Gwendolyn Zepeda in San Antonio

Gendolyn Zepeda, author of the recently released book, “Houston, We Have a Problema,” will be the featured speaker at the monthly meeting of the Society of Latino and Hispanic Writers of San Antonio, Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be at the Barnes and Noble (San Pedro Crossing) located at 321 NW Loop 410. Free and open to the public.

Faculty Compensation Presentation

Did you miss the Faculty Compensation Presentation yesterday (Thursday, Jan. 29)?

Dr. Guzmán would like to extend to you an invitation to attend a second presentation of the Faculty Compensation Update by the Alamo Community Colleges Compensation Manager on Tuesday, February 3 in the Student Center Annex at 2 p.m.

The presentation is approximately 45 minutes long, followed by questions and answers.

PAC Degree Audits

--Learn how to run and read your Degree Audit

--Understand the Graduation Process

--Submit your Graduation Application

Graduation Advisors will be available in the Center for Academic Transitions to help you complete a degree audit and apply for graduation if you have 55 hours of college credit or more. Come by (with a copy of your degree plan) on the following dates and times:

Mark UR Calendars!

Monday, February 2 9 – 12
Tuesday, February 3 9 – 12
Wednesday, February 11 1 – 3
Thursday, February 12 1 – 3
Monday, February 16 9 – 12
Tuesday, February 17 9 – 12
Wednesday, February 25 1 – 3
Thursday, February 26 1 – 3

Transfer Advisors will also be available in the Center for Academic Transitions to help you identify the best transfer plan for your needs and to help you complete a joint admissions agreement.

For more information contact the Welcome Enrollment Center at 486-3100.

On Campus

The Palo Alto College "On Campus" Newsletter is back!

Please click on link to view: On Campus

PAC Weather Updates

For weather updates, please monitor the ACCD website at www.accd.edu

From the ACCD website:

Weather Update
We are continuously monitoring the weather situation in our area. As of 4:30 p.m. today, January 27th, 2009, all ACC classes will be held as scheduled. Check this website or call our weather line 210-485-0189 for updates

PAC Bereavement Notice

Please join me in sending condolences to the family, friends and instructors of Victor E. Ramirez III, a student at Palo Alto College. Victor lost his life in a traffic accident early Sunday morning.

A viewing is scheduled for Victor at Trevino Funeral Home, 2525 Palo Alto Rd., tomorrow—Wednesday, January 28—from noon to 9 p.m. A rosary for Victor will also be held tomorrow at the Trevino Funeral Home beginning at 7 p.m.

A chapel service for Victor will be held at the funeral home on Thursday, Jan. 29 at 1 p.m.

Injured in the car accident which claimed Victor’s life was Gabriel A. Cepeda, also a student at Palo Alto College. Gabriel is currently hospitalized at Wilford Hall Medical Center.

The PAC Counseling Department will facilitate a bereavement group in the Cyber Café, Friday, January 30, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Everyone is welcomed to attend.

The PAC Counseling Department is also available on a walk-in basis Monday-Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Counseling Center is located in the Applied Technology (AT) Building, room 214. The phone number is (210) 486-3333.

Sandra Cisneros Lecture

News Release from Our Lady of the Lake University:

Author Sandra Cisneros gives free public lecture at OLLU on Jan. 27
Award-winning writer is University’s official writer-in-residence

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 9, 2009) – Award-winning author Sandra Cisneros will give a lecture at Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009 in Thiry Auditorium. Her presentation is titled “Tell Me A Story Even If It’s A Lie.” The event is free and open to the public.

Cisneros has long been a friend to OLLU and has embraced the University even more strongly after a devastating fire last summer destroyed the historic Main Building that stands at the center of campus. As part of her support, Cisneros currently serves as writer-in-residence at the University, which has recently expanded its offerings for aspiring writers. In 2007, OLLU added a concentration in writing to its master’s program in English and last year, the English Department began the visiting writers program, which welcomes author Carmen Tafolla this semester.

Cisneros has collaborated with OLLU throughout the years, including her participation as keynote speaker at OLLU’s annual Literary Festival and hosting her Macondo Writing Workshop for outstanding writers each summer at OLLU. Cisneros, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (known as the “genius grant”), has written several award-winning books, including the novel, The House on Mango Street, which is required reading in middle schools, high schools and universities across the country. This year, the novel – first published in 1984 – is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its publication in the United States with a national book tour and the release of a special edition of the book.

Current projects in the works for Cisneros include a collection of fiction titled Infinito, as well as a children’s book, Bravo, Bruno, and a book about writing titled Writing in My Pajamas.

