BOT sets special Sept. 8 meeting
The college’s Board of Trustees has scheduled a special meeting Sept. 8 to select a consultant to guide the search for a new president.
At Tuesday's board meeting, Board Attorney Joe Lang said Jeff Hockaday’s firm was recommended to be interviewed by four board members. Because of this, Lang said he scheduled Hockaday to meet with the board on Sept. 8. Lang said there are a few other firms that could be invited to interview.
“I have some calls out that I need to hear from before we know for sure how many interviews we will have,” Lang also said.
Hockaday, who is based in North Carolina, is well known in Florida. His firm has handled the recent presidential searches at community colleges including Brevard, Broward, Gulf Coast, Manatee, Pensacola, Polk, Santa Fe, South Florida and Tallahassee.
Return to top of page
Faculty now can e-mail copy requests to Printing Services from any computer. To expedite this process, copy requests do not need the budget supervisor’s approval for each job. Instead, requests will be reviewed monthly by the budget supervisor. For step-by step instructions and a link to the new fillable Copy Request Form (pdf), visit SPC’s Printing Services page.
Return to top of page
New employees tour the college by bus
New SPC faculty and administrative and professinoal employees took a three-day tour of the college this week.
Pictured here, Bridgette Willis, Human Resource Services Specialist, checks her roster before new SPC employees take off on Tuesday.
Seated in the row behind Willis are, from left, Mary Lavengood, Director of Curriculum and Student Success, College of Education, St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus; Mary Harper, Associate Professor of Elementary Education, Tarpon Springs Campus; Robin Wilber, Professor of Finance, College of Technology and Management, EpiCenter; and Larry Mack, Professor of Management, College of Technology and Management, EpiCenter.
Return to top of page
SPC among top 100 associate degree producers for African-Americans and minorities
Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine recognized SPC as one of the country’s top 100 institutions in awarding associate degrees to students of color.
For the 2007-08 school year, SPC ranked No. 57 in awarding associate degrees to African-American students, conferring degrees to 229 African-American students across all disciplines.
SPC also ranked No. 86 for the number of associate degrees awarded to all minority students, conferring 449 degrees to minority students across all disciplines.
According to the American Association of Community Colleges, more than half of minority undergraduate students start their degrees at community colleges, with 55 percent of all Hispanic and Native American students and 46 percent of all black and Asian students enrolling in a two-year institution.
Return to top of page
SPC recognized at NACCE event
During a recent webinar called “Successful Collaboration between Entrepreneurship and Continuing Education Programs,” hosted by The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), SPC’s Corporate Training was recognized as one of three community colleges with a separate department to work on economic development, and SPC President Carl M. Kuttler Jr. was cited as one of the featured members of NACCE.
Return to top of page
Start your Wellness Program now to maintain discounted insurance rates
By now, employees covered by the college’s Aetna health insurance plan should have completed the Health Risk Assessment to determine what areas of their health need to be improved; doing so allowed for a discount in coverage. Those hired after July 1 will need to complete their Health Risk Assessment during their first month of benefits coverage.
The next step in maintaining the discount is for employees to complete either:
- Two programs offered through Simple Steps to a Healthier Life, or
- One Simple Steps program and the college’s fall wellness challenge. (Details will be announced shortly.)
The Healthy Living Programs are easy to follow and provide step-by-step guidance for making health changes. Each program provides steps to help build skills for long-term success and tools for tracking progress.
Those who were employed at the college on July 1 will need to complete these programs by Dec. 31. Those hired after July 1 will need to complete the program by the end of their sixth month of benefits coverage.
Please note: Employees who started a healthy living program in June and completed it by Aug. 14 will receive credit for it.
Return to top of page
Meeting notices
The Development Committee of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art’s Board of Directors will meet at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9, in the museum’s Interactive Gallery to discuss general museum business.
Return to top of page
Add “Reuse, Reduce, Recycle” to the original three-Rs (reading, ’riting, ’rithmetic)
The issue
- During the school year, each student will create 240 pounds of waste.
- The average family with school-aged children will spend $594.24 on back-to-school purchases this year.
- During the school year, the average school throws away 38 tons of paper, the equivalent of 644 trees.
- Each year, six billion pens are thrown away in the U.S.
- During the school year, each elementary school cafeteria creates 18,760 pounds of waste.
- Schools use more than $6 billion in energy every year and about $1.5 billion (or enough to hire about 30,000 new teachers) is wasted due to inefficiency!
Be part of the solution
How do our children become more environmentally friendly?
- Instead of buying lunch from the cafeteria, pack a healthy, organic, waste-free lunch in a metal box or PVC-free reusable lunch bag and a stainless steel water bottle.
- Before shopping, take a careful inventory of what you already have, such as pencils, notebooks, glue sticks, markers, paper, etc.
- Help your child’s school start an edible garden on the campus.
- If possible, carpool! You can cut your weekly fuel costs in half if you take turns driving (or better yet, ride the school bus, walk or bike).
- Buy used textbooks and sell them back at the end of the year.
- Almost half of the money spent on back-to-school shopping goes to buying clothes. Why not shop at a flea market, yard sale or thrift store like SPC’s Dollars for Scholars Thrift Store?
- Look for recycled pencils and refillable pens packed in recycled packaging.
- Turn off your computer at night. A computer left on 24 hours a day costs you between $115 and $160 in electricity annually.
- Reduce word document margins to .75” and turn scrap paper into note pads.
- Buy paper with the highest percentage of post-consumer recycled content possible and processed chlorine free (PCF) like New Leaf Paper for printers and Mead Recycled Notebooks for school.
- Help your child’s school start a recycling program.
- Print double-sided and only what is necessary.
Want to become involved with SPC’s exciting sustainability initiatives?
To participate in the sustainable | SPC initiative, e-mail green.jason@spcollege.edu or call 341-3283.
Return to top of page
Onward & Upward
Joseph Smiley, Dean, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Tarpon Springs Campus, and his brother, Elijah, taught an academic success workshop for parents and school-aged children on Aug. 8 at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Panama City. The tips Smiley offered at the workshop were based on academic research showing that kids who receive a healthy breakfast, have strong family lives and have supportive parents do better in school. His brother, who is a judge in the 14th Judicial Circuit, organized the event because of all the children he sees in juvenile court.
Return to top of page
|
