College of Southern Nevada

Dear CSN Family,

Today, we are following up on questions by students, staff and faculty regarding remote placement testing and spring 2020 grades, as well as our plans for the fall 2020 semester.

I’m excited to let you know that we’ve successfully developed new placement testing alternatives that do not require in-person proctoring. CSN will place students in English using multiple measures, such as high school GPA and ACT or SAT scores. Additionally, beginning Monday, May 4, students will be able to take proctored English and reading Accuplacer exams via WebEx. For math placement exams, students will be able to access ALEKS PPL, also beginning Monday. We have also developed an English as a second language placement test to be delivered via Canvas, and it will also be ready for deployment on Monday.

You’ll recall that earlier this month, the Board of Regents adjusted the grading policy so students will be permitted to pursue a satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade. Like our sister NSHE institutions, a grade of “S” at CSN will be a D-minus or better. Instructors will assign typical letter grades at the end of the spring semester. Should a student want to change the letter grade to an S, the student will be required to meet with a counselor so the student makes a clearly informed decision. We will soon have an FAQ sheet ready for both students and counselors, and we are determining the timeline by which a student can make the request. Once these decisions have been finalized, we will let the entire CSN community know.

While summer registration is underway, we are already busy planning our fall semester, keeping in mind that the situation surrounding COVID-19 may cause us to alter or adjust our plans. We will continue to build our inventory of online courses while preparing our campus to meet COVID-19 protocol regarding deep cleaning, social distancing, personal protective equipment, and ensuring that every class has a robust online component in case circumstances require CSN classes to go fully online in the event of a second pandemic wave. Thus, our fall plans include a class schedule that offers online sections as well as converting face-to-face sections to hybrid or blended sections. We are also prepared to make the necessary changes to classroom and lab arrangements, provide PPE and adhere to deep cleaning protocols to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff.

As part of our commitment to the collective bargaining process, I wanted to also let you know of two important upcoming events. First, there will be a Q&A from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday, April 29 and another from 3-5 p.m. Thursday, April 30 via WebEx. Contact Dr. Andrea Brown for details. Additionally, faculty will have the opportunity to vote on the proposed contract using Election Buddy from April 30 through May 3. Contact Emily King for details.

Lastly, please don’t forget to join us for our Virtual Town Hall later today via the link in the right column of this email. We have had more than 300 people participating each week, and I look forward to doing it again. We are in this together and together we remain Vegas Strong and CSN Proud.

Stay safe and God bless.

• HR Memorandum
• Telecommute Agreement
• Workday Job Aid
• HR FAQs
• Canvas FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Virtual Events for Students
• Community Resources
• Essential Student Services
• Financial Aid FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Nevada Health Response
• Prevention & Treatment
• CDC Situation Summary
• Report Potential Exposure
• NV H&HS Data Dashboard

• Faculty and staff join us at noon today
• Students join us at 2 p.m. today

Dear CSN Family,

As we face the prospect of significant budget reductions in the upcoming biennium, I want to inform you that CSN has secured over $11 million in active grants to help offset possible cuts. These grants will cover expenses in areas ranging from helping disadvantaged students prosper academically to providing state-of-the-art equipment to future surgical technologists and environmental specialists.

Here are details on just a few of the active grants at CSN:

