President's Report for March:
1. Enrolment
Applications for the fall show a positive trend. We currently have 879 applicants for the fall semester, a 1.6% increase over last year. It is very early in the application ‘season’ to make a strong judgment on the numbers, but it is an encouraging trend to see an increase in applications at this point in the year.
2. Facility Update
F Wing Expansion. Work remains behind schedule in portions of the renovation area. Structural steel is now complete on the 2 storey expansion and 85% of the steel for one storey office addition is now up. The contractor has committed to a new schedule that will see the completion of the two story classroom wing in time for classes to start September 2010. However by shifting resources to complete the classrooms we will not be able to occupy the one storey office expansion until November 2010.
Design work is finished on the third phase of the F Wing expansion. The renovation and expansion includes areas of the shipping and receiving, Facility Operations, theatre dressing rooms and hallways. A major part of this renovation project will see the replacement of our 39-year-old transformer servicing the main building.
Welding Ventilation Replacement. This phase will not be completed until the end of March. This late completion has not affected any Welding classes.
NEW PROJECT: Courtyard Redevelopment Phases 2 and 3. Redesign work on the Courtyard West of B building and south/east of Trades building continues. This area is phase 2 of the three phase project and should go out for tender pricing late March. The third phase of our landscape redevelopment plan is the area north of the L Wing corridor to the interior courtyard of the new F Wing expansion. When design work is complete the project will be tendered with phase 2 or added as a ‘change order’ to the F Wing expansion.
NEW PROJECT: Trades & Tech Rejuvenation. The next project in the Trades building is partially funded from KIP grants and will start this spring for completion by the fall of 2010. The project is in the design stage and should be going out for tender pricing in March. The general scope of this work includes painting, installation of energy efficient light fixtures and sprinkler system, and replacement of portions of the HVAC system. Scheduling of this work may be challenging as many classrooms in this area are fully occupied until the middle of June. Work in the office area will also require some coordination to complete before mid August.
3. Phi Theta Kappa
The Medicine Hat College Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) – Alpha Tau Delta – inducted 141 new members into its fellowship March 4, 2010 at a special ceremony held in the College Theatre. One hundred of the new members were on hand for the induction and celebrated their success with almost 250 of their family and friends. Medicine Hat College has a distinct history with the honours organization, becoming the first Canadian Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa in 1991. Since then, MHC has inducted approximately 2000 students into this elite society and continues to have strong representation on campus. To become a member of Phi Theta Kappa, students need to achieve and maintain a grade point average of 3.50.
AUPE Bargaining Survey
Please return your AUPE Bargaining Survey to Dave Borella, ITS; Cynthia Schlenker, Student Services; or Reni Smith, Library by Monday, April 5, 2010.
One Book One Community 2010 Announcement
The Medicine Hat One Book One Community Committee is pleased to announce the book choice for 2010: Three-Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Events will take place October 22-23, 2010.
Instructional Software Requests
It is time to think ahead to the next academic year and prepare for new or updated software for instructional purposes. Information Technology Services (ITS) requests that all instructors indicate their software needs for the next year by Monday April 12, as we start deploying new machines and configuring labs for the next year in May and it takes some weeks to order software and prepare images for the labs.
Our goal this year, as last year, will be to have all instructional labs ready with equipment and software by August 1. This will allow time in August for instructors to try lab machines and identify problems prior to the start of the academic term. Keep in mind, that in order for ITS to address lab software problems, at least two weeks is usually required; if problems in labs are not identified until late August, it may not be possible to resolve problems before the start of classes.
Please respond through email with your software requests to Chrissie Mather, Please list the Room Number and indicate what software you are requiring or not requiring anymore. If you would like to see index of what is installed in each lab, please request a copy of this document from Chrissie.
Revised Weight Room Hours
Starting Tuesday, April 6th, the weight room and gymnasium will be operating under reduced spring/summer hours. The revised hours are:
Monday – Friday: 8a.m. – 8p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 11a.m. – 5p.m.
This Week's Innovation Abstract: Technology & Education
In "Technology and Education: Making the Best of It," Christine Redman Waldeyer, Professor of English and Journalism, at Passaic County Community College (NJ), describes her strategies for getting students focused on using technology to everyone's advantage-helping them attend to current events both locally and nationally, being responsible for the claims they make and the ideas they espouse, and bringing the world around them into the classroom.
Access this article at:
http://www.nisod.org/password/abstracts/XXXII_9.html
(*The username is member and the password is nisod365.*)
Library and Business Division Celebrate Book Launch
A book launch party was hosted in the Vera Bracken Library to celebrate a successful partnership between Library Services and the Division of Business. The book is a compilation of business student projects instructed by Glen Allan with the research support from the library. The students were excited to see their projects turned into a published work and listed with many other books collected by the library. The highlight of the event was that each individual student was able to retrieve the book through the online catalogue by searching their own name as the author!
From the EH&S Office...
Earth Hour
The college campus went dark for an hour Saturday night in support of Earth Hour - did you?
E-Cycling
Do some spring cleaning and drop off your old electronics outside the Faculty Association office until May 15. We will take anything with a cord!
Environment Week: May 17-21
The college will host a display of a number of local "green" businesses. The Environmental Stewardship Committee will also be hosting “The Departmental Challenge.” Can you reduce, re-use and recycle better than your peers? Look for details here in the coming weeks.
Emergency Notification
There has been a cluster of ambulance response to the campus in the last few weeks to support students with medical emergencies. Thank you to all staff members that have assisted these individuals. Just a reminder, Student Services does keep emergency notification numbers, so please call them when these situations arise.
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