February 25, 2013

RESOLUTIONS ..........................................................................

Irvine Valley College Lasers Women's Golf Team - 2012 State Champions! The board honored the Irvine Valley College Lasers Women's Golf team and their dedicated coach with a resolution highlighting their undefeated season and second State championship. Team members Sally Kim and Kate Cho were named Co-Conference Players of the Year and Coach Ben Burnett was named Orange Empire Conference Coach of the Year for the sixth time. Coach Ben Burnett commented that they are the best in the U.S. and have the interest of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).

COMMENDATIONS ......................................................................

Saddleback College President's Awards for Leadership and Innovation SC President Tod Burnett presented the President's Awards for Leadership and Innovation to Full-Time Faculty members Renee Bangerter, English, and Kim Branch-Stewart, Human Services; Associate Faculty members Abigail Astley, Counseling, and Brock Schermerhorn, Real Estate; Administrator/Manager Christian Alvarado, Director of Financial Assistance; Full-Time Classified Staff members Deborah Armstrong, Library Technician, and Donna Pribyl, Senior Graphic Designer; and Part-Time Classified Staff member Jon Ginnaty, Senior Fine Arts Lab Technician.

PRESENTATIONS .......................................................................

COLLEGE COMPLETION AGENDA - STUDENT SUCCESS TASKFORCE RECOMMENDATION #5:  Improve the Education of Basic Skills Students

Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College provided an overview of their work on Student Success Task Force Recommendation 5 – “Improve the Education of Basic Skills Students.” Irvine Valley College English instructor Summer Serpas and Dean Kathy Werle gave an overview on the college’s efforts to improve basic skills, highlighting an accelerated writing project at IVC, one of 19 statewide pilots. The programs fuse two courses into one to quickly accelerate writing, college level reading and writing skills. Data shows that by removing exit points between courses, students are more likely to complete. The program has seen a 72.5% pass through rate and students are prepared in just one semester, compared to previous years’ pass rates of 56.8%. Saddleback College Dean Donna Rane-Szostak highlighted a Health Career Readiness program for Allied Health. She commented that students were arriving unprepared for a world of metrics and many students hadn’t taken math for years. Reading and writing skills were also made difficult because of medical terminology. Students were challenged on how to pull critical content and take useful notes.  They also needed exposure to health care career options to better understand their choices. To conquer these challenges, they first partnered basic skills faculty with health science faculty to facilitate better understanding. They worked with a publisher to create a textbook that accomplished both purposes and created interactive exercises and videos, for example, learning to calculate dosages by partnering with math instructors. A pilot program with high school graduates assessed pre-and post-exam scores and showed increased success rates from 38% to 75%. Both colleges have invested heavily in tutoring, have developed short videos to impart learning skills, and have conducted joint student success summits. Future ideas include using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to prepare students for assessment and shorten their time in basic skills courses. Other ideas include free online assessment prep materials, and changing BSI skills to non-credit after considering policy change proposals currently being considered in Sacramento.

REPORT ON MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES -  Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College presented an overview of mental health services provided to students in response to a request for report last month from Trustee Tim Jemal.  Irvine Valley College Student Services Vice President Linda Fontanilla, Health Center Director Chris Hogstedt, Faculty/Counselor Robert Melendez, and Counseling Dean Elizabeth Cipres provided an overview of mental health services provided on campus. Irvine Valley College is seeing an increase in mental health needs such as homelessness, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorders and many with disruptive, confrontational, threatening behavior who question authority. The college has been keeping statistics since 1979.  The demand for mental health services doubled from 2003-2012, and despite an increasing need for psychological services, staffing has not changed since hiring one part-time psychologist in 2005.  IVC provides free, bi-lingual, short term therapy and crisis counseling on campus through this part-time psychologist and interns. Community resources are severely limited in Orange County and that presents an added challenge. In 2011, the California community college system received $16m for early intervention training on campuses, available for technical training of faculty and staff. IVC intends to apply for some of these funds. Saddleback College Student Services Vice President Juan Avalos and Health Center Director Jeannie Caldwell Harris provided an overview of services at SC. The commented that too often students come to campus carrying all of their problems.  The student health center, general counseling, and transfer, career and special programs all deal with students and their issues and must work together to address them. The more entry points there are for gathering this information, the better. Alcohol and drug prevention is a centerpiece of many mental health issues.  SC is using gate keeper training to help staff and students learn through interactive scenarios in a safe environment with links to multiple resources, both on campus and in the community.  The SC health center is booked solid with psychiatric appointments. The center concentrates on outreach to share what services are available so that faculty and staff can better understand and intervene. About 50% of the health center patients have substance abuse issues. SC's website offers many web-based programs to help with drug screening, blood alcohol level calculations, a smart recovery program and a 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program. There are also many training modules to assist in identifying and dealing with mental health issues.  The college is always looking for additional resources to keep up with the many psychological needs of students.

