Spring 2016 student services newsletter

Spring 2016

April 8, 2016

NEWSLETTER Student Services | Spring 2016 | Dean Art Lopez

Athletics

A Message From the Dean…

James Squire Victor Valley

Dear Rams:

Greetings! The spring semester is in full stride and we are happy to see our students and faculty back on campus.

As you read through our Student Services Newsletter, you will find all of the wonderful activities and events we have held on and off campus. I would like to welcome all of our newly hired faculty and staff in Student Services. Each of them will be featured by their individual departments. I will begin by introducing my Administrative Secretary II, Jayleen Tofi who came to us from Barstow Community College.

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a happy Spring break.

Sincerely, Art Lopez

The CCCBCA is proud to announce James Squire from Victor Valley, as the Southern California Pitcher of the week.

Squire threw 8 innings, allowing 4 hits and two walks while setting a VVC high 12 strikeouts against Cerro Coso College. In his last start of the season, Squire earned his 3rd win, and lowered his ERA to 2.72.

Basketball is finished – Men tied for 3rd place

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Spring 2016

April 8, 2016

Admissions & Records

CalWORKs CalWORKs would like to thank Melanie Dube-Price for her 9 years serving the CalWORKs students. We wish her the best in her new position in General Counseling. CalWORKs would also like to welcome all our new staff including: Manika Record, CalWORKs counselor, Jason Kennedy, CalWORKs Job Placement, and Laura Nankervis, CalWORKs Part-time counselor.

We are currently hiring a new Secretary for our office and would like to thank Tracy Downing for all her hard work and dedication subbing in that position.

Counseling The new timeline for giving out appointments starting at noon worked well during the winter session. Due to the hectic nature of the first two weeks of the semester, we have modified somewhat and have been offering drop-ins in the mornings as well as in the afternoons.

We also welcome two new parttime generalist counselors, Manika Record and Dr. Corey Timberlake.

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We are happy to welcome Norma Riley, Admissions and Records Technician to the A/R office. Norma has been working as a substitute in our Admissions and Records office at VVC since January 2014. She has been and will continue to be an excellent asset to the Admissions and Records office, the students, faculty and staff at VVC. We are pleased to have her as a part of our team.

You can reach her at ext. 2537 or at norma.riley@vvc.edu.

Please join me in welcoming Heather Cortez to VVC and the Admissions and Records Office. Heather will be working as an Admissions and Records Technician. She came to VVC from UC Santa Cruz, where she was employed in the Student Services area and the Education Department, working within the Undergraduate program and Master’s Credentialing Program. We are pleased to have Heather as part of our team. She can be reached at heather.cortez@vvc.edu, ext. 2575.

Spring 2016 – Semester begins We extended our hours during the first two weeks of the semester and have been busy helping students get registered for classes and assisting them with a variety of registration, transcript, enrollment verification and other student service related matters. We will continue to accept admission applications for late start classes for Spring 2016.

Check WebAdvisor for the availability of late starting classes.

Admission applications are being accepted for Summer and Fall 2016. We encourage new, returning and transfer 2

Spring 2016

Counseling continued…

We welcome our new full-time generalist counselors, Lyman Insley and Melanie Dube Price.

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students to plan ahead and apply early. Follow this link to apply for admission: http://www.vvc.edu/offices/admissionsrecords/apply-for-admission-online.shtml. For Steps to Enrollment information, follow this link: http://www.vvc.edu/ offices/admissions-records/nstudents.shtml. Visit our Web site at http://www.vvc.edu/offices/admissions-records/ for the most up to date information.

Graduation evaluations are being completed and notices are being sent to June 2016 candidates. August and December 2015 graduates and June 2016 candidates for graduation should watch for Commencement information to be sent via email during the month of April.

Financial Aid

Melanie relocated from our CalWORKS Department.

Athletics Counselor, Kelley Beach has relocated her office to the gym on lower campus. She has also been serving students at the Regional Public Safety Center.

Carey Alstadt, SSSP Counselor along with Lyman Insley and parttime generalists, Lilia Franco and Richard Alvarez are working with Pat Wagner this semester to serve students in Basic Skills, Math 10 and English 6. They will be visiting 80 sections several times this semester focusing on tips for success and the completion of education plans.

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Greetings from the world of Financial Aid. We are excited about the new semester and are ready for the new financial aid year.

This year the Free Application for Federal Student Aid came available on January 1st for students to start applying for the 2016-2017 aid year. We have been encouraging students to apply as soon as possible, but no later than March 2nd. That March 2nd deadline is tied to some of our state grants and we want our students to take advantage of as much aid as possible.

The Foundation Office is doing their Scholarship Drive which began January 19th and will run through March 31st. We have a link on our website and other free scholarship searches. Sometimes students think that they would not qualify, and that is simply not the case. A portion of

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Spring 2016

DSPS DSPS is meeting with the special education units at each of the area high schools to enhance post-secondary pathways for students with disabilities.

We have started the next series of Development Studies courses with two full sections of DVST 2.

We had over 400 of the 849 students come into the office during the first week of the term for various program services, counseling visits, questions and answers, and Academic adjustments.

Pictures from FA Awareness Day that took place March 16th, 2016.

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scholarships are not awarded so we want to get the word out.

