SSC 032508 Minutes

Attendees:  Diana Pino, CF; Nadine Jenkins, K; Jade Borne, M; Bennie Lambert, NH; Ed Albracht, T; Jen Murillo, Susan Rush, Jason Kot, Nithy, S.R., SO; Debra Britton, UC
Absent:        Earl Campa, CF; Severo Balason, NH; Sandi Patton, Glen Woods & Larry Rideaux, SO
Guests:        Rand Key, SVC, SO; Nick Elliott, Director of Application Development, SO
 Recorder:    Tammy McFarland, SO

Opening Items-- Approval of minutes – accomplished via email

Introduction of Rand Key, Senior Vice Chancellor—The council members were introduced to Rand and he gave a quick overview of the current hiring process for a variety of openings at System Offices to include the AVC for Lone Star College-Online; AVC for Workforce and the Vice Chancellor for Student Success-- who will work closely with the Student Services Council.  Rand asked to be invited back when the VC for Student Success comes on board so that the council can get to know them both better.  Rand has an open door policy (as time permits) and is happy to sit down with any and all members of SSC to address any issue that he may be able to offer assistance in resolving.  

New Business— 

 1. AAS.AADN program and FA—Jason Kot—  Financial Aid is having difficulty identifying “bona fide” nursing students from students “interested” in nursing (selected as a degree plan but not accepted into a program) to insure that the appropriate financial aid levels are awarded to the correct students.  A colleague filter needs to be developed to help with this process.  Jason will work with the nursing directors to insure that the correct criteria are used to create this program and that it can be applied to all health programs as needed.
 Actions:  consider creating a “pre-nursing” major designation or developing a process that will allow nursing programs to go in and “turn on” the AAS.AADN degree once the student is accepted in the program and to turn it off when the student has completed or withdrawn from the program. Susan Rush will assist Jason in developing this process to insure that the advisors are aware of the importance of the appropriate degree designation as related to financial aid rewards.  

2. Consistent hours for Assessment Center- Bennie Lambert

A discussion related to the setting of “universal schedules” for advising hours across the system as it related to ancillary services within the advising/admissions/business offices and it was agreed that the hours only related to open advising times and did not limit or set the hours of the other services.   CESD approved the hours as they were submitted and it was generally agreed upon that the hours would begin on April 1, 2008.  However, some of the colleges will not be able to implement these hours until Fall 2008.  (see future discussions below related to hours) Ongoing Business— 

3. Registration start times for the System- Earl Campa and Nadine Jenkins  (see notes on Linda Luehrs-Wolfe under Guest Presenters)

 
Current Summer Hours across the System:
 Cy-Fair-  Monday – Friday      8:00 am – 7:30 pmJune- closed Fridays and SaturdaysJuly-  Fridays                9:00 am to 2:00 pmAugust-  Monday – Friday                       8:00 am – 4:30 pmSaturdays      9:00 am – 2:00 pm
Kingwood-  Mondays – Thursdays  7:30 am – 7:00 pm      Fridays and Saturdays        10:00 am to 2:00 pm         
Montgomery – Mondays – Thursdays    8:00 – 7:00 pm                                  Fridays                                          7:30 am -4:30 pm                                  Saturdays                                    closed         
North Harris – Mondays – Thursdays       8:00 am – 7:00 pm                                          Fridays                                  8:00 am to 4:30 pm                                          Saturdays                            closed        
Tomball – Mondays – Thursdays              7:30 am – 9:00 pm                             Fridays                                               7:30 am – 4:30 pm                             Saturdays                                         closed                           Re-opens on Saturdays--       August 16 – 23         
University Center- Mondays- Thursdays    8:00 am – 10:00 pm                                             Fridays – 8:00 am – 5:00 pm     Saturdays – Closed

 Proposed Registration Times – across System beginning Summer 2009 (OK to implement Summer 2008)Monday – Thursday                 8:00 am – 7:00 pmFriday                                                             9:00 am – 2:00 pm Closed on Saturdays from first full week in June through second week of August then open 9:00 am – 2:00 pm 

4.  Instructor initiated drop prior to official day & Excessive Absence forms-- Diana Pino—this matter has been addressed and will be removed from future agendas.

