Faculty played a round of Bingo in preparation for the March 2013 accreditation review during the Academic Senate meeting at Pierce College on Monday.
Crystal Kiekel, co-chair of the Standard IIA, and Donna-Mae Villanueva, co-chair of the Standard II, hosted a game of Bingo to help faculty learn more about the issues that accreditation evaluates.
“Our goal is to make it easier for people to remember the information,” Kiekel said.
The game drew attention to matters concerning the strengths Pierce has, as well as bringing to light areas that need improvement.
Some of the strengths Pierce identified are: determining Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), effective counseling and administrative office services, and keeping accurate and current information available.
“We’re going around [campus] doing presentations to get people more engaged”, Kiekel said.
Many faculty were engaged in the game, and winners took home simple prizes including, dry-erase markers, Post-it notes, and cookies.
Aside from learning more about accreditation, Jill Binsley, Technology Advisory Committee member, announced that the buildings in the North Mall will be equipped with 70 SMART Classrooms.
These will be installed and ready to use by Fall 2013, with a few now being used in the Center for Sciences building.
“Pierce will have the most [SMART classrooms],” Binsley said.
David Schamus, Chair of the Computer Science and Information Technology Department, explained to the Academic Senate a little more of the new state-of-the-art equipment.
“[SMART Boards] are essentially electronic versions of the white board,” Schamus said.
These new boards will be directly hard-wired into the room, so that instructors will not have to worry about bringing in their own cables to hook up their laptops.
Blu-ray players, AV connectors, and higher Wi-Fi connectivity will also be in place with the new gear.
“Interactive and media-rich environments in our classrooms is our goal,” Schamus said.
Sunday Salter, Transfer Center Director, also introduced to the meeting a new website, www.ADegreeWithAGuarantee.com for students to learn and find what associate degrees are transferable to the California State University system.
The state chancellor is very enthusiastic about this new website, Salter said.
Salter emphasized that this new website will help students because it will have all the information regarding transferring and degrees in one place.
Learn more about this and other Academic Senate news at www.theroundupnews.com.