Once again, I’m pleased to offer this update on recent activities and college initiatives.
Enrollment Update
Our “census date” Fall 2019 enrollment report shows us 2.76% behind last year in both headcount and FTE. Enrollment is slightly lower than our budget projection for the semester, but better than most community colleges that have reported data so far. We must continue to work together to develop and implement strategies that improve our enrollment trajectory.
Currently, registration for College in the High School and late start Sprint courses continues, and academic departments are adding course sections to the master schedule for upcoming terms in order to increase student choice and fulfill demand. In addition, our Fall 2018 persistence is moving in the right direction, up 1% compared to the prior year, and our initiative to bring Electrical Construction and Maintenance courses to TEC-SMART has been a great success, more than doubling enrollment at the extension center.
Still, we need to be mindful of the demographic headwinds we are facing locally and generate ideas for growth outside our traditional student population. According to data recently released by SUNY, high school graduate projection data to 2031 show a statewide (outside NYC and Long Island) decline of 9.6%. Albany County can expect a 4% decline and Rensselaer County, a 20% decline, in high school graduates. So, it’s critical that we continue to find alternate student audiences for the college.
As we actively recruit for Spring and Fall 2020, please share your ideas with me. Note that Spring 2020 registration for returning and transfer students begins on Monday, Oct. 7, and new student registration starts one week later on Monday, Oct. 14. Please reach out to students to begin planning and course scheduling as soon as possible, and provide referrals to academic support services to those who are struggling. I also ask that you encourage prospective students and families you know to attend upcoming Admissions events such as Campus Visit Day on Monday, Oct. 14 or our Open House on Saturday, Nov. 16. Of course, we also welcome students and families to stop by our enrollment offices at any other time.
Finally, I wish to again thank the more than 35 faculty and staff members who volunteered to staff our Student Navigator stations that were located throughout the campus as the semester began. I’ve heard many positive comments about the assistance they provided to our students, and I know that our students appreciated being able to ask questions, get directions or just stop by to pick up some water and say hello.
Excelsior Scholarship
One of the factors we’re analyzing now is the effect of the Excelsior Scholarship on our enrollment. Governor Cuomo recently announced that 24,000 students statewide are Excelsior Scholarship recipients for Fall 2019, an increase of 20%. Hudson Valley is second among community colleges in the state in the number of Excelsior students, and the University at Albany is second among the four-year colleges. On the positive side, preliminary data indicates that that the community college on-time graduation rate is more than double for Excelsior students compared to non-Excelsior students. In addition, for Hudson Valley, of students receiving Excelsior scholarships in Fall 2017, 70.9% were still enrolled after one year; the rate among non-Excelsior recipients was 48.9%.
CRM Update
Following the recommendation of the Business Process Review, the college engaged in several vendor presentations last fall and spring to improve our students’ enrollment experiences. Based on feedback from the campus community, the college purchased several Ellucian products, and the implementation processes have already begun.
Ellucian Mobile is an app to allow more user-friendly access to students’ information within both Banner and Blackboard. As the name suggests, CRM (Customer/Constituent Relationship Management) Recruit will assist the Admissions Office with many areas of the recruitment process. CRM Advise is a retention platform, which will provide a comprehensive tool for tracking academic progress and advisement as well as functionality to support of the Retention Committee’s initiatives, such as the early success referral system used by faculty. Both CRMs will improve communications with students by allowing for targeted messaging (including texting) and include dashboards for easier access to data about our students. Ellucian Analytics expands on the functionality native to the CRMs and also will include information related to finance and financial aid.
More information on this significant technology upgrade will be shared with the campus community as the product rollout continues. Also, I wish to share my sincere thanks to those who are involved in the implementation of these exciting new products.
Student Scholarships
The college Foundation is now accepting applications online for Second Chance Scholarships and Empire State Diversity Honors Scholarships from currently enrolled students. Second Chance Scholarships assist students who not only are in need, but who have overcome tremendous personal obstacles in order to pursue an education. Empire State Diversity Honors Scholarships are offered through a collaboration between the SUNY Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Faculty Student Association, and the Foundation. These scholarships are for students who can contribute to the diversity of the campus and who have demonstrated the high academic achievement characteristic of an honors program.