PAC Food Bank

Dear PAC Community,

Just a friendly reminder; the counseling center’s food bank is operational. Please encourage any students requiring assistance obtaining food to stop by the counseling center, AT 214. In addition to immediate food access, students will also be directed to local community service agencies to apply for long-term social services as necessary.

Thank you.

Dr. Yolanda Reyna & Larry Rodriguez
Counseling Department

Gemini Ink: Black History Month Event

Gemini Ink kicks-off San Antonio’s Black History Month with Black and Blue: 400 Years of Struggle and Transcendence

WHAT: Gemini Ink’s Dramatic Readers Theater will present Sterling Houston’s Black and Blue: 400 Years of Struggle and Transcendence, a popular repertory piece pairing traditional jazz and blues with documents from the American slavery era.

WHEN: Monday, February 2, 7 pm

WHO: Born in San Antonio, Sterling Houston (1945 – 2006) was an award-winning African American writer who spent 30 years in theater as an actor, composer, and playwright. He performed and lectured across the country, working with prominent theater practitioners such as Charles Ludlum and Sam Shepard. His work is known for its sharp social commentary and clever theatricality.

Kicking off Black History Month in San Antonio, Black and Blue an hour-long snapshot of the African-American odyssey that includes excerpts from The Ballad of Henry Box Brown, Houston’s play detailing the true story of the man who escaped slavery in the South by shutting himself in a box and arranging to be mailed to freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail;” and songs by Fats Waller and others. Several historical documents are also included, such as a San Antonio ordinance defining punishment for slaves caught out after curfew.

The performance features actors and musicians Bett Butler, SkudR Jones, Danielle King, and Ron Wilkins. It is presented annually in memory of its author, Sterling Houston.


WHERE: McAllister Auditorium in San Antonio College, 1300 San Pedro

INFO: The event is free and open to the public.
Gemini Ink is the only literary arts center in San Antonio and South Texas. We nurture readers and writers through community-based workshops, performances, and other literary events. For more information visit www.geminiink.org or call 210.734.9673.

Faculty Compensataion Meeting

Dear Faculty,

Dr. Guzmán would like to extend to you an invitation to attend a Faculty Compensation Meeting/Presentation by the Alamo Community Colleges Compensation Manager on Thursday, January 29 in the Student Center Annex at 9 a.m.

The presentation is approximately 45 minutes long, followed by questions and answers.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Upcoming Events

Here is information on a couple of events that may be of interest to you:

MLK MARCH

Come and join your fellow Palo Alto College students at the Martin Luther King Jr March and Commemoration event, Monday, January 19.

The PAC group will gather prior to the 10 a.m. start of the march in the 3500 block of Martin Luther King Drive.

Please look for the PAC Banner!

PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION EVENT

Everyone is invited to watch the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony in the PAC Student Center Annex on Tuesday, Jan. 20, beginning at 10 a.m.

Refreshments will be served.

The Inauguration will be shown on the Annex TV screen and on four temporary screens set-up throughout the Annex and cafeteria area.

PAC President to be Honored at Inaugural Gala

Palo Alto College President Dr. Ana M. “Cha” Guzmán will be honored as a “Leader Making a Difference” at the LINK-Live Presidential Inaugural Gala being held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20.

“I am deeply honored and humbled at having been selected for this recognition,” Dr. Guzmán said. “It’s extremely meaningful to me that the award comes from an organization committed to promoting information and communications technologies in the education and workforce communities.”

Dr. Guzmán was selected for this recognition due to her life-long support of technology in education. Other notables being recognized with Dr. Guzmán include Tom Daschle, who has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Also on the Gala’s program is the presentation of the Life, Information, Nature, and Knowledge (LINK) Awards to Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton; Laura Chinchilla, former Vice President of Costa Rica; Dr. Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate physicist; and National Security Adviser nominee James L. Jones.

The LINK-Live Presidential Inaugural Gala is a non-partisan event hosted by the LINK AMERICAS Foundation, a 501(c) 3 organization that seeks to foster global educational, environmental and social development on sustainable resource development, green technologies and Information and Communication Technologies projects.

Graduation Information

Palo Alto College provides five forms of recognition for satisfactory completion of work:
Associate of Arts Degree
Associate of Science Degree
Associate of Arts in Teaching
Associate of Applied Science Degree
Certificate Programs

Application for Graduation
A student must apply for graduation to be awarded a degree or certificate. An application for graduation must be submitted to the Office of Admissions and Records by February 28 for spring candidates.

A student may make application for graduation under provisions of the current catalog or meet graduation requirements of the catalog under which he/she was admitted to Palo Alto College. The catalog selected must not be dated more than five (5) years prior to the expected graduation date. Prior to a graduation review, all applicants must provide transcripts reflecting their complete college record. Candidates need not be enrolled during the semester that application for graduation is made.

