July 2018 Chronicle


July 2018
Greetings, Coyote nation! I hope you’re having a wonderful summer. While I’m trying to get up to Mt. Charleston as often as I can to escape the heat, I’m also learning to appreciate what everyone means when they say “It’s a dry heat.” Despite the heat, though, there is still plenty of work to do over the summer. We’re working on emergency preparedness, improving the services we offer, strengthening relationships, reaching out to the community and making sure the next generation of college students is as prepared as we can help them be. CSN is a community college, and we take the word “community” in that description as seriously as we do “college.” – Margo


In this issue:
Email & Acceptable Use Crisis Planning Improving the Student Experience Financial Aid Update CSN Travels to Washington Latino Youth Leadership Conference National Cyber Summit	CyberCamp Health Career Exploration Camp By the Numbers Academic All-Americans Pizza & Politics AT&T Aspire Foundation Grant

Read the President’s Blog

Inside CSN

Email & Acceptable Use
Over the last year, you have heard talk about upcoming policy changes regarding student email and CSN’s Information Systems & Electronic Resources Acceptable Use Policy. We will begin implementing those changes this summer, with full integration of the new policy this fall. Among the changes: Faculty, staff and students will be required to use official CSN email accounts for all official communication to and from the college. Emails will be permanently deleted after seven years. Employee H Drive storage is limited to 10 gigabytes for faculty and staff. This storage is not to be used for files or copyrighted materials. Files older than two years will be deleted on an ongoing basis. Your Office 365 One Drive can be used for personal items but should not contain CSN related files or personally identifiable information. The goal here is to make your data — and that of our students — more secure. Using personal email addresses, for example, invites trouble that we do not want. Too often students miss important communications from their college. That should not be happening. Requiring students to use CSN email accounts and requiring faculty and staff to communicate only to those accounts helps us ensure consistent communication. Look for more information from my office in the coming months as we work on implementing this policy. We want you to know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and what to expect on your end. As always, feel free to ask any questions you may have.
See the Policy

Crisis Planning
Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our faculty, staff and students. We will make public safety a top priority during Convocation Week this year, and we’re already getting started. Last month, CSN Emergency Manager Greg Gammon led me and the vice presidents through a comprehensive exercise simulating a disaster on CSN’s campus. The intent of the drill was to gauge how the executive team handled the aftermath. While I knew the drill was going to happen, none of the vice presidents did. The scenario Greg outlined for us when he interrupted our meeting was that a building on the Charleston Campus was on fire. As he relayed details to us, our task was to come up with plans to meet the college’s needs in two hours, 24 hours, two days, two weeks, a year and so on. While the drill went well, we were by no means perfect. That’s the point though. Now we know what we did right, and what we should focus our improvement efforts on. There will be more surprise drills to come this year. But even if you do not get to be part of one, I encourage each of you to consider how you would react in various public safety scenarios. Protecting yourself, your co-workers and our students should always be your top priority.
Familiarize Yourself with CSN’s Emergency Management & Preparedness Plans

Improving the Student Experience
In our continuous efforts to improve the services offered to students across the college, Vice President Juanita Chrysanthou invited experts from the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers to CSN this past spring to take a look at how we do things and offer suggestions for improvement. After initial consulations with Student Affairs and others throughout the college on topics including professional development, use of technology, and organizational structure, the consultants last week provided us with recommendations. We are currently reviewing the consultant recommendations and making plans for implementation. We look forward to improving the experiences of staff and students alike.
Find Out More About AACRAO Consulting

Financial Aid Update
Auditors from the Department of Education Office of the Inspector General visited CSN last month, completing the onsite aspect of their review of our financial aid verification and disbursement processes. They will continue to review records and files remotely off-site. We expect a draft report by September 28, after which we will have the opportunity to review and respond to the report. As always, I will keep you updated as events develop.

