VVC Student Services 2016 newsletter

Spring 2016

June 20, 2016

NEWSLETTER Student Services | End of Spring 2016 | Dean Art Lopez

Athletics

A Message From the Dean…

Athletics is happy to have Kelley Beach (VVC Counselor), in her new office located in the gymnasium. It has been a smooth transition and the student-athletes love it.

Dear Rams:

The spring semester has come and gone. It is my pleasure to share all of the great accomplishments and events we had in Athletics and in Student Services. For the second year in a row, Coach Hoover and our football team has another amazing football season. Once again, we had several athletes who received full-ride scholarships to universities both in-state and out of state. I want to thank Jaye Tashima, Director of Athletics, coaches, and staff for all of their hard work and dedication working with all of the team sports.

We are in the process of hiring 2 new head coaches: (1) one to replace our co-ed cross country coach, and (2) our new beach volleyball coach.

All coaches are currently active in recruiting studentathletes for next year’s teams.

We will now be in a new athletic conference since the Foothill Conference dissolved, we will now be in the Western States Athletic Conference. There are many more colleges to play against and travel to.

Student Services had another outstanding year with many great events and activities highlighted in this newsletter. I would like to express my gratitude and sincere “Thank You”, to everyone in Student Services for working so hard and their commitment to better serve all of our VVC students. Please enjoy the summer and I look forward to seeing everyone in the fall.

Sincerely, Art Lopez

Jaye Tashima Director of Athletics

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Spring 2016

June 20, 2016

Admissions & Records As the Spring semester ends, we have been busy verifying that students who have applied for graduation are on track to graduate. We celebrated Commencement with our students on Friday, June 10th. August and December 2015 graduates and candidates for graduation for June 2016 were welcome to participate in the Ceremony.

CalWORKs CalWORKs had their Year End Celebration on May 25, 2016.

Students enjoyed a wonderful lunch from Panera Bread and fruit from Edible Arrangements. We

have had many students come in to get put on our Awesome Board. Students that made the Dean’s list include: Scott Matthias, Marissa Andrade, Crystal Palmer, Cezena Taylor, and Tiamoa Paige.

Marissa Andrade received a scholarship from VVC’s Foundation.

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Summer and Fall Registration Students are continuing to register for Summer 2016.

Classes for Summer begin Monday, June 20th. Fall registration begins on Monday, July 11th with Fall classes beginning August 29th. Check Web Advisor for your Fall 2016 registration date. We are currently accepting applications for admission for the Summer and Fall 2016 semesters. New and returning students need to apply for admission and follow our Steps to Enrollment found at this link: http://www.vvc.edu/offices/admissions-records/ nstudents.shtml. Students must pay fees within 5 business days of registration to avoid being dropped from their classes.

Faculty reminder Please keep in mind the deadline to submit grades for the Spring semester is Thursday, June 23rd. You will be receiving an email from Lisa Cripps regarding this information. Feel free to contact her at lisa.cripps@vvc.edu, ext. 2579, with any questions you may have. Thank you for your timely submission of grades which allows our students to transfer to their College or University, secure employment in their fields of study, verify that prerequisites are met for a higher level course needed, and many other reasons. We hope you have an enjoyable Summer!

Office Hours Summer 2016 June 13th – August 12th Monday – Thursday 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Friday - Closed Beginning August 15th Monday – Thursday – 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Friday – 8:30 am – 12:00 pm Contact Info 2

Spring 2016

CalWORKs continued…

Leslie Leach was accepted to Cal Poly. Kayla Sawyer and Nicole Crabbe graduated the Nursing Program. Monica Thomas got into the Respiratory Therapy Program.

These are just a few of our AWESOME students. As for our graduating students, we will miss them but wish all our students the best on their new endeavors. We want to thank them all for giving us, the CW Staff, the opportunity to be a part of their journey. May everyone stay safe and have a wonderful summer.

June 20, 2016

Feel free to contact us at: Email: admissions@vvc.edu Phone: (760) 245-4271 ext. 2537

Financial Aid Greetings from the Financial Aid Department! We are very excited to start the new financial aid year.