Guided Pathways
As you may recall from my update in May, this spring Hudson Valley was chosen as one of seven community colleges invited to participate in the second cohort of SUNY’s Guided Pathways initiative. Guided Pathways focuses on creating structured educational experiences from high school through the completion of college. SUNY’s Guided Pathways model is closely based on findings of the Community College Research Center and the work of the national Pathways Project, led by the American Association of Community Colleges, and is designed to help increase retention and completion rates for our students.
On Wednesday through Friday, Oct. 2 -4, I was with Vice President for Student Affairs Louis Coplin, Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs Judy DiLorenzo, Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs Ronalyn Wilson, Dean of Liberal Arts and Business Fabian Vega, and Chair of the Academic Senate Joe Schneider at Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua for the first of a series of Guided Pathways Institutes. These conferences will allow the seven participating community colleges from Cohort II to come together in workshops and team strategy sessions to be trained and established a framework for implementation of Guided Pathways at the colleges. This first institute focused on benchmarking, capacity, and transformational change. We had the opportunity to hear from four college presidents from Cohort I and learn about their experiences with Guided Pathways. This is excellent progress in our implementation process for this initiative.
Classroom Technology Update
During the summer and early parts of September, ITS installed new classroom technology in 206 classrooms and labs. This initiative addressed a variety of stability issues and lacking features caused by aging instructional technology. Faculty have now used the technology for more than a month, and I’m happy to report that the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. ITS will now turn its attention to finishing up the remaining spaces and expanding the project to cover meeting rooms and auditoriums to bring technology consistency across campus.
New Accessibility Committee
The SUNY Board of Trustees has approved an Electronic and Information Technology (EIT) Accessibility Policy, which requires each SUNY institution to develop a plan and policy to improve electronic accessibility. In order to develop that policy, the college is convening an EIT Accessibility Committee, which will be led by DeAnne Martocci, director of the Center for Access and Assistive Technology. I encourage anyone who is interested in joining the committee to contact DeAnne at (518) 629-7154.
CEG Trade Mission
I was honored to be invited by the Center for Economic Growth (CEG) to participate in a trade mission on Oct. 5-10 to the United Arab Emirates, co-led by CEG and the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council in partnership with the Consulate General of the United Arab Emirates in New York. CEG has secured funding for the trip, which focuses on advanced manufacturing, as UAE is the home to the primary investor of GlobalFoundries. It also occurs in conjunction with GITEX 2019, one of the world’s largest tech trade shows.
The delegation consists of nearly 20 regional business and education representatives and elected officials, including leaders from GlobalFoundries, Clarkson University, SUNY Schenectady, University at Albany, the New York State Assembly and the cities of Saratoga Springs and Schenectady as well as local manufacturing and high-tech companies. As chair of the Center for Economic Growth’s (CEG) Advanced Manufacturing Work Group, I look forward to supporting CEG’s mission and also exploring new partnerships for the college that further our relationship with GlobalFoundries and expand opportunities for our manufacturing and technology-related programs.
Strategic Plan
Thanks very much to everyone who attended or viewed the All College Meeting to learn more about our 2019-24 Strategic Plan. With approved priorities and goals, our steering committee’s teams are continuing to refine and finalize our implementation plan. In addition, the Academic Senate approved new core values for the college. The Senate did not recommend approval on new mission and vision statements during Monday’s meeting, so its Planning Committee will now review feedback and consider amendments. We will keep the campus community informed as we move along, and I again thank you for being so actively engaged in our planning processes.
Guenther Renovations
I’d like to once again thank you all for your patience as we continue renovations in and around the Guenther Enrollment Services Center. Roof and ceiling repairs as well as renovations to academic office spaces and the board room are underway. A portion of these renovations have been taking place overnight to minimize impact on college operations, and we expect the projects to be complete toward the end of the semester.
