WHCCD Risk Management Committee:

FIREBAUGH NDC & CDC Emergency Response Drill:

 

On Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008 an Emergency Response Drill was held at the North District Center and Firebaugh CDC facilities, the event was conducted in the morning and included Firebaugh Police Department, Firebaugh Fire Department, City of Firebaugh – Maintenance Department and the Mendota Ambulance Services staff.

 

The Firebaugh drill completes this current school year's Multiple Casualty Incidents (MCI) events as required under the District’s Emergency Response Plan.  Consultant Ken Lake has coordinated and assisted district staff in conducting the drills to test the WHCCD Emergency Response Plan and will now assist staff in completing the SEMS/NIMS compliant plan document to include any revisions or changes needed as a result of the testing. 

 

CLASSIFIED STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAY:

 

Anne Jorgens, WHCCD Risk Management Committee Chair provided a Safety & Risk Management Overview presentation to classified staff at the first CSEA Staff Development Day.  It was a great opportunity to provide staff with an overview and update of the district’s Safety & Risk Management program with an emphasis on why, what and how we are doing things mandated and prescribed by Cal OSHA and our insurance carriers.

 

Business Services Department:

BUDGET DEVELOPMENT:

 

Ken Stoppenbrink, vice chancellor, Business Services reports budget preparations for the district’s Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget have begun. FY08-09 tentative budget worksheets have been sent to the college presidents for the colleges to begin preparation of the colleges’ tentative budget requests for their FY 08-09 General Fund 11, Restricted Fund 12 and Ancillary Fund budgets.    The tentative budget worksheets are due back to the vice chancellor’s office the first week of April, 2008.

 

 HR/PAYROLL PROJECT

 

The HR/Payroll Project Team held their first official meetings Jan. 22nd through Jan. 24th.  Participants on this project are Jana Cox, Nancy Clover, Marissa Chavez, Melissa Richerson, Ken Stoppenbrink, Becky Cantu, Tammy Weatherman, Sandy Cavins, Thelma Trevino, Michelle Kozlowski, Russell Devine and Keith Stearns.  The team has developed a test population and will begin reviewing records and updating as necessary. This means payroll will be able to be processed internally. Checks are currently being processed through the Fresno County Office of Education.

 

Meetings have been scheduled for the next couple of months.  Continuous meetings will occur during the remaining months until we go live on Jan. 1, 2009.

Friday, Feb. 15th was a day filled with training and fun for classified staff. Great majority of classified staff members were present.

 

Union leadership officers received training on how to do their jobat a three day training in Santa Nella, Ca.

At the beginning of the spring 2008 semester, the West Hills College Faculty Association (WHCFA) reached an agreement with the district on calendar, evaluation, distance learning and retirement. From this agreement, a committee was established to research and evaluate the viability of adopting a 16 week calendar; tools were developed for the evaluation of online instructors; language that was written before we really had an online education program was changed to reflect actual practices; and the retirement article was revised to help meet the challenges of our retired colleagues.

 

WHCFA members have attended state-wide conferences and meetings on building stronger associations and current issues, especially the budget crisis. At the local level, members participate in all-levels of governance, support each other professionally and strive to bring the highest quality education to our students.

The Farm of the Future staff is busy with student recruiting.  Clint Cowden participated with the WHCC booth at the Ag Expo 2008 in Tulare.  Several students accompanied Clint at the show working on student recruitment and assisting various ag industry partners with their booths.   

 

The week of Feb. 25th, TOPCON company used Farm of the Future facilities to offer training for their distributer representatives and the WHCC Precision Ag students.  This was an excellent training and a great opportunity for the ag students to develop relationships with industry representatives and seek information on future employment opportunities.    

 

The WHCC Heavy Equipment Program Spring 2008 classes started on Feb. 25th.  The class is full and has a waiting list.  The class meets at the farm in room 405.  Merlin Welch is looking for suitable projects for his students to apply their heavy equipment operating skill.  Merlin is also teaching welding classes on Tuesday and Thursday evening in the Coalinga High School welding shop. 

 

Bruce Hunt and Doug Davis have the rodeo team athletes practicing hard with the start of their spring season on March 14 & 15.   WHCC will be hosting a regional rodeo March 28-29. 

 

Bruce is also very busy with student recruitment.  He has contacted all of the senior high school rodeo participants in California by mail, following up with phone calls to interested prospective students.  On Feb. 23rd, the Rodeo Boosters held their annual West Hills College Rodeo Team Prime Rib Dinner and fundraiser.  The event was a resounding success.  

Hillary Davis has joined the Coalinga campus as the financial aid work-study coordinator.  Hillary began her position, January 2008. We are currently in the process of screening applicants for two part-time financial aid assistant I positions for the Lemoore campus.

