2004 Archive

• 01-20-2004
• 03-02-2004
• 04-20-2004
• 05-18-2004
• 06-15-2004
• 07-20-2004
• 08-17-2004
• 09-14-2004
• 10-19-2004
• 11-15-2004
• 12-21-2004

• 2004 Archive
• President's Reports
• President's Office
• About Seminole State
• Seminole State Homepage

Want more info?

Seminole State College
100 Weldon Boulevard
Sanford, Florida 32773-6199
407.708.4722

General Contact Information

Did you know...

Presidential Report December 21, 2004

Graduations

Many thanks to each of you for attending our multiple Graduations. What an inspiration to see the students that we are launching!

Governor's Point of Light Award

And speaking of our students, Grant Zabriskie has received a Governor's Point of Light Award for his mentoring program efforts. Congratulations, Grant!

Faculty Achievements

Dr. Kay Delk will present at the League for Innovations and Course Technology Conferences in the spring of 2005.

Lenny Portelli is completing his Masters of Science degree, with a specialization in Information Technology, from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Tom Walker is completing his Masters of Arts degree, with a concentration in Marketing, from Webster University.

David Purdy, who is the Business Intelligence and Financial Analyst for A. Duda and Sons, sent an email to Bobbie Bell praising adjunct faculty member Jack McGrath. It seems that David is 52 years old with 27 years experience in information technology. He has been taking Ancient/Classical Humanities (HUM2220) online. David wrote, "Professor McGrath certainly knew the subject, and he encouraged and led students to explore humanities. This is not just a job for him, but a passion. I will be back for more online classes." Those are the kinds of emails that warm the heart. Congratulations, Jack!

FACC Institutional Advancement Award

Seminole Community College won the 2004 Institutional Advancement Award from the Florida Association of Community Colleges for "Outstanding Concept, Design and Content in Advertising - Outdoor." This was for our 2004 billboard campaign featuring the theme "Explore, Empower, Educate."
Congratulations are in order to our entire Marketing Department directed by Michael Garlich, as well as, our Media Services staff and to Jose Badillo for his great photos of our students.

In addition, our own Cindy VanHorn was named as the "Unsung Hero" for Region III at the FACC Convention. Congratulations, Cindy!

SCC Women's Softball

The Women's Softball Team was honored by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association for their work in the classroom. The team was ranked 14th in the nation with an overall GPA of 2.987. Three players were recognized as Academic All-Americans for having an overall GPA of 3.50 or higher. Congratulations, Courtney Miller and the Lady Raiders!!

And congratulations to Courtney for her 400th victory this past season. She was just recently presented with an Easton Victory Club award during the National Fastpitch Coaches Association National Convention in Las Vegas.

SCC Alumni

SCC's Distinguished Alum and graduation speaker for 2003, Vallie Piloian, was elected President-Elect by the American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT). Congratulations, Vallie!

Helping Students Achieve Their Dreams!

Former SCC student, Kris Vigue, at 21, has written and published his first book designed to inspire and motivate young people. The book, entitled "How To Achieve Your Million-Dollar Dreams At Any Age," provides a road-map for achieving your dreams - whatever they may be. Kris was motivated to write the book after a career-ending injury destroyed his lifelong dream of playing professional baseball. Pat Williams, VP of the Orlando Magic, wrote the forward for Kris. Congratulations, Kris!

Small Business Services at SCC

NDI Technologies, an international company based in the United Kingdom, has recently graduated its U.S. subsidiary from the Seminole Technology Business Incubation Center. NDI is in the roll-out phase for numerous products that are focused on homeland security and the education market. Their product "ALPR" allows car license tags to be scanned and compared to various data bases. Alan Quinn, President of NDI, expressed regret and excitement about leaving the STBIC. He said "I would highly recommend the incubator to other international firms. However, it is time for us to leave the nest." Congratulations to Wayne Hardy and his staff for doing such a great job!