Campus Update
As previously announced, we are continuing to work on the development of the college’s Facility Master Plan, which will guide updates and improvements to campus infrastructure over the next five to ten years. On Monday, Sept. 23, we hosted a session for our students to provide valuable input directly to our architects and planners. I am pleased that the event was extremely well-attended, with more than 100 students participating. Students also have the opportunity to provide input through an online survey. Meetings were also held with the academic leadership to provide information and request input from our faculty. We will share additional information as the project progresses, and we expect a preliminary report from our consultant on the project in early 2020.
Earlier in the month, we announced that we have joined the New York Higher Education Large Scale Renewable Energy (NY HE LSRE) consortium, which consists of 20 public and private higher education institutions that have joined together to purchase large-scale aggregated renewable energy. Hudson Valley is one of only two community colleges that are part of the consortium, which represents one of the state’s largest aggregated purchases of renewable energy to date.
Leadership
Please join me in welcoming Patricia Myers as our new associate dean for external academic affairs. She comes to the college with a variety of higher education and community engagement experience, having served as SUNY Empire State College’s chief student affairs officer, among other relevant positions. Located at TEC-SMART and reporting to Dean of Economic Development and Workforce Initiatives Penny Hill, Patricia will aim to expand partnerships and enhance enrollment. She begins work on Tuesday, Oct. 15.
Last week, Governor Cuomo announced the appointment of Dr. Merryl H. Tisch to serve as chair and Cesar Perales to serve as vice chair of the SUNY Board of Trustees. Dr. Tisch, who visited our campus this spring to learn more about the college, has served as vice chair of the SUNY Board of Trustees since March 2018. In addition, she was a member of the Board of Regents for 20 years and vice chancellor of that organization from 2007 to 2009. Mr. Perales served as New York State’s secretary of state, where he was a leader in the state’s economic development, community revitalization and anti-poverty efforts.
I have been selected by the governor’s office to serve on the Excelsior Automotive Technician Task Force. This is an informal task force with the ultimate goal of increasing the number of people certified to work as automotive technicians in New York State. The group will be working on increasing course offerings at high schools and colleges and expanding the talent pipeline of individuals to do this work.
Educational Opportunity Center
SUNY’s University Center for Academic and Workforce Development is rolling out a new visual identity for its network of Educational Opportunity Centers and ATTAIN labs this fall. As a result, the Capital District EOC will introduce a new logo at an upcoming Community Appreciation Brunch on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 10 a.m. The event will also celebrate the EOC’s community partners and update stakeholders on a variety of exciting EOC projects. New York State Senator Neil Breslin and Assembly Members Pat Fahy and John McDonald will join Dr. Lucille Marion and EOC colleagues at the event. Please contact Elaine Harwood at e.harwood@hvcc.edu or (518) 273-1900 x 2219 for more information.
Inauguration Activities
As announced earlier, we will celebrate a new chapter in the college’s history at the Inauguration festivities later this month. All employees have received an invitation to the Inauguration Installation Ceremony on October 25, and I sincerely hope you can join us. Faculty and staff are also welcome to join us for the Gala on Thursday evening, October 24, the proceeds of which will benefit the President’s Innovation Fund, which will support projects related to our Strategic Plan. For complete event information, go to www.hvcc.edu/inauguration.
College Events
As you know, there are a wide range of college events held throughout the year, and I am asking all employees to try to participate when possible. It’s important that we show our support at student events and athletic competitions as well as at events organized to enhance our students’ experience, share new perspectives and ideas, and bring our greater community to campus.
Last month, in addition to Homecoming events and faculty discussions tied to Constitution Day, our Cultural Affairs program offered a free performance by local gypsy-swing band, Hot Club of Saratoga, and the Teaching Gallery’s artist’s talk and reception for the opening of “Collage City: Sculpture and Installation” by Peter Dudek and Susan Meyer. These are just a couple of the outstanding events among many.
Please see the college’s online events calendar, or pick up our fall cultural events calendar in Communications and Marketing, GUN 267. It includes a variety of film showings, Voices lectures, music and theater performances and exhibits on campus. Also, keep an eye out throughout the semester for special events in our Marvin Library that celebrate its 50 years of service to our students and our community.
Thank you all, and my best wishes as we continue the semester.
Published: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:20:58 +0000 by r.ramsammy