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News from around the VCCS
If you can’t read this email, please view it online.
A text-only version can be accessed online.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2022
In this issue:
• Virginia’s Community Colleges to ramp up infrastructure training, preparing thousands for good-paying jobs
• Improved online tool will help our transfer-bound students
• New system-wide policy for faculty office hours
•New council being created to help ensure welcoming environments at our colleges and offices
• Webinar will focus on ways our colleges boost student success for all
• Spotlight on Great Expectations program helping foster youth
• STEM students finish life-changing research projects at NASA Langley
• Reminder: VCCA Conference is coming up
• Other News from the world of higher education
• Link to VCCS events calendar
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Virginia’s Community Colleges are gearing up to train thousands of workers to help rebuild the commonwealth’s aging roads and bridges and bring much needed upgrades to airports, ports and utilities statewide. The Virginia Infrastructure Academy (VIA), was announced August 11, and will coordinate, scale-up and replicate successful infrastructure-related community college training programs, which now produce 4,000 graduates annually, with a goal of producing a total of 35,000 qualified workers over the next five years.
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Federal funds will pump billions of dollars in the coming years into improved highways, bridges, ports, airports and utility projects in Virginia. And those plans were certainly on the minds of government and business leaders who gathered for the launch of the Virginia Infrastructure Academy August 11. But the real show-stoppers at the event – and the folks who were in demand for photos afterwards -- were the people who have found good-paying jobs in construction and trades as a result of the training they received at Virginia’s Community Colleges.
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Having undergone a significant upgrade, you could call the TransferVA portal “New and Improved.” The web-based tool now more effectively closes the information equity gap for students who want to study at a Virginia Community College with the goal of transferring to one of the state’s four-year institutions. Most students at our colleges have indicated their desire to transfer. The new tool is designed to help families of community college students and high school students.
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Dealing with students during office hours clearly was a challenge for fictional college professor Henry “Indiana” Jones (seen above). These days, real-life students may prefer to use text, email, zoom or other means to engage with their instructors. And starting this fall, teaching faculty at Virginia’s Community Colleges will have new flexibility to work with their supervisors to determine better ways to reach their students instead of waiting for their students to come to them. The modernization stems from work done by the Chancellor’s Faculty Advisory Committee.
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Virginia’s Community Colleges are creating a new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Culture Council that will advise and assist our colleges, system office and Shared Services Center in creating and ensuring welcoming environments for students and employees. The DEIC will meet at least three times per year, and if you’re interested in serving, contact your college president or chief executive to see where the nomination process is.
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Groups representing Virginia’s diverse racial and ethnic populations have been invited to participate in a webinar this week that spotlights how our colleges help prepare students for a successful future. Forty-four percent of students at our colleges statewide identify as a minority, and the diversity outreach is designed to speak to organizations that champion the interests of Black, Hispanic/Latino, Muslim, Native American and Asian Americans in Virginia. The webinar begins at 9:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, August 24. A recorded version will be made available for viewing at a later date.
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“I’m just so thankful and so grateful to everybody who put the effort into making sure we succeed. We need somebody to motivate us. We don’t have that at home.” Germanna Community College graduate Jennifer Brobbey credits the Great Expectations program with helping her get her life on track after a rough experience with foster care. Brobbey shared her story with the Fredericksburg Freelance-Star, which spotlighted Great Expectations earlier this month.
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Twenty Virginia Community College students (including Alexander Sellers, just graduated from Brightpoint, seen above on the right) got a chance August 12 to show off the work they did this summer at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. The students participated in Stem Takes Flight, which assigns selected community college students to real-world research projects alongside NASA engineers. The program just wrapped up its eighth session, meaning a total of 176 of our students have experienced potentially life-changing learning and networking opportunities. You can see more photos and view a video of highlights from this year’s program at the link below.
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Reminder: the Virginia Community Colleges Association is holding its annual conference October 5-7 at the Delta Hotels Virginia Beach Bayfront. If you’d like to present at a conference break-out session, you have through this Friday, August 26, to submit your proposal. To book rooms at the state rate, register before COB September 11. VCCA is open to faculty, staff and administrators from Virginia’s Community Colleges, and in addition to supporting our mission and programs, the organization promotes professional development.
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We have a correction: In our July 26 edition, we noted that Northern Neck Electric Cooperative had set up a scholarship to train power line workers at Southside Virginia Community College. The scholarship honors longtime NNEC employee Randall Thompson. We got his name wrong last month and we apologize for our mistake.
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Other Higher Ed News of Note:
• Posing as local contractors, email scammers bilked VCU out of nearly $470,000. -Washington Post
• Need another reason to pay close attention to cyber security? Read about the troubles that hackers inflicted on Whitworth University, a small private university near Spokane, WA. -Inside Higher Education (free sign-up required)
• Growing numbers of employers are looking for skills and competencies, rather than reflexively relying on degrees. -The Hill
• Infographic offers ideas to help college faculty help first-generation students more effectively. -Inside Higher Education (free sign-up required)
• Colleges and universities increasingly focus on recruiting former students who left before earning a credential, a vast pool of 39 million people, one in five adults in the U.S. -Chronicle of Higher Education (free sign-up required)
• After 20 years at the helm, the president of Mary Baldwin University is retiring. -Virginia Business Magazine
• Robert Lambeth, who has been the chief advocate for Virginia’s private colleges and universities for the past four decades, announces his retirement, trading lobbying for llamas. -Cardinal News Service
• VSU and NSU are talking with economic development officials on a plan to establish an HBCU campus in Northern Virginia. -Virginia Business Magazine
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Have an idea for a story, or an item for the VCCS Events Calendar? Please send to: vccsnewsletter@vccs.edu. Thanks!
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