Volume I Issue VI
Online transactions reach $1 million mark
On Wednesday May 17, 2006, at 4:20 p.m. West Hills Community College District reached a milestone that went largely unnoticed. Back in early December of 2004 we added services that allowed students to pay fees over the Internet using a credit card. A $78.00 VISA transaction placed over the Web was all that was needed to push our total Internet funds received over the $1 million mark. In just over 500 days of use, we have surpassed well over 7,000 financial transactions.
By allowing our students to pay for services 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) we have improved our availability and services dramatically.
Providing this additional service for students took quite a bit of coordination between WHCCD Departments (Web Services, Information Technology Services, and Fiscal Services) and external vendors (Datatel, VeriSign, Global Payments and Union Bank). When a student wants to pay with a credit card, they type in the credit card number, expiration date, and amount to be charged. The systems (working together), validate the credit card and checks for available funds. If all elements pass, then funds are transferred from the student’s (or parent’s) credit card account to a WHCCD bank account. At the same time the student’s WHCCD account on the Datatel system is adjusted reflecting this transaction. This entire transaction takes place without staff intervention, 24/7.
By providing additional services over the Internet, we allow our students access to WHCCD when they want. Now a student can request a transcript, pay any outstanding balance and the transcript fee over the Web, even at 3 a.m.
Some general information about this Web payment service:
First Day of Operation was December 6, 2004
Largest transaction was $7,216.54
Smallest transaction was $1.00
The month with the most activity was January 2006; 1,086 transactions and $196,683.07
The month with the least activity was March 2005; 106 transactions and $4,669.66
More good news on the charge-back system for grants. (If you need more detailed information on this, please contact Doris Williams.)
The Off-Campus Indirect Cost Rate (20%) was developed so that programs that are not campus-based will not be charged the higher rate that includes facilities. The rate is lower since costs associated with maintenance and repairs, utilities, etc. have been excluded from the calculations.
Like the On-Campus rate (36%), the Off-Campus rate has a predetermined period from 7/1/03-6/30/08 and a provisional period from 7/1/08-6/30/09. The next proposal is due at the Federal cognizant agency by 12/31/2007 and will be based on the fiscal year 2006-2007.
Business Services has also been busy:
Our Lemoore Infant Center is now open and ready for business. Staff members Illiana Ayala and Erica Solorio welcomed their first babies last week. Babies and staff will be added gradually until we are full (24 infants).
Construction is starting August 1st to remodel the old community classroom at the Coalinga center. The addition of this classroom will give us an additional nine spots for our infant program (we have 56 infants on our waiting list!). Grant funds for the remodel were provided from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of University Partnerships. In addition to the remodeling of the classroom, the two infant playgrounds and the toddler playground will be getting rubberized ground cover. This will make the yards much safer for our little ones.
New standards for teachers from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are now requiring teachers to have bachelor’s degrees. These new standards are being phased in over the next several years and the CDC job descriptions have been revised to address these changes. CDC teachers and site supervisors are now required to maintain continuous enrollment until they have earned their bachelor’s degree. These new standards from NAEYC were developed to raise the professionalism of teachers working with young children. To continue their education, teachers will be taking advantage of the Education Incentive Program and those who are full-time will be applying for the Employee Scholars Program.
The HR Department is busy recovering from the picnic.
The following awardees still need to pick up their service awards:
F. Andrade, L. Ames, L. Amaya-Guenon, J. Alvarado, E. Barner, L. Beloof, T. Benedict, M. Brixey, R. Burciaga, M. Burke, K. Castagna, E. Christenson, J. Cota, R. Danner, K. Folsom, E. Fronaberger, J. Grant, D. Hedgecock, J. Ieronimo, L. Jacobus, L. Jones, N. Jeffcoach, R. Jeffery, D. Jimenez, P. Kraft-Chapman, A. Little, S. McGlothlin, C. Mitchell, M. Olson, D. Rengh, M. Rodriguez, M. Roton, J. Shehorn, L. Silva, and T. Winters.
