at Jack Stone’s Barn in Lemoore.  RSVPS are due this week.  So far, more than 70 families have announced their plans to attend! > See Details

A big welcome to Nancy Clover who has joined the HR Department replacing Julie Wheeler.  Nancy moved to Coalinga from Salinas to be near her daughter, Kim Surber.  The two are involved in show horses (they have seven) and trail competition.  Nancy has seven years of HR experience—plus three dogs, 11 kittens (call her on 2158 if you would like one!).

The faculty association contract was settled in May.  The instructors had been without a contract since June 30, 2003. The new contract covering medical insurance and salary runs from July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2009.  The instructors will receive a wage increase of about five percent, with an additional 5.92 percent paid by the state on a “pass-though” COLA agreement during the first year and three percent or COLA increase, whichever is higher, during each of the remaining two years of the contract. There will be “a 5 percent non-repetitive stipend paid to employees from March 1, 2006 through June 30, 2006. Insurance health premiums were capped at $966.36 effective Oct.

I

TS would like to welcome our new technician DeAndrea Frances. DeAndrea comes to us with some great experience and has hit the ground running. The month of May was very busy getting us through the end of the Spring semester, and making changes and preparations to start the Summer semester. We have installed a new wireless access system with laptops in the Coalinga library, and our dorms now have wireless access points. We have dismantled the A-2 open entry lab in Coalinga, which will become a regular classroom. We installed brand new PCs in the faculty development labs in Coalinga and Lemoore, in two of our Co-Labs in Coalinga and Lemoore, and in the library lab in Lemoore. The wireless laptops in the Lemoore library have been replaced with new ones. The installation of the SAN is in full swing. What a job! Most of our summer will be devoted to the SAN and server installation.

Keep your eyes open for flyers and emails for upcoming faculty training
sessions. We are anxious to train faculty on some new technology.

The first week of summer online classes got successfully underway on June 5th.
We have 55 different courses being taught using Blackboard this summer, with 87
sections. Forty nine fully online and two hybrid math classes are being taught through
Lemoore and 34 fully online and two hybrid biology classes being taught through
Coalinga.

After much trial and error, the Learning Resources and ITS teams have finally come up with
a working solution to being able to capture streaming video with closed
captioning from both VHS and DVD format to host in our online classes. We are
quite pleased that we will be able to offer this additional quality component to
the online learning experience.

While the title of Marketing Department rests at the district office, marketing and outreach is something that is continuously going on throughout the district.   Farmers’ Market in Hanford is underway and WHCCD is represented there each week by WHCL staff members (and a few from Coalinga), the Coalinga Horned Toad Derby happened over Memorial Day weekend and we were represented there by Farm of the Future and our foundation and the outreach work that goes on at high schools is its own special form of marketing.  Thanks to all who work hard throughout the year to make us known and respected in our region.

During many of these events, we need brochures to help us explain the programs and services available at West Hills.  Now is a good time to check your supply and see what’s needed for your area.  We have many new professional photographs of our students and staff to use in these and we’re happy to help with copy writing.  Tom is great at designing the brochures (please DON’T put them in a Publisher document—this makes lots of extra work for Tom and Karan).  If you need new materials, please give me a call to begin the process.  If you just need reprints, go straight to Tom.

Graduation season is always one of the busiest times of year for the Marketing Department.  Between attending the three ceremonies (more if you count the child development centers), preparing ads to honor the graduates and writing stories about the graduation ceremonies and a number of the graduates themselves, we’re never at a lost for something to do.  Add on that the push for summer enrollment and after-hours involvement in Measure B and you get a picture of why my office is such a mess! 

In case you missed them, we ran full page ads in all of the area newspapers (including The Fresno Bee) honoring our graduates.  We’ve also had ads running in several papers (once again including the Bee) encouraging high school students and recent graduates to think about attending West Hills this summer. 

Flyers have also gone or are going to the homes of area high school students.  Thanks to all who have helped with this project—especially Marlese Roton and Sara at NDC who helped with the student lists provided by the high schools.  During a recent focus group of community college students, direct mail was indicated as the way the students most like to be approached with information.   Please let me know if you get any feedback from these flyers.

We’re on the air with radio this month as a last minute push for summer enrollment and encouraging students to apply and schedule classes for fall.

Jim and Tom are working on the summer edition of Dialogue and if you’re reading this, the employee newsletter for June has been finished.  Please continue to send articles all month for the newsletter.

During the summer, Duplicating Services is open Monday through Thursday from 8-5.  We’re closed on Fridays.  The Marketing Department office is usually closed on Fridays as well but you can always reach me on my cell phone (559) 250-6389 in an emergency.  This number is on the message on my office recorder.

News & Events on our Websites

Our Coalinga and Lemoore websites have been given a “face lift.” This new design, implemented by Suzy Shirk, has significantly improved our website’s usability. The new layout provides a larger area for posting news and events. We ask that you please submit your news and events information to us at least one week in advance from the date that you would prefer the announcement to appear on our website.

Graduating Students Exit Survey (Driven by Sandy McGlothlin) – This exit survey is being conducted as a performance assessment of WHC's programs, services, and resources for the purpose of improvement. The survey has been completed by 146 students. Responses are still being collected.

Registered Nurse Program  Survey (Designed by Carole Goldsmith) -  In an effort to help off set the current nursing shortage, West Hills College Lemoore is considering offering a new RN program. The purpose of this survey was to assess student interest in the proposed RN program. This survey was completed by 399 Lemoore students. To see the complete results visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=213133160664

Faculty & Staff Training Survey (Driven by Susan Kincade) – This survey was conducted to gather feedback on training interests from faculty and staff. The survey was completed by 99 employees. The following training choices received a majority response of “very interested.”

Rank	Very Interested	Training
1	49%	MS Power Point
2	48%	MS Excel
3	47%	Plagiarism
4	46%	Blackboard
5	45%	Student Learning Outcomes – Implementation and data collection
6	44%	Multimedia
7	43%	Outlook email and calendar
8	43%	Smart classrooms
9	41%	Online best practices
10	39%	Computer file management

Our Learning Resources department will utilize this information to schedule employee training sessions. To see the complete results visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=213023413940

Reports Generated for the Month of May (Click to view)
> WHC Coalinga Graduating Class of 2006 Quick Facts
> WHC Lemoore Graduating Class of 2006 Quick Facts
> Fall Enrollment by High School (Avenal, Coalinga, Firebaugh, Mendota, & Tranquillity)
> Kings County Enrollment Report
> Updated WHCCD Student Demographics

During the last two weeks of the semester, WHCL students were asked to participate in a survey. Nearly 400 students replied (399 to be exact!). One question was "If West Hills College Lemoore were to offer an Associates Degree Registered Nursing Program, would you apply?" 309 students, or 78.2% indicated that they would pursue enrolling in the program. What was also interesting is that 72 students reported that they had applied to an existing RN program and only 8 have been accepted, 25 students reported that they were placed on a waiting list. Of the remaining students, 45 did not know their status and 28 were not accepted.

The survey provided useful data that will be used in our feasibility study and may be replicated again this fall for the mandated Self Study that the Board of Registered Nurses require. So, thanks again for all of you who encouraged your students to take the survey! We appreciate your help.