We are now accepting documentation for 2016-2017 and currently processing for 2015-2016. Currently, students can apply for FAFSA for both years, but only until June 30th for 2015-2016.

The deadline for 2015-2016 is set for July 7th. All financial aid documents need to be submitted by then or we will not be able to process the application.

We recently had our 2016 annual Job Fair. It was a very successful event in which we had over 50 employers participate and the number of potential job applicants was estimated to be over a thousand. This event has been growing every year and it’s a chance for our students and community to hopefully land that perfect job. The Job Fair was held in the gymnasium which worked out very well for our employers and job seekers. We want to acknowledge the Athletic department in the use of the gymnasium.

The new Board of Governors Fee Waiver regulations have been on our radar for a while. Student Services has been meeting to go over those regulations on a weekly basis.

We’ve notified students several times but, we still want to get the word out. Students who have two cumulative and consecutive semesters of not meeting academic and progress standards will no longer be eligible for the Bog Fee Waiver.

This means students will need to pay for their enrollment fees in order to attend. The two ways to get their fee waiver back is to either appeal, sit out two primary terms, or raise their academic and progress standards. This is a big change from the old rules which allowed a student to continue to

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Spring 2016

Counseling -Our field trip to the local EDD Office was informative and insightful. What a great resource for anyone looking for employment not just for those receiving unemployment benefits.

-The training on May 25th provided by Phillip Van Saun on Best Practices for Behavior of Concern and Violence Threat Assessment and Management was excellent. The next step is to get the VVC Behavior Intervention Team reinstated and trained.

-Comparing our numbers from May 2015 to May 2016: Appointments and Drop-ins in May 2015 = 2,548 Appointments and Drop-ins in May 2016 = 3,284 -Also in May 2016, 1,852 students were served via visits to Basic Skills, English 6 and 50, Math 10, 12 and 42 classes.

(There were three visits per section, 80 sections total). This was the undertaking of Carey Alstadt, SSSP Counselor who was assisted by Lilia Franco, Richard Alvarez and Lyman Insley. Way to go!

-Our three interns, Valerie, Nila and April are completing their spring hours with us.

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June 20, 2016

receive the fee waiver even though they were not meeting their academic or progress standards. These rules are part of the Student Success and Support Program that was approved back in 2012. Even though this change does not begin until the Fall 2016 semester, we’ve been notifying students since last year.

Veterans Services have been busy processing veterans educational benefits and we’re excited to announce the addition of another veterans student counselor to the Veterans Resource Center. In addition to having Fernando Contreras, we are happy to add Juanita Chou as an additional counselor. Juanita has years of experience in counseling and working with our veteran students. Welcome and thank you Juanita.

We hope to have a very successful year for 2016-2017, and look forward to serving our students.

Sincerely, Jason Judkins Director of Financial Aid

K-Bridge Kinder March: On June 1st Dr. Wagner, John Pinkerton, and County Superintendent Ted Alejandre joined over 1,000 parents and grandparents watch 502 kindergartners from the Snowline Joint Unified School District march in with graduating seniors at Serrano’s grad practice. VVC Child Development Program provided a number of students who helped organize and run the event. The purpose of the event was to get our younger families to start thinking

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Spring 2016

Counseling continued…

-Our athletic counselor, Kelley Beach, has adjusted well to her relocation to the gym where she is more accessible to athletes and more able to connect with coaches on a regular basis. She also visited the Regional Public Safety Training Center on most Thursdays this semester which has been a big benefit to the students there.

-Melanie Dube-Price and Lyman Insley offered new workshops this semester primarily focusing on assisting students with WebAdvisor and more.

-We are gearing up for a busy summer. Remember that dropin appointments will be given out starting at noon, for that same afternoon and for the following morning. Summer appointments are for new and returning students and for Veterans. Student Success Workshops will be offered for continuing students on hold.

EOPS EOPS held an Honors Ceremony for students who achieved a 3.5 GPA in Spring 2016 and/or Fall 2015. The ceremony was held in the Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, May 11, 2016.

Students received a certificate of achievement for their hard work.

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June 20, 2016

about the importance of early education on later success. The theme of the speakers was that the journey from kinder to seniors would go by quickly.