Also, there are some family photos still to be picked up at Newman-Garcia Studio in Lemoore. Their address is 323 Heinlen Street and their phone number is 924-4443. If you can’t make it to Lemoore, arrangements can be made to send the photo to you. (Editor’s note: the ones I’ve seen are beautiful the Cavazos Family is just one example).
(Another editor’s note: So what’s next? More hocky, baseball, another picnic, maybe a trip to a Fresno State football game? If this weather keeps up, I vote for a day at the beach in Pismo where it’s nice and foggy and cold!)Admissions, IT, and Learning Resources Takes Trip to Mt. San Jacinto College
In an effort to see the Hershey system in action, Darlene Georgatos, Michelle Kozlowski, John Wright and Susan Kincade drove to Hemet, California in late June. At the beautiful campus of Mt. San Jacinto College meetings were held with counselors in Student Services, the Director of Enrollment Services, an enrollment services specialist and evaluator, and the director of information technology and her staff.
It was a seven hour drive each way through southern California traffic, but all agreed that the meetings and seeing the Hershey system in action was well worth it. The district office team watched as transcripts were scanned into the system, a specialist corrected any errors in the scanning process, and a group of 20-30 transcripts were batch-processed into Datatel for evaluation. The specialist then spot-checked the transcripts for those courses that were missed in the evaluation process, made computer notes for the student files if necessary on the evaluation document and it is saved in the student’s record.
West Hills is looking forward to its own Hershey implementation in the very near future!
Watch for a new format for Dialogue. Our quarterly newsletter is now being edited by Jim and will be sent to about 25,000 homes in the district and surrounding areas. It is full of stories about all the wonderful things happening at West Hills and some very interesting profiles on students and former students. All employees should receive a copy at home. If you don’t, please let us know.
We’re on the air with some great radio spots between now and the start of fall semester in mid-August. Please let us know what you think of them.
Class schedules were mailed the week of July 17th to all homes in the district and surrounding communities (Hanford, Corcoran, Armona). Separate versions were done for Coalinga and Lemoore. Extra copies have been delivered to Student Services on both campuses.
A special mailing, in both English and Spanish, is being planned to promote new course offerings at North District Center. It will be mailed to all homes in Tranquillity, San Joaquin, Firebaugh, Mendota and surrounding areas.
Special thanks to the IT staff for all their help the past month with computers. Marketing is notorious for having huge files and they create some complications. Thanks to Mike, Mark, Jack, Paul, Truc and everyone else in ITS. We’re uncomplicated again and now I can send CDs with pictures to all the people I promised!
I’m off for vacation on the redneck Riviera in Alabama (Gulf Shores) the first week of August. Tom and Jim will be holding down the fort without me. If you need help with ads, see Tom. For everything else, call Jim at 2132.
As promised, here’s my niece Suzy’s recipe for homemade banana ice cream. It’s the best. There are some things that are just worth the calories!
Homemade Banana Ice Cream ala Suzanne Hill
3 14 oz. cans Sweetened Condensed Milk
1qt. Heavy Whipping Cream
1qt. Half & Half
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
3/4 tsp. Salt
1 box (5.1 oz.) Jell-O Vanilla Instant Pudding
6-7 Ripe Bananas
Whole Milk
Combine all ingredients except bananas in ice cream freezer.
Stir with whisk to blend pudding.
Mash bananas with a fork and add to mixture.
Add milk to fill line.
(Substitute other fruit in place of bananas or omit fruit for vanilla.)
Makes six quarts
Flash Video on Our Website
Flash Video is based on the technology behind the Flash Player so it's ready to play without having to download additional plug-ins. According to Adobe Corporation, 97.7% of all internet enabled PCs have access to Flash.
Our department has recently implemented the flash video technology on our website. We are currently working on the implementation of captions to ensure that these videos meet ADA compliance.
Below are two of our web videos that are using the “Flash Video” technology.
