Cabinet Notes
February 14, 2011
Cabinet Members:
President Mike Richards
Vartouhi Asherian, Chair, Administrative Faculty Assembly
John Bearce, Director of Institutional Research
K.C. Brekken, Communications Manager
Thomas Brown, Chief Campus Administrator, Cheyenne
Art Byrd, Vice President, Student Affairs
Patty Charlton, Senior Vice President for Finance & Facilities
Chemene Crawford, Interim Vice President for Administration
J.T. Creedon, Student Government President
Darren Divine, Vice President, Academic Affairs
Richard Hinckley, General Counsel
Bill Kerney, Faculty Senate Chair
Cat Maihen, President, Classified Council – absent – Cindy Ray, proxy
Larry Mason, Chief Diversity Officer – absent
Jacque Matthews, Executive Director, Foundation
Penny McCollum, Campus Site Administrator, Henderson Campus
Joan McGee, Chief Campus Administrator, Charleston Campus
Dan Morris, Executive Director, Business Operations
Tracy Sherman, Faculty Senate Chair-Elect
Mugunth Vaithylingam, Chief Information Officer
The meeting was called to order by Dr. Richards at 9 a.m.
The notes of the January 10, 2011 cabinet meeting were approved.
Dr. Richards reviewed notable upcoming dates including the President’s Day holiday, Board of Regents meeting at WNC, March 10 & 11 in Carson City, his evaluation process the week of March 14-18, and Spring Break March 21-27. He also mentioned the Legacy of Achievement Gala to take place at Harrah’s Paris Las Vegas Resort on April 30.
Joan McGee discussed the Strategic Plan notifications being sent automatically to remind the appropriate departments of approaching due dates for key performance indicators. The notifications are sent urgent email, from “numina.net.” She stressed that the notifications should not be ignored, but rather progress reports on the KPI should be sent to Joan so she can update the status of the KPI on the Strategic Plan program. The Strategic Plan is very important to the accreditation process and our accrediting body, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, will be looking for an engaged process when evaluating CSN.
Dr. Richards distributed a document from the National Conference of State Legislatures about improving college completion. The document contains action steps for Legislators to explore more thoroughly the issues pertaining to funding, student transfers, ways to speed up degree completion and lowering costs for students by finding ways to make campuses run more efficiently. Dr. Richards again urged the Cabinet members to contact legislators and make them aware of their concerns regarding higher education.
John Bearce gave an update on the iNtegrate project status. The completed tasks are a bit behind schedule as to what was projected, due to consultants being spread thin supporting the five institutions now live with the new systems. Financial Aid went live last Monday, and FAFSA applications are online now. FAFSA Application status can be checked online as well. The portal for students to apply for admissions will be live for summer and fall semesters; communication to all students is beginning. Faculty should instruct students to update contact information and preferred email, and ICS screens will display similar information.
Spring enrollment is down slightly, purges are being run nightly; FTE is about 21,169. Institutional Research is also working on LCB requests which are due today. A graduation rate analysis is in the news for poor rates, but as discussed repeatedly, the reason behind the apparent poor performance stems mostly from the way data is reported to IPEDS. Institutional Research is working with other colleges and NSHE IR analyst, Linda Heiss to standardize reporting—independent of IPEDS—and possibly developing a way to report as a system rather than individual institutions. The graduation rate data is tied to many forms of financial support for students and the College, so addressing the false impression that students attend solely for the purpose of obtaining a degree is a very important first step. For community colleges especially, success does not necessarily mean graduating with a degree.
