DCCC: Title V grant team making progress

    Dodge City Community College received a five-year $2.9 million federal Title V grant from the Department of Education in November 2007. The college qualified for the grant based on the Latino students served, which is 29 percent.
    Associate Dean of Instruction Chuck Pfeifer told the Board of Trustees Monday that the program had its first interim performance report due March 31. The report was approved and the program has been awarded its second year of funding.
    Pfeifer said the bid for the renovation of the new academic support center has been approved, and construction is moving forward.
    Pfeifer said new personnel have been hired to work with the program, and an activity coordinator was hired to coordinate daily activities of the program. A reading specialist was also hired.
    A pilot program for reading development will begin in the second summer session in July, and an English as a Second Language specialist has also been hired.
    “This is something that we really needed at the college for quite some time,” Pfeifer said.
    He said the program has funded the Learning Management System, which will allow faculty members to move their classes towards a hybrid or online format. The first training session will be in July, with another planned in September.
    “It's just a really exciting time, moving our classes into a format that we can meet a lot of the needs of many of our students,” Pfeifer said.
    The tutoring program will also be enhanced through the Title V grant, Pfeifer said. The grant will allow the college to hire tutors and pay student tutors more.
    In other business:
    • The trustees learned that strong fall mini, spring mini and summer sessions helped keep enrollment numbers from taking a big dive during the 2007-08 school year.
    “We had a tremendous summer term, we had an outstanding fall mini and we had a really good spring mini,” said Anthony Lyons, dean of students. “Our two significant terms, fall and spring, we were down a little over eight percent each time.”
    Lyons reported the head count was up 42 students, but they were part-time students, resulting in fewer credit hours. He said the college did very well in recruiting full-time students from the nine-county service area, but it had problems outside that area.
    “When you get outside of our service area, then we ran into difficulties because we lost some coaches and some program directors,” Lyons said.
“New people got here too late to be able to retain students that we had and to be able to attract new students.”
    Lyons said a recruiting and retention committee is being assembled to train staff and faculty in the principles of recruiting. He also said the committee will develop strategies to help the college bridge the gap when coaches or program directors leave.
    • Approved a 3 percent salary increase for administration; a 4 percent salary increase for program tech; a 50-cent-per-hour salary increase for classified; and a 3 percent salary increase for part-time employees. The board also approved a proposal to increase the college's contribution to the health insurance premium to cover the 15 percent premium increase for these employees.
    • Approved the employment contract of Jeremy Johnston, assistant men's basketball coach/student recruiter.
    • Accepted the resignation of Blaine Denny, assistant women's basketball coach.
    • Approved the employment contract of Sonjia Schuurmans, assistant softball coach/student recruiter.
    • Approved the employment contract of Charles Sellens, Title V ESL specialist.