Transfer Prep Grant Newsletter
Title V/HSI
Volume 2, Issue 4
CHC Integrated Planning Lauded
In April, the Research &
Planning Group (RP Group)
for California Community
Colleges recognized Crafton
Hills College for the development of a collaborative, meaningful, inclusive, and transparent integrated planning and
program review process.
The RP Group Excellence
in Planning Award recognizes
achievements in the development of planning to improve
the quality and effectiveness
of the California Community
Colleges. Winning projects are
posted on the RP Group website and recognized at the RP
Conference.
The RP Group is a professional association for researchers and planners focused on
strengthening the abilities of
the California Community
Colleges to gather, analyze,
and act on information in order
to strengthen student success.
The RP Group actively facili-
tates efforts that allow practitioners to engage research findings, build skills, and share
information about innovation at
work within the California
Community College system.
The RP Group has led dozens
of system- and college-level
research and evaluation projects
that have resulted in significant
changes to the California Community College system, including the publication, Basic Skills
as the Foundation for Success
in the California Community
Colleges.
These opportunities included the 2012 RP Group conference, which focused on sharing portable resources and tools
in research and planning with
other CC professionals. The
Crafton Hills College Planning
and Program Review (PPR)
Committee hosted a conference
session highlighting how our
processes were collaboratively
developed, implemented, and
sustained.
Specifically, the presentation—which is now available
on the CHC PPR website—
demonstrated
how Crafton
Hills College:
• Continually improves the
quality of the program review
process and includes all campus constituents;
• Collects and uses feedback
from planning participants to
inform the program review
process;
• Provides ongoing training
for writing goals and objectives and interpreting data to
inform decision making;
• Uses the PP Web Tool and
prioritizes objectives;
• Provides feedback from the
committee to planning participants on the document
quality and uses a rubric to
evaluate the program;
• Links program review with
resource allocation.
A Woman of Many Talents
No, it’s not an illusion. No, you’re not
imagining things. No,
there are not three Ruby
Zunigas. It just seems
like there are because
not only is Ruby serving
two days a week as
Administrative Secretary
for the Title V/HSI Transfer
Prep Grant, but also two days a
week for the Transfer Center and
one day a week
for the Office
of Grant Management.
A master of
organization,
Ruby is very
well-suited for
the multifarious demands of
this multifaceted job, which
requires tremendous flexibil-
ity, including the ability to get
along with all sorts of people.
In fact, she says the people are
what she likes best about her
job. “I just love helping people,” she explains, something
she does very well, as all of us
who have the pleasure of
working with—and being
helped by—her can attest.
May 2012
At Crafton Hills College,
Planning and Program Review
has become a cyclical and sustainable process central to integrated planning, evaluation,
and resource allocation. Many
thanks to accreditation consultant, Dr. Matthew Lee, for his
guidance, facilitation of the
process, vision for the web
tool, and integral role in the
development of the rubrics and
handbook.
More information about
the PPR process at Crafton is
available in the Crafton Hills
College Integrated Planning &
Program Review Handbook,
available on the CHC website
at www.craftonhills.edu/PPR.
The vision of Crafton
Hills College is to be
the premier community college for public
safety and health services careers and
transfer preparation.
Vivacious, goodhumored, and remarkably
competent and resourceful,
Ruby is a delight to be around.
Her laugh, which can be now
heard all over campus—from
the LRC to the Transfer Center to the LADM building—
makes CHC a much happier
place to work.
Page 2
Transfer Prep Grant Newsletter
First Two College Honors Institute Graduates
Last December,
Marcus Dashoff became
the first student to satisfy
the completion requirements for the CHC’s
College Honors Institute
(CHI). This means that Marcus completed
15 units of Honors courses; maintained
above a 3.25 grade point average; and
completed over 15 hours of community
service. As with most of his endeavors,
Marcus far exceeded the minimum requirements. He completed his Associate
of Arts degree in Social Science last fall
with a 3.6 GPA, and, as the 2011-2012
President of the CHC’s chapter of Alpha
Gamma Sigma (AGS), the California
Community College Honor
Society, he has completed
scores of hours of service
both on campus and in the
community. Marcus will be
transferring this fall either
to UC Santa Cruz or CSU San Bernardino
to study computer systems.
This spring, Allison Feist will join
Marcus as she becomes CHI’s second
graduate. Allison will be graduating this
semester with a 3.7 GPA, and will be
transferring to UC Irvine in the fall to
pursue her passion for Theatre Arts. It has
required great dedication for Allison to
complete her studies, partly at College of
the Desert near her current home in Palm
Springs, and partly at Crafton Hills,
where she started her collegiate career.
Also a member of AGS, Allison serves
many volunteer hours in the community
near her home.
“I am very proud of Marcus Dashoff
and Allison Feist for being the first CHI
students to complete the honors program,” said CHI Coordinator, Jennifer
Floerke. “Both students have provided an
excellent example of what it means to be
an honors student through their dedication
to academic success and service to the
college. I am excited to see them move
forward in their educational goals at fouryear universities, but they will truly be
missed.”
Honors Students Present at Conferences
On Saturday, March 31, 2012, history
was made at Crafton Hills College when
for the first time two College Honors Institute (CHI) students presented their research at the 12th Annual Honors Transfer Council of California (HTCC) Student
Research Conference for California Community Colleges, hosted by the UC Irvine.
Both Marcus Dashoff and Harrison Hadsock joined over 400 students from 30
California Community Colleges to present their research. Marcus presented his
research titled, “What are Stereotypes
about Military Officers?” and Harrison
presented his “Applied Geology: Using
What You Learn Indoors to Study the
Outdoors.”
Both students also submitted their
research abstracts to be published in the
HTCC journal, Building Bridges. Along
with the presenters, several CHC students
attended the conference as volunteers,
including Ty Hopp, Brian Campbell, and
Amanda Tennant.
The momentum continued when CHI
student, Paul Shibley, presented his research paper, “The House of Representatives: Problems of Non-proportional Representation” at the 5th Annual Community College Honors Research Symposium at UC Berkeley on April 28, 2012.
We are very excited that so many
honors students are taking advantage of
these conference opportunities and look
forward to even more participation in the
upcoming years.
CHC Learning Community Retreat
On May 3-4, the CHC Learning
Communities Steering Committee was
pleased to welcome Ana Torres-Bower
from Cerritos College, who came to CHC
per the recommendations of the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of
Undergraduate Education. In June 2009,
seven CHC learning community enthusiasts, including the Vice President of Instruction, attended the National Summer
Learning Communities Institute hosted by
the Washington Center, where they developed the Crafton Hills College Learning
Communities Action Plan. The plan called
for the creation of a LC steering commit-
tee, which was reconstituted
this semester, as well as a
Learning Communities Handbook, which the committee has
drafted and is now editing before publishing to the CHC
community at large.
On May 3, Ms. TorresBower met with the LC Steering Committee to discuss the handbook and other
global concerns of the CHC Learning
Communities program. On May 4, she
served as the chief facilitator of a Learning
Communities Retreat, leading 26 CHC
faculty and managers through processes
designed to address initiatives
specifically identified in the
Action Plan: Developing Integrative Assignments and Assessing Integrative Assignments.
Participants expressed appreciation for the protocols that Ms.
Torres-Bower distributed, the focus on a
single integrative assignment, and the
opportunity to work with their partnering
faculty on community assignments.
More information on the CHC Learning Communities program is available on
the Crafton Hills College website.