@PimaNews

August 26, 2009

Contents

• College Updates
  • New @PimaNews Publication Schedule
  • Provost Let’s Chat Sessions, 2009-2010
  • Reminder: 40-hour Work Week
  • Reminder: United Way Day of Caring is Sept. 16
• Benefits
• Accreditation Update: Workshops Reminder
• College Plan: Student Services Centers Redesign
• Inside Story: Revamping Office and Administrative Professions
• Upcoming Events

College Updates

New @PimaNews Publication Schedule
Beginning September 3, @PimaNews will begin publishing on Thursdays.  The new schedule will alleviate the need to modify the schedule during Board of Governor meeting weeks.

The deadline for submission will continue to be Mondays by noon.  Please send news items to pimanews@pima.edu.

Provost Let's Chat Sessions, 2009-2010
Let's Chat sessions with Dr. Suzanne Miles, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor have been scheduled for 2009-2010 Academic Year. The sessions will be held on the following Wednesdays from noon to 1 p.m.:

MyDegreePlan
MyDegreePlan – the College’s new online degree audit and planning tool – goes live for students today. Now both students and trained student services staff and faculty will be able to use the program to determine how close a student is to completing a degree, to explore alternative degrees and certificates and to plan for future semesters accordingly.

Reminder: 40-hour Work Week
On August 12, the Board approved a change in the exempt, non-exempt and administrative work week from 37.5 to 40 hours a week. Beginning the week of September 12, 2009, the College’s new core business hours will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The change in official college operating hours better aligns College costs with projected revenues. The 6.7 percent increase in the work week will allow the College to eliminate 7 percent of vacant positions. In partial recognition of the increase in work hours, the Board is adjusting base salary scales of non-exempt, exempt and administrative staff by 4.0 percent.

Benefits

If you had a flexible spending account for the plan year 2008-09, you have until Sept. 28, 2009, to file claims for qualified medical or dependent care expenses. The expenses must have been incurred between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009. For more information, visit www.sheakley.com, call 1-800-877-6630 or send an e-mail to 125@sheakley.com.

Accreditation Update: Workshops Reminder

The Accreditation Workshops schedule for this academic year includes the new Workshop III: Rehearsal for the Site Visit.  This workshop will cover what to expect when the Higher Learning Commission review team visits the College in September of 2010. 

More information, including the schedule and registration, can be found here.

College Plan: Student Services Centers Redesign

The redesign of the Student Services Centers fulfills Strategy 3.4 of the 2008-2011 College Plan. The centers are designed to organize the diverse set of student services – admissions and registration, financial aid, assessment and testing, advising and other support functions – at a single location on each campus. The concept is to deliver services to students in a seamless, efficient and holistic fashion, while teaching them to navigate the college system for themselves. Students coming to the Student Services Centers will be guided through the area with the goal of helping them to learn self-efficacy.

The redesign also allows students to access services how they best prefer, whether in person, online or over the phone. PCC students and employees will be invited to Open House events upon completion of the Centers this fall.

Inside Story: Revamping Office and Administrative Professions

The new OAP is not your grandparents’ secretarial program. The Office and Administrative Professions program has been completely revamped for fall 2009. Division Dean John Merren said it bears no resemblance to what his mother used to call “the secretarial sciences.” Demands on 21st Century office workers are much greater than in the past. The redesigned OAP degree and certificates programs will train workers who can rise to the challenge, Merren said.

“The redesign was a specific result of a community request, business leaders coming to the campus with a view that many office workers are Baby Boomers who will be retiring in the next five years,” Merren said.

Their replacements still need to know office procedures and document preparation. But the new OAP program will also introduce them to the bigger picture – general economics, account management, etcetera. The focus is “a more supervisory context,” Merren said.

Paula Stuht, vice president-business development for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said, “By creating the Office and Administrative Professions curriculum, PCC has once again listened to the business community and developed a program that will provide highly qualified employees in an area that is often overlooked, yet ranks as one of the most-sought after employment segments in the community.”

Upcoming Events

• Aug. 26: Fall Semester begins
• Aug. 28: Applying to Eller College of Management Workshop, 1 p.m. at the Downtown Campus
• Sept. 2: Provost Let’s Chat, Desert Vista Campus Cafeteria from noon to 1 p.m.
• Sept. 4: PCC/ASU Transfer Admission Guarantee Signing, District Office Community Room at 12:30 p.m. with Dr. Roy Flores and Dr. Michael Crow of Arizona State University
• Sept. 7: Labor Day Holiday (College closed)
• Sept. 8 – Oct. 9: CFA Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery presents “Distilled Matter: Conte, Oil, Enamel, Thread.” For more information, call 206-6942
• Sept. 9: White House Initiative Community Conversation, Downtown Campus Amethyst Room at 9:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Please RSVP to 206-4747 or chancellor@pima.edu by Sept. 4.
• Sept. 9: Deadline to sign up for the United Way Day of Caring. Details can be found here.
• Sept. 16: Provost Let’s Chat, Community Campus Cafe from noon to 1 p.m.
• Sept. 16: United Way Day of Caring
• Sept. 23: Provost Let’s Chat, East Campus Cafeteria from noon to 1 p.m.
• Sept. 23-Oct. 4: PCC Theatre Arts presents Ramona Quimby, West Campus Proscenium Theatre. For information and tickets, call 206-6986
• Nov. 4-15: PCC Theatre Arts presents See How They Run, West Campus Black Box Theatre. For information and tickets, call 206-6986

@PimaNews is an electronic newsletter for employees of Pima Community College.  It is published by the Pima Community College Marketing and Public Information Office.  @PimaNews is published weekly during the semester and every other week during the summer.  Back issues are available at pima.edu/pimanews. Please send announcements and news items to pimanews@pima.edu by Monday at noon.