 
5. Students with 55 SCH –Glen Wood, Jason Kot— deferred.

6. Transcript Evaluator Vendors—Nithy, S.R. --  SDR Educational Consultants are once again petitioning to be included in our approved transcript evaluator vendors list.  Our current standard is membership in NACES or AICE professional organizations which require specific standards of transcript evaluation from its members.  SDR questions our limiting our vendors to these two professional organizations and claims that it meets or exceeds their standards. Action:  Nithy will investigate the reasoning behind our standards and limitations and will also create specific recommendations for establishing LSCS standard requirements for transcript evaluation from international programs for in-house evaluations and out-sourced evaluations. Once these standards are articulated, then a training process will be created to insure that each college adheres to them. Suggestions:  Nithy should work with Michael McPherson and Glen Wood   

7. Update on web design-  Jen Murillo

Progress is continuing in bringing our website to the highest standard possible.  An outside firm audited our website and put forward several recommendations for improvement.  Jen has asked SSC members to identify all the areas under the student services umbrella so that the website can publish the common areas and insure universal information is accurate and easily accessible.  Anything added to this site will need to be approved by the council before it is launched. Areas to include:  Financial Aid, Learning Centers, Assessment Centers, Transcripts, Advising, Counseling, Disability Services, Student Organizations, Registration, Admissions…. Actions:  Susan Rush will create an inclusive list of all areas—please email her any areas that you feel must be included. 

8.  Open Items-

     a.) Nadine Jenkins will be reporting directly to President Stegall until the new Kingwood President is selected.  Decisions on Kingwood internal organization will wait until the new president can be included in these decisions.
     b.) Susan Rush is working on TSI and SSI indicators to insure that all advisors are using the same criteria.  VPs have concluded that SSI complete means that the student has completed MATH 0308 or placed out of it.
     c.) Questions about Maggie Culp’s report and the promised Student Services Delivery Model (org chart) will be addressed on Thursday, April 3 at Greenspoint Center from 2 – 3:00 pm.
     d.) Ed Albracht has asked that the Probation and Suspension holds be placed back on the agenda and addressed as soon as possible.  Susan Rush will work with the “group” that was called together to work on this issue previously and insure that a recommendation for action is brought to the next SSC meeting.
     e.) IT Priority list—Shah Ardalan will be invited to the next SSC meeting and Tammy will send out the most recent IT Priorities list so that it can be updated before then.  SSC members should review this list and insure that current priorities and needs are addressed.
     f.) The University Center’s 10th Anniversary will be celebrated on April 17—more information to follow.

Guests Presenters
1.     Addressing problems & implementing new rules related to students with excessive online registration activity—i.e.,  limit the amount of transactions a student can perform online for a given term—Nick Elliot Nick Elliott announced that an application has been developed to block students from the online registration process if they have input an excessive number of changes to their schedules.  This will only limit those students that have made multiple changes to their schedules and will instruct them to contact an advisor for assistance in completing the scheduling process.  Currently only one student system-wide will be affected by this change in procedure.   This change has been made because this particular student made the IT team aware that there is a flaw in our system that initiates an invoice for all scheduling changes, which results in the filtering through each invoice when a report is being run to insure that all charges all correct, and current.  Most students only make minor changes to their schedules and therefore multiple invoices are not created, however, even one student making multiple changes can create an immense lag time in running reports required for awarding financial aid. 

Action:  The new process is effective immediately.  Nick will send out the automatic text that the student will see when he/she is locked out of online registration for SSC comment and approval.  Text sent following meeting: 
You are not eligible for registration.Registration activity limit reached. See Admissions Office to make changes.

SSC members have requested some editing to the statement such as “not eligible for online registration…”                

Other:  Linda Luehrs-Wolfe—stopped in to confirm peak registration schedules as follows: 1.       Standard Registration Times for all college campuses effective April 1, 2008:a.     

a. Regular registration times for all campuses:                                                                     
    1.      Monday -Thursday = 8 am – 7 pm   
    2.      Friday  = 9 am – 3 pm            
    3.      Saturday  = 9 am – 1 pm

b.   Peak registration (2 weeks prior to first day of class):                               
    1.  Monday -Thursday = 8 am – 7 pm
    2.  Friday = 8:30 am – 4:30 pm3.  Saturday = 9 am – 2 pm

For Summer 2008 registration peak registration hours will go into effect May 19th (there will not be peak registration hours for May or December mini terms).Peak registration hours for Fall 2008 registration will begin August 1, 2008                                   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Þ           Next Meeting—April 22, 2008