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I would like to thank everyone who has given me such a warm welcome in my first month at NSC. I am beginning to resemble a true Nevadan now that I have my Nevada driver’s license and new plates on my Subaru pronouncing “LUVNSC.” I am also grateful for the suggestions offered for good chiropractors, hair stylists, and yoga instructors. Though I have not had time to check them out yet, they are all carefully filed away for future reference.
The search for a new Director of Marketing and Events is underway. I am chairing the search; the remaining committee members are Brian Chongtai, Erin Matthews, Danielle Welch, and Adam Davis. It is our hope to have the search completed no later than mid-August.
As I continue to analyze the appropriate structure and staffing for the Provost’s Office in the future, I am happy to report that Dr. Gregory Robinson and Dr. Laura Naumann have agreed to continue in their current roles until the end of December. During fall semester, the new structure will be announced and we will conduct searches for any new or replacement positions.
On Friday, June 3rd, several of us accompanied President Patterson on a visit to the Roger’s Foundation to report on our great successes with Nepantla, the Writing Center, and the Teaching Academy (with SECTA and Mojave HS) during FY 2017 and to propose how their generous gift will be used to support and expand these programs for FY 2018. The report and proposal were very well received and Rory Reid, President, and Bev Rogers, Chairman of the Board, offered valuable suggestions for strengthening our partnership even more moving forward.
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Travel has been the name of the game for the first part of this month. From June 7-9, I participated in the Board of Regents meeting at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the following week I attended a 2017 NASPA conference titled
Closing the Achievement Gap: Student Success in Higher Education.It addressed key issues facing students who struggle in higher education, especially how financial constraints can upend the pursuit of a college degree.
In this latter regard, I plan to talk to relevant stakeholders about how we might address some of these concerns through our Office of Financial Aid and college success courses, particularly by improving the financial literacy of our students. We have addressed these issues in substantive ways over time, but any additional progress we make should yield positive results.
As Provost Shields noted, recently we visited the Rogers Foundation to share our progress on the three major initiatives their organization generously supports. Our report on these initiatives was very well received, and I want to thank Leilani Carre
ño, Kathryn Tucker, and Dennis Potthoff for the great work they have done in advancing these endeavors, and to Gregory Robinson for crafting most of the report we delivered to the Rogers Foundation.
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This week I worked on finalizing our Best Practices in Online Teaching class, which Dr. Sharp and I will be leading over the next several weeks with five amazing faculty:
Pam Call (Nursing)
Mitzy D. Flores (Nursing)
Linda Jacobson (Nursing)
Roberta Miranda (Counseling)
Elizabeth Meyerwitz (Speech Pathology)
Thank you all for helping us pilot this new course!
Nepantla welcomed its new students on Saturday. These students are Nepantla's 5th cohort. In related news, I began working on a $10,000 grant from AT&T with the help of Leilani Carreño, Leila Pazargadi, Laura Naumann, and Pam Levins. If the grant is successful, we'll use the funding to support additional performance-based scholarships for Nepantla. To apply for Nepantla scholarships, Ms. Carreño asks students to make videos like this one:
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STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAY IS COMING!
The Professional Development Committee has planned a four-hour event geared toward training and supporting administrative and classified staff, but all employees are invited to participate. Please join us on Monday, July 17th from 11:00 – 3:00 pm in the RSC Ballroom. The day will include catered lunch, a welcome from our new Provost, a Workday demo, and workshops on de-escalation strategies with students, using the CSN printing store, using Qualtrics and PollEverywhere, and finding workplace contentment through the healing arts. RSVP TODAY!
SSI is over, but there are still seven weeks of summer!
The Summer Scholarship Institute concluded last week. Faculty in the Research Development track all successfully developed and finalized surveys/interviews for their research projects. They are on track to submit protocol applications to the Institutional Review Board to begin running their studies in Fall 2017. Faculty in the Writing track also made substantive progress on their projects and will continue to make headway as the summer progresses.
Possible child care options
Elaina Bhattacharyya was tasked with researching possible child care facilities close to campus because a donor has pledged to support accessible and affordable child care to students. Elaina is working with a facility in downtown Henderson to create a customized program specifically for NSC students, hopefully for enrollment as early as Fall 2017.
In conjunction with these efforts, Laura has been working on another Department of Education grant, Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS), which she submitted Thursday. The award would provide up to $50,000 annually for four years ($200,000 total) to reduce out-of-pocket costs to low-income student-parents. Between donor and possible CCAMPIS funds, affordable and accessible childcare may be a reality in the near future.
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How do NSC students do based on their prior enrollment at other institutions? The answer depends on what we consider the measure for success. For example, in Fall 2016, 2,789 students had prior enrollment outside of NSC. Of those, 87% were on Good Academic Standing, which was significantly higher than the 79% of students on Good Standing among those who did not have prior external enrollment.
The result is flipped when we look at one-term retention (or graduation): for those with no prior external enrollment, 83% were retained into Spring 2017 or graduated, while only 77% were retained into spring or graduated when they had prior enrollment outside of NSC. The finding might suggest that students who transfer in are more likely to transfer out compared to the students who choose NSC as their first institution.
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Visiting Fullbright Scholar
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Visiting Fulbight Scholar Nver Khachaturyan will be presenting on Wednesday, June 28th at noon in LAS 120. The topic is: Wastewater as a New Resource
Join us for an engaging conversation!
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NSC Office of the Provost | 702-992-2663 | http://nsc.edu/provost
Be Bold | Be Great | Be State
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