Square Wheel Work Groups

Workplace Satisfaction	Student Communication	Internal Communication	Excellent Student Service	New Student Advising
Augie Kafer	Sandi Smith	Joyce Burdette	Kurt Klettner	Sharon Smith
Pam Santer	Tom Yencha	Violet Mosser	Leslie Sims	Heather Cline
Abigail Bowers	Jeff Scott	Tim Beardsley	Emmanuel Ogwude	Michelle Nabers
Amy Dennis	Tess Martin	Pam Clevenger	Drema Starkey	Cathy Mutz
	Sandy Swisher			Christine Post

Each group will meet for no more than one hour once per month excluding December.

Each group will have a leader who must not be a lead manager and must meet with Anthony Underwood once per month for 30 minutes to update him on the group’s work.

Agenda for Workgroup Meetings

1. Select ONE problem (“square wheel”) that the group will brainstorm about at that meeting.
2. Identify the problem.
3. Determine a possible solution(s).
4. Create suggested action steps to fix the problem.

For their meeting with Anthony, the leader should prepare a one page, bullet point summary of the group’s discussion based on points 2, 3, and 4.

Meetings will begin after September 16th. The Vice President’s office will organize the first meeting of each group and then it is the responsibility of each group to meet thereafter.

"Stop Ignoring the Stalwart Worker"

Some interesting thoughts on valuing those workers who want to maintain a work/life balance.

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2011/08/stop-ignoring-the-stalwart-wor.html

"Square Wheels" Workgroups

Building on the success of our divisional retreat, we will be creating 6 divisional workgroups that will be meeting at least once per month to work on the specific areas and problems brought up by the staff.  EVERYONE will be a member of a workgroup.

Square Wheels (Retreat) Workgroups – five to six in each group

• Workplace Satisfaction and Compliance
• Improving Communications with Students
• Student Communication
• Internal Communication
• Maintaining and Expanding Excellent Student Service
• New Student Advising

You can talk to your supervisor about which group in which you'd be interested.

Reporting Incivility and Aggressive Behavior

While it is important that we serve the students as understanding as possible, we do them and ourselves no favors if we allow them to verbally abuse staff without consequence.

Please report ALL verbal abuse or threats to the Vice President's office in writing or by email within 24 hours of incident.

Lessons and New Ideas from the Summer 2011 Divisional Retreat

The divisional retreat, held on July 29, 2011, has received positive reviews from many in the division, including such comments as:

• Enjoyed us staying on task
• Completed objectives set out to do
• Team aspect and camaraderie
• Practical things done; let's keep the momentum going

To those ends we will begin with some positive new changes and projects:

• An online newsletter for divisional news (you are reading it...)
• Monthly Brown Bag Meetings for the whole division – informal, but real opportunities to share challenges and successes that members have experienced. 
• Workgroups (Workplace, Communications, Student Service, etc). Will be based on the “square wheels/round wheels” concept developed at the retreat. Everyone in division will be part of a workgroup.
• A half-day winter retreat beginning this February.

More to come...

Attendance Verification

Beginning Fall 2011 all students will be required to attend class (and all instructors required to take attendance). Failure to do so will result in an immediate (same semester) loss of financial aid and possible withdraw from class.

This means that disbursement of financial aid checks will not begin until September 19, 2011.

To mitigate this later disbursement, students will be allowed to charge their textbooks, supplies and up to $200 in gas cards in the Bookstore until September 19, 2011.

Students can also make arrangements for the late payment of childcare charges at the Child Development Center by contacting Bobbi Mendenhall.

Hot Dog and Soda Sale

We have surplus hot dogs and soda left over from the Interstate Fair!  Support college athletics by picking up your cookout supplies from Tom Yencha.  They are being sold at cost and sales will directly benefit students.

The End (of Summer 2011)

Summer Classes end today, August 5, 2011.

Grades are due by 8:00 am on August 8, 2011.

Enrollment Notes

As of August 2, 2011 the college is only down 2.1 % in FTE and 2.2% in Headcount compared to last year, which saw record breaking enrollment numbers.

There is an excellent chance that we may maintain last year's enrollment numbers.

Good work so far, everyone.

Speaker for New Student Convocation Selected

Dr.Geoffrey Cousins, "one of West Virginia’s most innovative heart surgeons and a pioneer of robotic-assisted heart surgery in the United States" will be this year's Keynote Speaker at the 2011 New Student Convocation on August 29, 2011 at 11:00 am in the Multipurpose Room.  A video feed will be made available to JCC.

Read more about this West Virginia native's inspiring story here.

New (or Warmed Over) Ideas for the Upcoming Year...

1. Following a strategy used by Fairmont State and Pierpont CTC, and working with Non-Traditional Programs we will be looking into including information about the RBA and BOG programs in the payroll information of area businesses.
2. The HEPC and CTCS are willing to send out information for the college to area residents who have completed some college but not a degree.  We will be taking advantage of that opportunity.
3. Working with our new Retention Specialist Dr. Bob Westbrook, we will be developing a Peer Mentor program where experienced students can help new and at risk students become comfortable with college life, services and expectations.