We had a number of other VVC/Bridge feeder schools in the Valley. CSUSB also attended and had a booth along with Adult Education. We are hoping next year to repeat this at a number of other high schools in the High Desert.

Class of 2016: We currently have 2,902 seniors in our pool of potential VVC enrollees.

These are the students who out of the approximately 4,800 seniors at one of our 26 Bridge high schools are in the matriculation process. The seniors in this pool have different levels of completion ranging from application only to having completed the process. In order to help students complete the process Kevin Barda, Katie Piercy (Career Specialist at AAE and Lead Bridge Trainer), Michele Herald (Lead Bridge Counselor and VVC Adjunct) and myself will be holding make-up days starting June 10th in the ATC. Kevin Barda will be doing education plans Monday-Thursday through July. Last year Kevin did hundreds of education plans leading all the way up to the start of fall classes.

Robert Sewell sent out the first email to the 2,900 letting them know the dates and location.

Starting on Monday June 13th potential VVC Bridge students will be separated into groups based on the number of items remaining for them to complete.

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Spring 2016

Transfer Center This semester was very eventful for the Transfer/Career Center. We had a successful semester in the variety of activities and events we provided to our students. Our 7th Annual Transfer Celebration was a success.

June 20, 2016

Our goal is to have over 1,900 full matriculated by July 18th (block 2B priority registration).

Tip of the hat Great job by the Bridge Counselors. Our 21 Bridge Counselors worked incredibly hard getting as many seniors as possible fully matriculated. We even had counselors at one site doing educational plans on their graduation day. These counselors do a great job for all of us.

Puente Denim Day 2016

We had approximately 60 Fall 2016 transfer-bound students participate. Many brought along their families and friends to recognize their accomplishment! In addition, our Transfer Decision Mixer was a hit! Students stopped by the Transfer/Career Center to mingle and share with us which universities they are transferring to. Our first High Desert University Fair showcasing the universities located in the High Desert informed our students of possible university options close to home.

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Spring 2016

June 20, 2016

Transfer Center cont…

Students stopped by the Transfer/Career Center to mingle and share with us which universities they are transferring to. Our first High Desert University Fair showcasing the universities located in the High Desert and informed our students of possible university options close to home.

We had 93 students attend our ever so popular campus tours, which included: CSU Fullerton, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Northridge, University of San Diego and UC San Diego, and UC Riverside and CSU San Bernardino. Transfer presentations were conducted

by Grand Canyon University, CSU San Bernardino, and Cal Poly Pomona. In addition, we provided a variety of transferrelated and career workshops to help better prepare our students for transfer and the world of work. The High Desert Employment Resource Center was instrumental in leading some of these career workshops and providing their knowledge to our students.

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Upward Bound Another successful academic year at our target high schools has come to an end. Our 2015-2016 weekly tutoring sessions were well attended by program participants and our Victor Valley College Tutors were excellent in providing subject assistance at each site. Our tutoring services will resume in September when our target high schools are back in session.

This year our Seniors were able to attend the 2016 Student Leadership Conference, “Lift While You Climb!” at CSUSB on April 30, 2016. They were able to gain rich information on how to empower themselves through active leadership, to provide motivation by embracing their accomplishments including their peers and to build on each other’s success.

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Spring 2016

June 20, 2016

Transfer Center cont…

And finally, we took a group of students to UCLA’s Immigrant Youth Empowerment Conference to learn more about resources, financial aid, etc. for immigrant college students.

Overall, spring 2016 was very successful for the Transfer/Career Center and we hope to continue to provide these great services to our students throughout the years.

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Upward Bound continued…

To acknowledge our “Class of 2016” and their accomplishments, we hosted a Senior Celebration in company of their families at VVC on May 14, 2016. Many of our program participants enter Upward Bound the beginning of their high school journey, as a Freshman and it is always rewarding to see each student move up another grade each year and ultimately reach graduation. Although it is sad for graduates to leave our program, it is such an exciting moment to know that they will be pursuing their personal and professional dreams after high school.

Elizabeth Duarte Upward Bound Program

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