On March 16th we had our annual Financial Aid Awareness and Student Services day at Victor Valley College. We had food, music, and prizes; it was a chance to remind students that Financial Aid is still available. Along with financial aid, we also invited student services to attend and show which services are available to our students.

On May 12th, we are having our annual Job Fair located inside the gymnasium on the lower campus. This is a great event that keeps growing. We have employers from all over the high desert and down the hill that will have a booth available. We also will have local and state agencies that will be showing available positions. Employers will be taking resumes and some even do interviews that day. Last year we had around 40 different employers and this year we’re hoping for more.

On a final note, the Financial Aid department has been working with Student Services to inform students about the new Board of Governors Fee Waiver regulations. These regulations take effect in Fall 2016. Students who have a fee waiver have to maintain academic progress for two primary terms or risk losing the BOG fee waiver. Students will have a chance to appeal if they have extenuating circumstances.

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Transfer Center The Transfer/Career Center will be putting on a variety activities/ events in the spring 2016. They will include transfer and career related workshops, campus tours to campuses such as CSU Northridge, Fullerton, San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona and University of San Diego UC San Diego. We will also be providing Transfer Drop-In Counseling every other Wednesday to answer students pressing transfer questions. In addition, we will be providing Resume Review/ Critique Sessions for our students.

University reps will continue to visit the center to meet with students. We will also have the CSUSB Social Work Info Session and CSULB – Antelope Valley Engineering Info Session as well.

And, last but not least, we will be providing Transfer-Bound Academic Incentive Book Voucher Scholarships for students considering transferring in the fall 2017! We are excited for the new year!!

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We have been sending emails and working on a marketing campaign to get the word out and will continue to do so in the future. This is to get students to understand these new regulations and get their academic and progress standards up during the Spring.

That’s about it in Financial Aid and we hope everyone has a great semester.

Sincerely, The Financial Aid Department

Puente

The Puente program had a recent trip to Explore SDSU & Cal State Long Beach.

K-Bridge Class of 2016 Drive: March 1st will begin our annual VVC’s K16 Bridge Seniors-to-College drive. Last year we had over three thousand seniors participate in the program with eighteen hundred enrolling at Victor Valley College. This year we have set our sites on enrolling SS Newsletter

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Spring 2016

Upward Bound

“Upward Bound continues to provide services that promote academic success and college preparation to program participants during the Academic Year.” Program Activities and Events Highlights are:

Weekly Tutoring Sessions Victor Valley High School 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Career Center Hesperia High School - 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Library Silverado High School - 2:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. in Room 5204

Meet Our Victor Valley College Tutors Beatrice Lee – Major: Engineering Fall 2016 Transfer Aaron Windsor – Major: Math – Fall 2016 Transfer Cerjio Valadez – Major: Engineering - Continuing At VVC

Monthly Saturday Academies January 23: Financial Aid and Scholarships at VVC February 27: Career Exploration at VVC March 19: San Diego State University Open House April 23: Graduate Celebration at VVC April 30: Student Leadership Conference at CSUSB

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nineteen hundred. Twenty-five High Desert high schools are now participating in the program with multiple middle and elementary schools coming on next year to help us start the drive to a postsecondary education earlier.

VVC’s K16 Bridge joins with the United Way The K16 Bridge Program, United Way and financial aid will be meeting to develop a strategy for getting more of our Spanish speaking families and Dream Act students informed on the financial aid that is available to them.

Early Enrollment into CTE programs: A number of local Bridge High Schools have been working with VVC’s CTE department to get an early jump on their new career pathways. Tony Bonato, Chris Oshita, Neville Slade and others have been working with Bridge Counselors, CTE/ROP Directors, Principals and Superintendents to get students into spring and summer courses to make the transition to VVC even smoother. For example, this spring a number of seniors are enrolled in CT-144. This Solar Technician course will have these students ready to enter the job market in June.

Aviation will also be offering an early transitional course this summer for students wanting to take advantage of the program offered by VVC out at the airport. The interest in aviation mechanics is so great that the Bridge Program will be working with high schools to organize the field trips now being planned to the airport. Serrano alone has over forty seniors visiting the aviation mechanics program this April. If you would like to discuss how to get your program out to the high schools connect with Chris Piercy (chris.piercy@vvc.edu).

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Special Thanks‌

Student Equity Our students greatly appreciate the opportunities granted by our Student Services Departments.

From the continuous support of our staff, we not only provide an academic environment suitable to the young mind, but also various opportunities to get the student engaged. Our purpose is our students. Once we impact their lives, we in turn will impact the future of not only our communities, but the world.

We would like to take time to thank the following programs that continue to help sponsor our VVC students: Puente, SSSP, Student Equity, and to all the student services departments for their dedication and hard work. Thank you!!

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Student Equity is off to a great start. During the past Fall 2015 semester, Equity funds were used to purchase computers for the EOPS department, software to help the DSPS students, and also funded field trips. During the current Spring semester, Equity funding has paid for the Puente program field trips, the ROOTED Scholars field trip to the Museum of Tolerance & UCLA, and also gave the Black Student Union students the chance to attend the UMOJA Community Symposium that occurred on March 24, 2016 at the University of California Riverside. The following pictures are of VVC students who attended the UMOJA Symposium on Thursday, March 24th.

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