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Welcome Back from Sonya Christian

TO: Faculty

COPY: Instruction & Student Services Managers

FROM: Sonya Christian, Vice President for Instruction & Student Services

DATE: September 10, 2006

A warm welcome back to all of you returning for the 2006-07 academic year, and a special “welcome to Lane” to newly hired faculty. Last year was a difficult one for the entire college because of the recurring and non-recurring budget reductions that we had to make. Despite this, we had significant accomplishments in Instruction and Student Services, some of which I have highlighted below:

• Student enrollment increased by 5.5 percent in 2005-2006 for a total FTE of 10,738, which exceeded our FTE target. I would like to acknowledge, in particular, the focused work of:
• All instructional faculty and staff for your commitment to enhancing student enrollment.
• Instructional areas in collaboration with College Now resulting in a FTE growth from 378 to 456.
• The Continuing Education departments and their collaborative work with other campus departments to realize an FTE growth of 394.
• Student services and their work with Early Orientation and Registration (EOAR) and Fall Kick Off.
• Marketing in its collaborative recruitment strategies like the Lane Preview Night.

• You might recall that after the site visit in October 2004, the accrediting commission, NWCCU, recommended that Lane work on assessment of student learning. Since then, we have done a lot of work related to assessment. You can review the extensive efforts of the last two years of detailed assessment work and plans at http://www.lanecc.edu/research/assessrec.htm.

• The number of interdisciplinary initiatives submitted through Unit Planning clearly reflects the collaborative effort of faculty and staff in each division. The allocation committees for the three funding sources for unit planning initiatives used the priorities set by college council to guide their work. See website at: http://www.lanecc.edu/oiss/unitplans.html.
• Carl Perkins: grant total $862,190: Significant set asides for K-12 Initiative, curriculum development and marketing related to professional technical areas. The allocations included commitments to RTEC program equipment in Auto Tech, computer workstations for the Multimedia Arts Initiative, and equipment enhancements in the Family & Health Careers.
• Student Tech Fee: $992,772 allocated: Significant funding for new smart classrooms, new computer equipment & infrastructure maintenance in science labs & resource rooms, and continued commitment across campus to replace aging equipment.
• General Fund Curriculum Development: $42,000 annual budget: Multiple faculty working on BioBonds curriculum, development of a diversity sequence in Psychology, and funding for development of online courses in many divisions.

• High School Connections: The College Now office has expanded to add three more programs involving high school students.  RTEC (Regional Technical Education Consortium) is a Lane County partnership which is creating more technical courses at Lane and in the schools. Expanded Options is the result of a new law (Senate Bill 300) which allows some high school students to attend community colleges, and the Pathways program which is a new statewide focus to clarify fulfilling careers paths for students. High School Connections will provide the umbrella for these efforts and be a campus contact point.

• Grants and External Resources: With declining public resources, Instruction and Student Services (ISS) has focused on bringing in additional external revenues, and the Foundation has been a fantastic partner in this effort. Last year ISS received funding notification for over $3 million in grants, many of them over multiple years. We are waiting to hear from additional funding agencies about our applications.

• Student Affairs Plan and Learning Plan: We have spent our first year implementing the Student Affairs Plan and the Learning Plan. An updated list of the accomplishments related to these two plans will be presented to the respective Councils, and then posted on the governance website.

• CCSSE: Last year Lane participated in the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) which provides information about effective educational practices in community colleges. The information assists colleges in promoting improvements in student learning, persistence and goal accomplishment. In winter term 2005 eight hundred and fifty-three Lane students completed the survey. I encourage you to visit the SAGA website, http://www.lanecc.edu/saga/, to learn more about the CCSSE.

• Instructional Technology: Last Spring, your Faculty Webmasters worked with you to select a new learning management system, Moodle, and to then switch over to it. In addition, Lane is beginning to offer official hybrid courses with faculty using the hybrid and online course guidelines developed last year. I encourage you to explore technology options for instruction by attending one of the 29 technology workshops offered at Fall In-service 2006 on Fridays, September 15th and 22nd. For more information on these workshops or any other service provided by your faculty webmasters go to: http://teach.lanecc.edu.

• Strategic Learning Initiative (SLI): SLI last year funded three new projects: First Year Experience—E-Portfolios, Supplemental Instruction, and Sustainability and Learning. For more information please review the website at http://www.lanecc.edu/sli/

For fall In-service, we are excited to welcome Professor Vincent Tinto to campus to help us with campus-wide discussions on redesigning our work towards the vision of the college: transforming lives through learning.  You can access Professor Tinto’s research through the Fall In-service website: http://www.lanecc.edu/inservice/fall06/indexfall06.htm.

I suspect that 2006-2007 academic year will be more challenging than 2005-2006 because of continuing resource constraints, but am equally confident that it will be a rewarding year. We will be engaging in serious discussions on instructional redesign, in the context of economic sustainability, while continuing to be focused on student engagement and learning. I look forward to working closely with ISS departments through the difficult challenges ahead.

Vice President Sonya Christian's welcome back letter to faculty*

* requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.