• A U.S Department of Education grant in the amount of $1,423,790 helps us provide disadvantaged students – including low income and minority students – with opportunities for educational success by helping us provide advisement on issues such as academics, careers, transferring, and finances, as well as tutoring, help with reading and writing, mentoring and much more.
• Another U.S. Department of Education grant, combined with a State Department of Education Grant, awards CSN’s Division of Workforce & Economic Development $3,401,409. This funding will provide high-level English Language Acquisition and High School Equivalency instruction for students. This will include designing and implementing an original information technology/computer career exploration class modeled after our successful industrial- and health-career pathway classes. We expect this to help students obtain industry-recognized certificates, allowing them to easily enter the workforce.
• A grant of $92,000 from the American Association of Community Colleges will allow the CSN Apprenticeship Program to effectively expand registered apprenticeship opportunities by offering relevant career and technical education in support of initiatives serving the region’s unique labor market needs and target industries. 
• A Perkins Formula Grant totaling $2,018,620 supports many of our career and technical instruction programs. One is our Surgical Technology Program, a critical component of the rapidly evolving healthcare industry. This grant supports having a licensed general surgeon provide students with “live” surgery simulations on high-tech anatomical models of humans. The simulations are broadcast through video conferencing and recorded to utilize for future instruction.
• A Workforce Challenge Grant of $230,070 from the State of Nevada Office of Science Technology & Innovation will allow us to buy high-tech microscopes and field supplies for students in the new Environmental Management degree program. The program is work-force connected and graduates are sought out for employment as technical specialists for environmental and engineering firms, mining, and exploration companies.

In addition, we have $20 million more in grant applications submitted and awaiting review and decisions. Kudos to the team in the Office of Sponsored Projects and the CSN familyfor their hard work in pursuing external funds to ensure that our students succeed and prosper.  Together, we remain Vegas Strong and CSN Proud.

Stay safe and God bless.

• HR Memorandum
• Telecommute Agreement
• Workday Job Aid
• HR FAQs
• Canvas FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Virtual Events for Students
• Community Resources
• Essential Student Services
• Financial Aid FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Nevada Health Response
• Prevention & Treatment
• CDC Situation Summary
• Report Potential Exposure
• NV H&HS Data Dashboard

• Faculty and staff join us at noon Tuesday, April 28
• Students join us at 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 28

Dear CSN Family,

As you know, the state of Nevada is facing the possibility of large budget cuts in the next biennium, and we want to do all we can to help alleviate their effects on CSN and our students.  Today we will provide examples of how you can help CSN attain reimbursement for COVID-19-related expenses, as well as a new initiative to add even more payment flexibility for our students.

Thanks to the work of our finance team, we have been able to keep track of any spending related to the current crisis in order to seek reimbursement for these expenses from FEMA and CARES Act sources. It is important that we all use the special activity code AC0994 in the event that you incur expenditures associated with COVID-19. This applies to requisitions, P-Card expenditures and supplier invoice requests. Please enter the activity code in the “additional worktag” field on Workday requisitions and P-Card transactions.

Examples of items that may be related and are currently being incurred include:

• ordering more cleaning supplies
• the expansion of cleaning duties        
• additional laptops, tablets, monitors, or other technologies for faculty, staff and students to work and learn remotely
• additional instructional tools needed in the remote environment
• additional resources needed to equip employees to work remotely

In addition to our internal efforts to track our expenses, our finance team is also working on ways to assist our students. As you know, many of our students are undergoing severe financial hardships, and we want them to know we’re here to help. Historically, our cashier’s office has only offered payment plan options for the fall and spring semesters. We are now looking into the possibility of initiating a payment plan alternative for the summer 2020 term. We need to make sure our students can maintain their momentum toward completion. Payment plan flexibility in the summer term can help them do that in this time of uncertainty. Please look for details from my office as we further develop this plan.

Again, thank you for putting our Students First. We are in this together and together we are Vegas Strong and CSN Proud.

Stay safe and God bless.

• HR Memorandum
• Telecommute Agreement
• Workday Job Aid
• HR FAQs
• Canvas FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Virtual Events for Students
• Community Resources
• Essential Student Services
• Financial Aid FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Nevada Health Response
• Prevention & Treatment
• CDC Situation Summary
• Report Potential Exposure
• NV H&HS Data Dashboard

• Join us at noon Tuesday, April 28

Dear CSN Family,

Today we will highlight important information from our Human Resources team that is intended to help the CSN family maneuver in today’s complex environment.