K.C. Brekken reminded the cabinet members that she will be out of the office on maternity leave beginning March 21. She will send an email listing the various functions of the office and the designees who will perform them while she is out. She shared a publication entitled, “College of Southern Nevada’s Value to Nevada.” A limited number of printed copies are available through the public relations office, but the information in detail is on CSN’s website: www.csn.edu/economicimpact
Dr. Byrd highlighted events and accomplishments in Student Affairs beginning with Project Graduation. There are 4,269 currently enrolled with 45 or more transferrable credits and a GPA of 2.0 or higher. The goal is to increase the graduation rate by 5% by targeting these students to meet with counselors to develop a plan for graduation. The counseling department continues to have success with the express system. Transfer Fairs were held on all three campuses with a total of 400 students attending. It was determined that the three most important considerations when making transfer plans are cost, academic programs and institution location. Recruitment participated in six Perkins Grant Career Specialty Exploration programs featuring health science, welding and construction technology careers. Retention sent 1,674 E-Alerts in Fall 2010. TRIO exceeded or met all goals in its Annual Performance Report to the Department of Education, and the department also coordinated and launched a supply drive to benefit Faye Herron Elementary School’s underprivileged students. Tutorial Services continues to streamline daily operations and at the same time is launching an aggressive campaign to promote tutorial services and increase usage of the department by 10% each year at the Cheyenne campus. The Disability Resource Center and Student Financial Services have been successful in implementing the DRC Note Taker Scholarship program. Roughly 200 students have qualified as scholarship recipients and are serving as in-class note takers for their academic peers with documented disabilities. Sixty-one students received book grants under the Cip Chavez Work for Your Book program initiated last fall. The program was administered through the Department of Student Life and Leadership Development; CSN received 850 hours of service from the students who participated in the program.
Patty Charlton said that since the Legislative Session began, there have been many, many questions from the legislators about specific facts and figures pertaining to CSN. The Finance and Facilities Division is working closely with Institutional Research to supply the statistics as needed by the elected representatives. Finance & Budget is also preparing for the Board of Regents meeting on March 10 & 11, and Facilities is planning a busy Spring.
Richard Hinckley informed everyone that a Legislative Advocacy Report will be emailed periodically to provide updates on the situation in the Legislature, and also to act as a reminder to make contacts with legislators.
Joan McGee and the Emergency Event Communication team are planning a test of the communication system with a drill in the near future. She reported also on the Strategic Planning tracking system, and asked that as the reminders go out to the departments responsible, progress on the items be reported to her. She will then plug the information into the system. Joan is also compiling budgetary information on sites and centers for Finance & Facilities. Some changes to the sites and centers have recently taken place:
- Moapa Valley has a new Site Coordinator, Chantile McAllister, following the resignation of the previous one. Suzanne Garlick was hired as a temporary full time clerical trainee to help with the operation of the site, cover furlough days and other duties.
- Nellis AFB has a new Site Coordinator, Jeff Lycan, who is enthusiastically completing training and is anxious to learn the new My CSN training.
- Western High Tech Center also has a new Site Coordinator, Tamara Flores-Sahagun, who is completing training as well, and working on streamlining the operations at the Center for maximum efficiency.
Joan thanked Sherri Payne and her department for the beautiful job of painting completed at the Charleston campus, and for maintaining the huge amount of square footage with her very reduced number of maintenance personnel. She reported on the Leadership Las Vegas and Leadership Henderson Education Days that went very well, and she thanked Dr. Richards for participating in the round table sessions. The round table participants included Regent Mike Wixom, State Senator Mo Denis, President Smatresk of UNLV, President DiMare of NSC and it was moderated by Jon Ralston.
Mugunth Vaithylingam reported a good turnout for Tech Connection in January. Vendors at the event gave positive feedback and want to participate again, and $18,000 was raised for scholarships. The first day of the spring semester was without issues in the Angel system-there were over 90,000 uneventful logins. For administration, faculty and staff, the transition to VOIP phones is coming soon, hopefully by fall 2011. It is necessary for the migration to exchange 2010 to be completed first, and while that is happening, email will not be available. Therefore, the process is slowed because it has to be done during the night and on weekends; but it is progressing.
Dr. Richards said that Bart Patterson will present the Efficiency and Effectiveness preliminary report at the March Board of Regents meeting. Also at the March meeting, there will be two individuals nominated for honorary degrees and 15 recommendations for tenure. The work climate survey is complete with 847 responses (30-35%), which is a good segment to evaluate. A committee will review the results and make recommendations. The aggregate data will be posted on the Institutional Research website.
Meeting adjourned at 10:15 a.m.
Next meeting scheduled March 14, 2011.