Want more info?Seminole State College Did you know...Nearly 40 percent of Seminole County Public Schools graduates continue their education at Seminole State. |
Presidential Report: May 23, 2012Kudos Congratulations to newly-engaged Trustee Alex Setzer. Our best wishes to you and Tricia Johnson! This will be our very first trustee wedding. We assume that, in compliance with Florida’s Sunshine Law, the wedding will be open to the public? In sports, our Lady Raiders Golf Team has placed second in the nation! All five of the Seminole State players earned 2012 All American Status! Many congratulations to the ladies and to Coach Christa Teno! The Lady Raiders Softball team won the State Title in a 4-3 game over State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota and became the state champions! The team traveled to St. George, Utah, last week to play in the 2012 NJCAA Division I Softball Championship. We won one out of three games and ended the year ranked No. 9 in the nation. Congratulations, Lady Raiders and Coach Courtney Miller! We are anxiously watching what is happening at Edison State College, where Joe Sarnovsky is one of four finalists for the presidency! If that happens, we will have lost two vice presidents in a matter of months. While we wish Joe well, it would be a huge loss for Seminole State! We will all find out on June 1. Good luck, Joe! Congratulations to Patricia DeSalvo, dean of libraries and learning technology, who has been appointed to the Council for the new Library Services Organization by the State University System of Florida Board of Governors and the Florida College system. Congratulations, Pat! Pat has also been busy leading the board room renovation project with Dick Hamann and Jose Badillo from Media Services. LMG was the contractor for the project, and there is a representative from LMG here today to witness the inaugural event! We are now operating digitally with wireless access and better audio/video quality. The obvious change is the replacement of the old pull-down screen with these beautiful 80” monitors, but there are a lot of behind-the-scene changes as well! Thank you Pat, Dick, Joe, and LMG! The Division of Florida Colleges has approved our application to offer a Project Management Certificate. Congratulations to Dean Mike Staley and his team for all the work that went into making this happen! Dr. Susan Bell, Professor of Social Sciences, accompanied 20 Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) students to the international convention in Nashville in April. Recent graduate Mary Anderson was surprised with a Distinguished Member award. Congratulations, Mary! Humanities Professor Kathryn (Katie) Steinhaus recently received her doctorate in history from McGill University in Montreal. Dr. Steinhaus’ dissertation was “Valkyrie: Gender, Class, European Relations, and Unity: Mitford’s Passion for Fascism.” Congratulations, Katie! In alumni news, Norm Lewis has been nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical for his role in Porgy and Bess. The Tony Awards ceremony is June 10. Congratulations, Norm! On Monday, I received a voice mail from our first Jack Kent Cooke scholar, Lalita Booth, who indicated that she is graduating this Thursday with a double master’s from Harvard. She is in the top 10 percent of her class. Yes, we do change lives! Each year, the Council of Business Affairs (COBA) honors one of their officers with the Ken Jarret Award, which honors the recipient for their contributions and service to the Florida College System and the Council of Business Affairs. The award was named in honor of Ken Jarret, who served as director of business affairs for the Florida Division of Community Colleges and passed away in 2000. This is the highest award given, and our own Executive Vice President, Dr. Joe Sarnovsky, just received it. Congratulations, Joe! Thank You Many, many thanks to all of our caring employees who contributed to this year’s United Way Campaign. In the past, we have averaged about $8,000 in contributions. This year we doubled that number, with our very generous employees contributing $16,000! Thank you to Mae Kline for your work and your staff’s work on this campaign! We are definitely giving back to the community in more ways than one! Events On April 27, we had more than 1,600 students graduate, with nearly 330 walking across the stage. Thank you to all of our trustees for participating in this very special event. And I might also mention that we are working with UCF to move December's graduation to their facility so that we can truly have a ceremony with all of our graduates and their families. At graduation, we also honored four faculty members with Endowed Teaching Chair Awards from the Foundation for Seminole State College. Congratulations to:
It was a pleasure to honor these faculty members and to celebrate with them and their families that night. Congratulations and many thanks to our Foundation for funding these awards! During the week of April 29, 65 Seminole State students participated in LeaderShape at Camp Warren Willis. LeaderShape is recognized by the Kellogg Foundation as the gold standard of student leadership development programs. Many thanks to Dr. Marcia Roman and the many Seminole State faculty and staff members who made the retreat possible! State Update Conversation at the State Board of Education level indicates that the State Board is considering a change to their rule on continuing contract/tenure. They are having an open hearing on June 5. The Florida College System Council of Presidents will provide a recommendation that will be adopted at our meeting on June 7-8. At the Faculty Senate Exchange of Views last week, I invited our Faculty Senate to provide me with their input and to meet with me prior to the Council of Presidents meeting. Also, we have been asked by Chancellor Randy Hanna to produce “performance metrics” that can be used by the State Board of Education in specifying their goals and objectives. A quote from Chancellor Hanna’s request to the Florida College System Presidents: “(16) PLAN SPECIFYING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES. – By July 1, 2013, the State Board of Education shall identify performance metrics for the Florida College System and develop a plan that specifies goals and objectives for each Florida College System institution. The plan must include: (a) Performance metrics and standards common for all institutions and metrics and standards unique to institutions depending on institutional core missions, including, but not limited to, remediation success, retention, graduation, employment, transfer rates, licensure passage, excess hours, student loan burden and default rates, job placement, faculty awards, and highly respected rankings for institution and program achievements.” The State Board has moved up their timeframe and anticipates adopting their revised plan in July of this year. A survey will be going out today to our faculty asking for their input in terms of awards and honors. It has a very short response time as the due date to the Chancellor is May 30. It is our hope that we will get lots of material to include so that we can showcase our exceptional faculty! It is shaping up to be a very busy year ahead! |
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