All candidates for degrees and certificates are encouraged to be present at the May commencement exercises. No formal commencements are held in December and August. There is no graduation fee. The diploma, cap, and gown are provided by the College.

What are the deadlines for graduation?
An application for graduation must be submitted to the Office of Admissions and Records by February 28 for spring candidates.

How do I apply for graduation?
Click here to access Application for Graduation. Print out and fill in the form completely. Be sure to sign the application. You may either mail it to the PAC Admissions Office, 1400 W. Villaret Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78224, fax it to the Admissions Office, (Fax # 210-486-3445) or drop it off to the Admissions Office located in the AT, Room 204. Applications must be turned in by the semester deadline in which graduation requirements will be met.

Contact Information Update

From the ACCD Planning, Performance and Information Systems:

ACCD is preparing for the implementation of a district-wide emergency communication system. Examples of emergency notification situations would be school closures due to inclement weather, incidents of a fire, chemical spill, or other personal safety type of situations for which you should be notified. An important aspect of this system’s success relies on the accuracy of the contact information we have on file. Please take a moment to review and update your work and personal contact information, including office phone number, home number, cell phone number, and personal email address, etc. The emergency communication system allows messages to be sent out to numerous contact points, thus the solicitation for various ways to contact you. We need 100% employee participation in order to ensure successful delivery of notifications.

Step-by-step instructions to update and validate your contact information have been created and can be found on our IT Help Guides page, or click here to download instructions.
Here are the basic steps:

1) Login to your PALS account
2) Click on Employee Tab
3) Click on “Welcome to PALS Web Services”, Click on EMPLOYEE
4) Click on Personal Info, select “Update Addresses & Mass Notification”
5) Update section “MASS NOTIFICATION TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND EMAIL ADDDRESSES”
6) Scroll to bottom, and click Submit. You should get the following confirmation at the top of the page:

Your information has been successfully updated.

Please take a few minutes to complete your updates today! It should take less than 5 minutes to complete the process.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this request, and will keep you posted as we move forward with this initiative.

Chancellor's Memorandum

M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Alamo Community Colleges Family

FROM: Dr. Bruce Leslie, Chancellor

DATE: January 12, 2009

SUBJECT: Welcome Back

On behalf of the board and administration, welcome back to ACC. We hope that you had a peaceful, restful and joyous holiday with family and friends and are refreshed and ready to address the numerous opportunities before us in 2009.

First and foremost, is the opportunity we have to increase educational services to those being impacted by the economy. Although San Antonio and the greater Bexar County region have not been as impacted as other sectors of the US and Global economies, as the below news release from Comptroller Susan Combs indicates, we are not immune and must address the implications to the Texas economy. As I indicated prior to the Holiday Break, I have established The Chancellor’s Suggestion Box, an on-line opportunity to solicit your ideas to reduce costs and to increase revenues. This project and the responses the board and administration are making to the numerous audit findings will, I have every expectation, provide substantive strategies to reduce costs, increase efficiencies, improve student and employee services and continue our efforts through Baldrige and Good to Great, to become a much more effective college system with greater student success. These strategies will help us become the best community colleges in the nation if we keep our disciplined approaches and look to our employees for meaningful improvements. Thus, please ensure you take the time to send your ideas to the committee that will be co-chaired by Jim McLaughlin and Tom Cleary and composed of faculty and staff representatives from each of the colleges and the district.

As we enter the Spring registration process, I urge everyone to renew our efforts to assist our students, many of whom are returning veterans, displaced workers and dedicated friends and neighbors who are turning to the Alamo Community Colleges for a new direction, for new opportunities. It is up to us and we do have the resources and the ability, to make their interactions with us such a positive experience that their learning success will be assured.

Finally, in a matter of just a couple of weeks, the Texas Legislature will return to Austin for the opening of the new session. This year’s legislature will, most of us believe, be challenging and result in new performance expectations for higher education. There is an opportunity for us to influence these new expectations and I encourage all employees and our students to remain current on the debates and communicate actively with our legislative delegation to help them understand the value of the state’s community colleges and the importance of supporting us with greater levels of financial assistance so that we can prevent the economy from taking the same deep downturn it has taken in the rest of the nation through our outstanding teaching and economically beneficial programs.

****************************************
Bruce H. Leslie
Chancellor
Alamo Community Colleges
201 W. Sheridan, Bldg. B
San Antonio, TX 78204-1429
(210) 485-0020 (Phone)
(210) 485-0024 (Fax)
bleslie@mail.accd.edu

Bernard's Creole Kitchen

Looking for a place to have lunch? I just got the word that BERNARD'S CREOLE KITCHEN is once again open for business! Bernard's specialty is Lousiana Cajun cooking, and having been stationed in New Orleans for three years and having had lunch on several occasions at Bernard's, I can honestly say the food is delicious!

