GREAT BASIN COLLEGE
PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL
October 8, 2013
1:30 p.m.
PRESENT:
ABSENT:
Mark Curtis, Mike McFarlane, Sonja Sibert, John Rice, Thomas Reagan, Kris
Miller, Alex Porter, Dori Andrepont
Lynn Mahlberg, Bret Murphy, Melinda Dailey
1.
Approval of Minutes
2.
SGA Update – Alex Porter reported the executive board met with John Albrecht last week
on open meeting law. The meeting was recorded and shown at the SGA retreat on
Saturday. October 21-24 is unity week. SGA is focusing on the different communities of
GBC being united. Events being planned are IAV bingo on Monday, club and info fair on
Tuesday, movie night on Wednesday and the Halloween costume dance on Thursday
evening. Friday is Nevada Day.
3.
Faculty Senate Update – Tom Reagan had no report.
4.
Classified Council Update – Dori Andrepont reported the Classified Council pumpkin
carving contest is scheduled for October 28th and the silent auction is on October 29th. The
fall food drive will be coordinated with SGA.
5.
President’s Report – Mark Curtis reported that Nevada’s 150th anniversary celebrations
start this Nevada Day and goes through Nevada Day 2014. President Curtis has been
thinking of things we can do as a college to commemorate Nevada’s birthday. President
Curtis will make a stained glass piece that somehow is indicative of the anniversary and
then have the GBC Foundation include it in the annual dinner dance auction. GBC is such
an important part of the community and the State that we need to do something. Please be
thinking of two or three other things that we can do for this sesquicentennial.
President Curtis has been invited to be a guest on the Nevada’s Newsmakers show with
Sam Shad on Thursday. He will then be attending the Nevada Northern Diversity Summit
on Friday in Reno. The GBC budget taskforce reconvenes this week with an organizational
meeting. The taskforce will be meeting the first four Fridays in November. The strategic
planning and accreditation groups have met and are off to a good start. By the end of the
year we will have things pretty well at hand in those two areas.
Next week President Curtis will attend the Tuition and Fees committee meeting via IAV
from Ely because he will be on his way to Las Vegas for the Special Board of Regents’
meeting. President Curtis has developed a vision statement that he is shopping around. He
has met with all of the district superintendents in the state on the GBC growth plan and
they are all mostly in support of it, particularly Lincoln and Pershing counties. Clark
County was supportive, too. GBC is fortunate that we have the support of the
superintendents.
Sonja Sibert, Lynn Mahlberg and President Curtis participated in a conference call with a
group that builds student housing units and gives them back to institution on a lease/buy
option. Our Griswold Hall has some issues and won’t last forever. We have to look to the
future and President Curtis would like to see another housing unit built on campus that has
modern standards. NSC and UNR have entered into deals that are similar to this. We may
be able to pitch it to the Board of Regents sometime this academic year.
6.
Miscellaneous
Sonja Sibert last Thursday we hosted shared instance meeting for MYGBC. We are looking at a
mobile application for MYGBC. NSC and CSN are almost done with implementation of their
mobile applications. We are waiting to see how it works. We have seen some demonstrations
and they look pretty good. It will cost us about $20,000 with year costs of $7,500. The company
would provide technical support. It’s something that we need to do as this generation does
everything on IPADS, tablets and cell phones. A lot of people don’t have desktops at home
anymore. This is the technology that they want.
Mike McFarlane reported the mentoring policy is being worked on. He also reported that he met
with two people from TMCC this morning to try again to put together a shared online schedule.
Classes have to be in both colleges’ catalogs and be classes that don’t usually enroll to capacity.
Mike McFarlane reported there are ongoing meetings for the NEH grant and people are very
enthusiastic. There have been meetings on the TAACCCT grant, too. John Rice said the
Foundation’s development meeting is Thursday to talk about the match for the NEH grant and
the case for support and table of investments. It is very exciting. With the TAACCCT grant we
have actually met our target range of 12 to 15 million dollars for the 2020 campaign. GBC is an
institution worth investing in.
Recently, Health Sciences had an accreditation visit on the human services degree. We should
hear the outcome of that visit in the near future.