Driving Track

I'm pleased to report that the Police Chief and the Sheriff have committed to raising the $250,000 that we need to access matching funds to complete the $2.5 million driving track/classroom facility at Geneva.

Legislative Meetings

As you know, we have been holding one-on-one meetings with our Legislative Delegation briefing them on our requests for this year's session. Many thanks to each of you for going with Don and me as we have testified before the Delegation and also cornered them in their offices.

I am very encouraged by the news that, from the Special Session, we may see some hurricane relief funds for the physical damage that we suffered. We are still hopeful that we will see some "fees relief" in the regular session once we can determine the long-term impact on enrollment.

Also, we have been approaching the Delegation with the request for "equity" in funding. The chart that I am giving you shows that we are now dead last in per FTE funding. Last year, you will remember that Valencia was 28th and we were 27th. With their limitation on enrollment growth and the fact that 99% of their students pay fees, VCC has jumped to 22nd while we have dropped to dead last.

I approached the Community College Presidents' Council at their meeting in October requesting that any new money be used to bring the 12 schools that are "below average" in funding up to the $4682 average. I was told that the Council would deal with the baccalaureate issue first and that this issue would be considered in January.

As you can see from the chart, we are in very good company with DBCC, MDC, Broward CC, IRCC, VCC and others. Based on the reception that we got from the Delegation, I am hopeful that we will begin addressing this issue this year. An interesting sidenote, we were told by Senator Constantine that this was an issue for UCF in 1998-99 and that an equalization factor was applied. He suggested that we follow the same process.

Strategic Horizon Initiative

Carol will report on this in a few minutes. However, your calendars should be marked for Tuesday, January 25, at 4:00 p.m., in A202, for a meeting with our consultants.

Kudos

If you haven't visited the SCC Website recently, I would encourage you to make a trip. Thanks to the genius of Les Lusk, Dick Hamann, Michael Garlich and a host of others, who have been working for the past eight months planning, designing and creating a new generation of the SCC website - we have an incredible new tool to use. Carol, would you like to do the honors?

Also, I know that the Board has had some questions about how our employees have used their employee benefit related to furthering their education. Last Wednesday, we graduated three of our employees. One of them is the secretary in the Automotive Department. She wrote me an email the next day and I would like to share Ellen Miars comments with you.

"Wow! Graduation was wonderful. I just wanted to thank you for helping me toward my goal. My employee fee waivers provided me the opportunity to complete my AA degree. My life changed 6 years ago when my then husband decided to drink away his job and family. He walked out without even a note, and never came back. After my shock and depression ended, I decided that my goal would be to make sure my three daughters were able to graduate from college. I can now proudly say that my last daughter is a senior at FSU and will graduate next year. My oldest daughter graduated from UCF and my middle daughter from FSU. It is now my turn. As of last night, I completed my AA degree, and am halfway toward my final goal of a bachelor's in elementary education. I have been accepted at UCF and begin classes in January. It has been rough at times, but I am so proud that I accomplished this first part of my goal. Again, thank you! Sincerely, Ellen Miars"

Other Announcements

Dr. Harry Albertson, Executive Director of FACC, has announced his retirement at the end of January. Harry has dedicated nearly 12 years of his life to the future of community colleges in Florida and will be sorely missed.

And - just when you think that it can't get any worse - I just had an email from Ed Massey at Indian River Community College. You may remember that they were hit pretty hard by the hurricanes and lost the roof of their Administration Building. It seems that this week, the repairs did not hold and a rainstorm flooded the entire building again. Since I am still living with concrete walls and floors in my office, it sure sounds like my worse nightmare!

March Board Meeting

We will need to change the date for the March Board meeting as it falls during our Spring Break week.

New Year's Card

We are not sending SCC holiday cards this year. The Foundation is sending cards on behalf of the College. What we will be sending in January - with our Annual Report - is a New Year's card. I think you will agree that Michael Garlich and our Marketing Department have done an excellent job with our New Year's/40th Anniversary Announcement.