Bernard's is located at 509 Palo Alto Road, and it's open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Bernard's has a lunch and dinner menu array at $5.99 that includes a drink and two sides.

Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez

PAC Receives THECB Grant

TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION COORDINATING BOARD AWARDS
PALO ALTO COLLEGE $90,000 GRANT

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has awarded Palo Alto College (PAC) a two-year, $90,000 grant to encourage students “at risk” of dropping out of college to continue their pursuit of a Baccalaureate degree.

PAC was one of only 14 community colleges statewide to receive the grant.

The grant will support PAC’s “College Connections (2+2+2) Project,” which is designed to encourage a student to transfer between a community college and a four-year institution by providing advising and counseling services to graduating high school seniors and community college students free of charge.

PAC and Texas A&M University—Kingsville System Center San Antonio, will collaborate with the East Central, Edgewood, Harlandale, San Antonio, South San Antonio, Southside and Southwest Independent School Districts to provide its students with college readiness assessments, admissions and financial aid applications. PAC will also host an A&M recruiter in its Center for Academic Transitions, and participate in joint off-campus recruitment events.

The College Connections (2+2+2) Program is projected to serve 1,000 students by providing professional development for guidance counselors in middle school and high school to increase transfer rates; use mentors to increase knowledge of postsecondary education options; conduct summer workshops programs; and strengthen partnerships with other institutions of higher education.

Texas A&M University Kingsville – System Center San Antonio is located at 1450 Gillette Blvd. and currently offers 19 undergraduate degree programs, 8 graduate degree programs, and an Alternative Certification program. For more information about TAMUK-SA please go to https://mail.accd.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.tamuk.edu/sanantonio or contact Marilu Reyna at (210) 326-0003 or e-mail at marilu.reyna@tamuk.edu.

Palo Alto College, one of the Alamo Community Colleges, is a fully accredited community college located on the Southside, and awards associate degrees, short-term certificates and offers non-credit continuing education classes. The campus is located at 1400 W. Villaret Blvd. at I-410 South and Texas Hwy. 16 or online at https://mail.accd.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.accd.edu/pac.

Nominate Bands for PACfest 2009

Here is a list of recommendations received for bands to play at PACfest 2009 as a result of emails sent to PAC faculty, staff and students during November, and based on a couple of student surveys conducted by SGA. Please keep in mind that we are looking for 2-3 paid bands and one Headline Act. We are looking at going “country” with the headline act this year.

You can still submit additional recommendations that are not listed here. Just hit “Reply” with your choices. Please let me know your recommendations by Thursday, January 15 at 5 p.m. Email me at Vbosquez3@mail.accd.edu

None of the bands listed below have been consulted, so I am not aware of their availability yet, or more importantly, their price range!

Please give me you top choice (only one) in each category.

HEADLINER
Kevin Fowler http://www.kevinfowler.com/index.aspx
Gabe Garcia http://www.gabegarciaband.com/
Pat Green http://www.patgreen.com/
Roger Craegar http://www.rogercreager.com/index.php


TEJANO
Los Desperados http://losdesperadoz.com/


HIP-HOP/RAP
Mojoe http://www.myspace.com/mojoefamily
Dog Men Poets http://www.cdfuse.com/dogmenpoets
Yussef Black http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=895226
Public Offenders http://www.myspace.com/poffenders
Dirty Wormz http://www.myspace.com/dirtywormz


METAL
Girl in a Coma http://www.myspace.com/girlsinacoma
Man of Sorrows http://www.myspace.com/manofsorrowssa

Cult to Follow http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=Cult+to+Follow&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=10&ct=title#
Hard Luck Heroes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ns0_4mL6Ug
Kin of Cain http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=150868362

Hiring Brief

If you have been chosen to sit on a selection committee and have not attended a hiring briefing within a year, a session will be held on Thursday, January 22, 2009, in Ozuna Room 104A (Instructional Innovation Center) at 2 p.m. The presentation should last about 90 minutes.

PAC Office Relocations

Please note the following changes:

The following offices have moved –

Disability Support Services relocated to GE 139.
PASSkey Program office relocated to AT 206
Upward Bound office relocated to AT 209

Late Registration at PAC

On Campus Late Registration for the spring semester is currently ongoing and occurring as follows:

Monday & Tuesday (1/5 & 1/6)
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In AT Bldg

Wednesday & Thursday (1/7 & 1/8)
9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
In Student Center

Friday (1/9)
9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
In Student Center

Saturday (1/10)
9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
In Student Center

Monday & Tuesday (1/12 - 1/13)
8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
In Student Center