Training and Student Services

 

Financial aid staff has spent much time attending trainings, seminars and conferences on federal and state financial aid processes and updates. This has prepared us just in time for the new FAFSA year. The 2008-2009 Free Application for Federal Student Aid is due March 2, 2008, for students to be eligible for various grants. We are actively on-campus conducting FAFSA workshops and assisting new and returning students in the completion of their FAFSA online. These are hands-on workshops where students will be guided through the financial aid application step by step. We are also conducting the Cash for College workshops at all the area high schools to assist seniors with their FAFSA. A list of dates and times are posted on www.westhillscollege.com  and www.cashforcollege.com.

 

Financial aid will be working with Student Support Services/Upward Bound, to conduct a series of budget management workshops that will be offered to our students at each campus in early March.

On Jan. 23rd, Vernon and Mae Gordon presented to Chancellor Gornick a check for $50,000.  This gift represents the largest single cash donation in the history of West Hills Community College Foundation and has been designated to support if possible, the maintenance of the Edna L. Ivans Hall and the Vernon L. Gordon Hall to their highest standards.

 

Mr. Gordon served as on the West Hills Community College District Board of Trustees for thirteen years and says that, “I am reminded that those years represented a time in my life that far exceeded, and indeed challenged my limited formal education”.  As long-time residents of Tranquillity, the Gordon’s have remained active in West Hills College events, affairs and support. 

 

The Gordon’s said that the reason for making this gift is because they want to, “give something back to West Hills Community College in the hopes that in some small way it can be used to enrich the lives of those who come here to transform their lives into an integral part of our society.”

The Grants Office has submitted nine major grants in the last six weeks so we are reeling! We have already received notification that we have been funded for two of these grants. We are glad to get over $2.5 million for the WIA Youth Program over the next five years. This fine program serves approximately 100 high school and college students by offering tutorial support, mentoring and enrichment activities. We were also funded as a partner of the Workforce Development Board to expand our services to veterans and assist them with skills training and job placement.

We successfully migrated to new phone servers and new versions of both the phone and voice mail software.  There will be new features and functionality available.  We will send out information about the new features as we learn more about them and how they work.  Thank you Jack Ramsey and Mark Millett for spending four very long days (in spite of fighting the flu) migrating the system while everyone else was out enjoying President’s holidays.

 

We are off and running with the project planning for our five major Datatel initiatives we will be conquering this year.  The projects are the portal implementation, payroll implementation, Web site redesign, Web site Active Admissions implementation (a marketing and recruiting tool), and advancement implementation (foundation/alumni system).  Teams will be formed to work on the various projects.

 

We will be implementing the password change process in March.  Watch for information and instructions in your email.

I’m sure you’ll join me in welcoming back Karan Folsom who was on leave last semester helping take care of her elderly grandmother.  It’s good to have you back!

 

Copies of Career Focus have been delivered to all homes in our service area (which includes Hanford, Corcoran and Laton) and one copy has been delivered to high schools in our service area for every student.  We’re looking for stories and advertisers for our next issue, which is scheduled for Summer (budget permitting).

 

Dialogue was sent to all service area homes the first week of January and another issue is in production for a delivery in early March.  Once again, we’re always in need of stories.

 

Marketing is assisting with efforts for the All Class Reunion, Celebrating 75 Years on April 26th.  We also helped arrange for KFTV-TV (Univision, Channel 21) news anchor David Ibarra to be the keynote speaker at the Family Education Day held recently at WHCC.

 

Short-term radio ads runing in late February and early March will feature our basic skills offerings and information on culinary, teacher prep and other careers that are in high demand.

 

Tom did a workshop on duplicating services that are available in the district as part of the CSEA day Feb. 15th.  If you missed his presentation and have questions about the services we offer, please let him know and he can send you the handouts.

 

We are in the process of scheduling a series of focus groups in area communities and at area high schools to test advertising messages.  It’s very interesting to hear what high school students are thinking and saying.

Finally, thanks to Felicia for taking over much of the responsibility for news releases and the employee newsletter and to Monica for scheduling our ads and paying our bills.  We have a great team in place to make sure that we’re telling our communities about all the great things happening at West Hills.

Web Services is having fun now! 

Several staff from the district office participated in meetings on Feb. 12th and 13th to begin the new Datatel implementation process. Michelle Kozlowski, Darlene Georgatos and Susan Kincade joined Roy Martin from Datatel in the board room in Coalinga. Over several hours we spoke with representatives from Texas, New York and Virginia. At various times we were joined by Keith Stearns, John Wright, Suzy Shirk and Barbara Caganich. Datatel’s Tom O’Rourke and Sharon Keith were there early on the first day as well.

In addition to the payroll module currently underway, we will be implementing a portal where there will be a single sign on into our system for students and staff.  Once “inside” everyone will see something similar to what you see on a MSN or YAHOO site with a calendar, some announcements and then access to important information depending on what you need, like:  DUI, Blackboard, email, document scanning or library databases.  It’s actually pretty exciting but a lot of work for both Datatel and us.  When will it all happen you ask?  We hope by the end of this year or sooner.    Other modules will include a foundation piece and a web redesign that will focus on student recruitment and admissions.  More to come…