Please know that the Employee Assistance Program is available for you any time you need it. We understand that stress can sometimes follow change and uncertainty. This program is a great resource for our CSN family at no charge and is accessible by phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is 100 percent confidential and is designed to assist employees and families in handling personal and work-related issues. Don’t hesitate to take advantage of this resource if you believe it would help you.

Open enrollment for Public Employees Benefits Plan health insurance will be May 15-30 this year. Those not making any changes do not need to do anything. Those making changes need to go through the PEBP website portal. PEBP stated that they will have webinars and will send out information regarding how to enroll. They will also have supplemental products employees can enroll in.

In addition, open enrollment for MetLaw and ASI Flexible Spending is May 1 – 30, 2020. This open enrollment is through Workday. With our CSN family working in our virtual environment, Human Resources wants to ensure a smooth open enrollment period, so please email HRcustomerservice@csn.edu should you have any questions.

For those who want to know when we might return to campus, there has been no change since last week. As of now, what we know for certain is that all instruction will remain remote through June 30. While a firm date has not been set for employees to return to campus, non-teaching staff will remain in their virtual work environment or on paid administrative leave status at least through the remainder of the spring semester. As you know, the environment we are in now evolves quickly, so we will keep you informed of developments as they pertain to the CSN family.

Lastly, please continue to monitor the CAPE website, where you will find new online training  sessions that range from critical thinking to effective online collaboration.

As always, thank you all for your hard work putting our Students First, and for remaining Vegas Strong and CSN Proud.

Stay safe and God bless.

• HR Memorandum
• Telecommute Agreement
• Workday Job Aid
• HR FAQs
• Canvas FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Virtual Events for Students
• Community Resources
• Essential Student Services
• Financial Aid FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Nevada Health Response
• Prevention & Treatment
• CDC Situation Summary
• Report Potential Exposure
• NV H&HS Data Dashboard

• Join us at 10 a.m. today
• View last week’s town hall online

Dear CSN Family,

We continue working to improve the student experience at CSN while we are all also working and learning remotely. In addition to advising, academic counseling, tutoring and many more services that we’ve already discussed, today I have good news about new student orientation, Counseling and Psychological Services and our Behavioral Intervention Team.

Following months of planning and preparation, CSN’s new online student orientation experience will launch at 1 p.m. today. Faculty and staff can participate as guests and can access the portal through the websites for First Year Experience or Orientation. This kind of successful effort can only happen in an environment like the one we have at CSN, where everyone works together as a team.

Counseling and Psychological Services, known as CAPS, has also fully transitioned its operation to deliver services online. In a phased-in approach, CAPS partner Mojave Counseling began offering telephone sessions to current clients on March 18, followed by an expansion of those services to all students on March 31. On April 13, videoconferencing sessions were added as an option for all students. All sessions are compliant with current HIPPA and FERPA privacy laws.

Lastly, a team of experts from Student Affairs recently participated in a National Behavioral Intervention Team Association virtual conference focused on offering guidance and instruction on how best to ensure that behavioral intervention teams are operating at optimal effectiveness. CSN’s own Campus Awareness Response Education/Behavioral Intervention Team participated in the conference. This team is charged with detecting early indicators of potential disruptive conduct and, if necessary, directing intervention efforts. You will hear more about this team as it finalizes its mission, standards and reporting mechanisms.

These efforts exemplify our Students First focus. Because we act together, we’re able to accomplish what we could never do working separately. Rest assured that we will continue our collective efforts to improve student success. We are in this together, and together we will stay Vegas Strong and CSN Proud.

Stay safe and God bless.

• HR Memorandum
• Telecommute Agreement
• Workday Job Aid
• HR FAQs
• Canvas FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Virtual Events for Students
• Community Resources
• Essential Student Services
• Financial Aid FAQs
• Technology & Collaboration Tools

• Nevada Health Response
• Prevention & Treatment
• CDC Situation Summary
• Report Potential Exposure
• NV H&HS Data Dashboard

• Faculty & Staff join us at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 23
• Students join us at 2 p.m. Thursday, April 23
• View last week’s town halls online: Faculty & staff and students.