CSN Travels to Washington
I was delighted to be among a group of 25 local business and community leaders who traveled to Washington, D.C. last month with the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and local chambers to meet with congressional delegations and various agencies to talk about policy issues affecting southern Nevada. This meeting, dubbed the Federal Forum, was a wonderful opportunity to talk up CSN’s importance to the region, and the critical need for support from Washington for economic development here. I look forward to working more with the LVGEA and our business community as we strengthen these relationships.
Learn More About the LVGEA

Latino Youth Leadership Conference
CSN was delighted to collaborate once more with the Latin Chamber of Commerce Foundation, UNLV, NSC and other community organizations to host the 2018 Latino Youth Leadership Conference. This seasoned program has been responsible for connecting high school students with higher education, community engagement and professional opportunities for 25 years. Graduates of the program include industry leaders, government and elected officials, and trailblazers in our state. This weeklong conference develops leadership and life skills every summer. This year, I attended a presidents’ panel that answered questions from students about opportunities in higher education. Students visited CSN’s North Las Vegas Campus, heard from our recruiters and faculty, and learned about our programs of study. CSN is proud to participate every year and hopes to continue this impactful partnership into the future!
Learn More About the Conference

National Cyber Summit
We were thrilled this spring when the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency notified us that our application to become a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense 2-Year Education had been approved. Last month, that designation was celebrated at the National Cyber Summit in Huntsville, Ala. We sent a delegation from CSN –School of Advanced & Applied Technologies Dean Michael Spangler, Computing & Information Technology Chair Margaret Taylor, and CIT Professor Arthur Salmon – to receive the official recognition. Ours is the only program in Nevada with this designation.
View the Certificate

CyberCamp
If you were on the North Las Vegas Campus last week you may have noticed 40 or so middle and high school students there. Once again, we hosted the Air Force Association’s CyberCamp, a weeklong camp designed to get today’s young people excited about science and tech careers. Topics covered included digital citizenship, ethics, and security, with a focus on how to be safe on the internet. This event, funded through a National Science Foundation grant via CyberWatch West, is always a lot of fun. We expect to host it or a similar event again next summer. Cybersecurity is an issue of growing importance that we have a responsibility to ensure the next generation of college students is prepared to address.
Read Our Press Release

Health Career Exploration Camp
We also had more than 50 students on the Charleston campus last month for the Health Career Exploration Camp. This camp was geared toward students interested in nursing, paramedic medicine, health information and veterinary technology careers. The high school students had the opportunity to use our lab equipment and work directly with our instructors. They learned how to draw blood, run tests, make eyeglasses, and much more. The goal of the camp is to expose students who are interested in health care to several different roles that they might find interesting. Not all health care workers are doctors or nurses, after all.
Read the Review-Journal Article

By the Numbers

Look for this section each month to learn about the data that drive discussion and decisions at CSN.

Fall 2018 Enrollment
Please review the latest enrollment report at the link below. This updated report reflects our fall enrollment through June 25. The fall semester begins August 27. Visit the Institutional Research web page to see additional enrollment and institutional data.
See the Enrollment Report

CSN Athletics

Academic All-Americans
Congratulations to all of our student athletes who shined in the classroom and on the courts and fields this year. We had 27 National Junior College Athletic Association Academic Award Winners! It’s always rewarding to be a part of a student’s well-rounded education. CSN Athletics helps make that happen.
See Them All Here

CSN Government Affairs

Pizza & Politics
A crowd favorite, Pizza & Politics is returning this month. We are excited to have Nevada Lt. Governor Mark Hutchison on board, scheduled for noon July 23 on the North Las Vegas Campus, Building N, room 103. Watch your email for more information as the date approaches.
Learn More about Mark Hutchison

CSN Foundation

AT&T Aspire Foundation Grant
The CSN Foundation recently received a $10,000 grant from the AT&T Aspire Foundation to support scholarships for the CSN Jumpstart Program. The grant will help low-income high school students obtain college credit. The CSN Jumpstart Program, which began in 2007, works with high school instructors to provide college courses at the high school campus, allowing juniors and seniors to obtain high school and college credit. CCSD instructors with collegiate-level credentials are certified through the program to teach CSN curricula so high school students are receiving the same course they would at a CSN campus. This grant will be used for the 2018-2019 academic year.
Learn More About Jumpstart