THE BOARD APPROVED ................................................................

• All consent calendar items and academic and classified personnel actions, except 5.11 which was pulled and 6.9 which was approved with revisions to add Irvine Valley College faculty members Susan Boettger and Amy Grimm. Thirty one public comments were provided on this item prior to closed session. For additional information, please contact the Chancellor, College President or appropriate Vice Chancellor.

• Resolution No. 13-04 authorizing execution and delivery of Lease Leaseback Contracts and filing of validation action for the Saddleback College Sciences Building, amount not to exceed $43,200,000.

• Management reorganization at Irvine Valley College to streamline operations and create a more efficient and focused administrative support structure with a budgetary savings of $117,000 per year.

• 33 first year tenure-track faculty and 20 second year tenure-track faculty for Continuation of Tenure-Track Status.

• 17 full-time faculty members for tenure status effective on the first day of service of their fifth year.

• Announcement of and recruitment for one additional new full-time nursing faculty at Saddleback College for the 2013-2014 academic year.

• Nomination of Irvine Valley College employee Angela Orozco Mahaney for the statewide Classified Employee of the Year Award to be selected by representatives of the Community College Board of Governors, Chancellor’s Office, and the Foundation for California Community Colleges.

• A request for report from Trustee Jim Wright on veterans services provided by both colleges.

REPORTS ..............................................................................

• Trustee Jay congratulated the IVC lasers women’s golf team for their state championship. He drew attention to the IVC management reorganization resulting in budget savings of $117,000 per year. Trustee Jemal enjoyed campus tours at both colleges and especially enjoyed seeing the renovated SC Library and Learning Resource Center. He attended the new trustee workshop in Sacramento and found the training to be worthwhile. He also attended a district audit meeting and while recently in Washington, DC, attended a short briefing at the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT). He reiterated the national and state focus on the role of community colleges as an engine for economic development and commented that our colleges and ATEP are well positioned for this task. He commented on the skills gap of more than 2 million job vacancies, 300,000 of those jobs in the IT sector, and said our colleges need to stay ahead of this.  Trustee Milchiker recently attended the CCLC conference and legislative visits for the Orange County Community Colleges Legislative Task Force. She enjoys reminding legislators that our students come to us and leave with a value added of a college education, and the majority of them stay and work and contribute to our economy. Trustee Prendergast attended IVC’s Astounding Inventions event. He congratulated SC for recovering the President’s Cup in the recent championship game. He attended a recent OC School Board Association event and said other districts commented on our district’s healthy and productive relationships. He was very impressed with a recent Rufus Choi piano concert he attended at IVC. Trustee Padberg attended IVC’s Astounding Inventions event, a district audit committee meeting, the OC School Board Association dinner, and the President’s Cup game which honored the memory of her husband, Tom Padberg, and raised $15,000 in scholarships. She is most thankful for the support.  Trustee Wright attended the effective trustee workshop in Sacramento to better understand the roles and responsibilities of trustees in decision making. He also attended the OC School Board Association dinner and two basketball games (one at each college). He is looking forward to Thursday’s event and open house for the SC Library and Learning Resource Center. Trustee Lang offered no report due to the late start of the meeting. Student Trustee Park attended IVC club day, and commented that she has been communicating regularly with other student trustees around the state. She offered her congratulations to the IVC Women’s Golf team.

.

• Chancellor Gary Poertner called attention to the important board meeting discussion items on improving basic skills, mental health services and the new lease-leaseback construction method for the SC Sciences building.

• Saddleback College - President Tod Burnett's report included: winners of the President's Award for Leadership and Innovation; presentation to college/district CEOs on foundation success at CCLC conference; 80 representatives from 21 middle and high schools attended the SC High School Partnership Conference Campus; Police staff and officers attended workshops in the areas of Threat Assessment Regional Evaluation Team (TARGET) and California Emergency Management Agency and have conducted campus-wide presentations; An Entrepreneurship Module has been implemented into the culinary arts catering class for students to learn how to develop a business plan for a food service oriented business; Dr. Amira Wegenek, psychology instructor, was granted funds to host the Southern California Teaching of Psychology Conference at SC in fall 2013 to promote best practices in the teaching of psychology and communication between high schools, 2-year colleges, and 4-year universities.

The board meeting will be available for viewing online later in the week at www.socccd.edu. Television broadcasts are scheduled for 7 pm on Friday, Mar. 1 and Saturday, Mar. 2 on Saddleback College Channel 39 and Irvine Valley College Channel 33.  SC TV 39 has an additional broadcast on Sunday, Mar. 3 at 7 pm.

William O. Jay, Timothy Jemal, David B. Lang, Marcia Milchiker, Nancy M. Padberg,
T.J. Prendergast III, James R. Wright; Heather Park, Student Trustee

Gary L. Poertner, Chancellor