Registration is Open for
2005 Learning College Summit!

Early registration deadline is May 13, 2005

Registration is now open for the 2005 Learning College Summit. Now in its third year, the League's Learning Summit has joined with the successful Vanguard Learning College Conference, held last year in Toronto, to form the Learning College Summit. Plans are fully under way for this exciting new gathering, to be held June 11-14, 2005 at the Oak Brook Hills Resort in Oak Brook, Illinois. The 2005 Summit is being hosted by Moraine Valley Community College (IL) and Maricopa County Community College District (AZ).

As an integral facet of the League's Learning Initiative, the Learning College Summit is a gathering of innovative community college educators who are committed to a deliberate, powerful focus on learning at their institutions. With an exciting new program, the 2005 Learning College Summit is designed to help both colleges that are beginning the journey toward becoming more learning centered and veteran learning-college institutions that are well on their way.

In a small conference-center setting, the 2005 Learning College Summit will serve as a working retreat for college teams or for individual representatives from colleges to connect with colleagues and to share experiences, discuss issues, and explore strategies for overcoming obstacles and meeting challenges. The 2005 Learning College Summit has been designed as an interactive experience for participants, and whether you come with a team from your college or by yourself, the summit has something for you!

The program is designed around five topics — organizational culture, staff recruitment and development, learning outcomes, student engagement, and technology — derived from the institutional objectives in the League's Learning College Project. The 2005 Learning College Summit offers a variety of opportunities for teams and individuals to learn, share, and reflect on their summit experiences. Learn more about the Learning College Summit.

The Cross Papers Fellowship
Proposals now Being Accepted

The League is now seeking proposals for the 2005-2006 Cross Papers Fellowship. Last year, the League was pleased and honored to announce the creation of The Cross Papers Fellowship in recognition of the outstanding contributions K. Patricia Cross has made to community college teaching and learning. Supported by an endowment from K. Patricia Cross, the fellowship continues and builds upon the outstanding success and renowned usability of The Cross Papers. Each year, the K. Patricia Cross Endowment names a scholar-practitioner of community college teaching and learning as The Cross Papers Fellow.

The selected Fellow authors an issue of The Cross Papers using the general format established by K. Patricia Cross. This format includes a review of literature on current teaching and learning theory as well as practical applications of current theory in today's learning environments. The Cross Papers Fellow also conducts a Special Session on the Cross Papers topic at the League's annual Innovations conference, with the session videotaped and posted on the League's iStream. Following the session, The Cross Papers Fellow is available to sign copies of the monograph.

The Cross Papers Fellow receives a stipend of $2,000 to support research and writing; complimentary registration to the Innovations conference, at which the Fellow will present the work; travel expenses up to $1,000 to attend the conference; a plaque commemorating the recipient's designation as a Cross Papers Fellow, and 10 copies of the print edition of The Cross Papers issue the Fellow writes.

Since the release of the inaugural issue of The Cross Papers in 1997, community college educators have used these monographs as tools for stimulating discussion, for providing orientation and training to new faculty and staff, for rejuvenating veteran employees, and for designing successful practices and strategies for reaching the diverse groups of students who come through the open doors of community colleges every day. The League applauds the work of K. Patricia Cross and seeks through this endowment to continue her legacy of professional development focused on community college teaching and learning.

Each year, The Cross Papers Fellow Review Panel selects the recipient after a review of submitted proposals. Interested scholars and practitioners of community college teaching and learning who wish to be considered should submit proposals according to guidelines available at www.league.org/crosspapersfellow no later than June 6, 2005.

The League congratulates the inaugural recipient of The Cross Papers Fellowship, Alice Bedard-Voorhees, who wrote Increasing Engagement for Online and Face-to-Face Learners Through Online Discussion Practices, The Cross Papers, Number 8.

Congratulations 2005 Innovation of the Year Recipients

Every year, the League honors outstanding innovations that have been recognized by member institutions as Innovations of the Year. These innovations represent capstone achievements and the continuing renewal of the spirit of innovation and experimentation upon which the League was founded.

Once again, this year's competition has been very exciting. The League has received innovations that prove to fall in line with every category of the award criteria: quality, efficiency, cost effectiveness, replication, creativity, and timeliness. We at the League extend our congratulations to all the 2005 Innovation of the Year Award recipients and say thank you for your outstanding effort and creativity at your community colleges.

The winners for this year's award are:

Macromedia Announces the 2005 Macromedia Innovation Awards for Higher Education

Macromedia is pleased to announce the 2005 Macromedia Innovation Awards competition for higher education. Faculty and staff at higher education institutions are encouraged to submit projects that exemplify innovation in four contest categories: Digital Communications, Collaborative Teaching and Research, Rich Internet Applications, and Mobile Learning.
Applications are being accepted now through July 15, 2005. Winners will be announced on September 29, 2005. The winner in each category will receive a $2,500 cash prize and will be featured on the Macromedia website.

Details on the new program, including an online application are available at http://www.macromedia.com/resources/education/hed/innovation/spring2005/

Send questions to innovation@macromedia.com.

Call for Nominations—Student Development
Leadership Institute

The National Council for Student Development (NCSD) will be conducting the sixth annual Community College Student Development Leadership Institute, October 28-30, 2005, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The institute will precede NCSD's annual conference, scheduled in Indianapolis from October 30 through November 1, 2005. The Community College Student Development Leadership Institute is designed to nurture participants for career advancement in student development. Using a group of distinguished chief student development officers as facilitators, this intensive training program is designed to prepare participants for leadership roles in student development in the community college.

NCSD invites nominations of qualified candidates for participation in the Leadership Institute. Mail, fax, or email your nominations to Director Debra Bragg (using the linked form) by May 15, 2005. She will notify your referrals of their nomination and send them an application packet.

Institute fees and lodging details will be announced in summer 2005. Please continue to check the NCSD website for additional information.

Sinclair Awarded Renewal of Department
of Education Grant

The U.S. Department of Education has just renewed a four-year $1.07 million grant to the Student Support Services (SSS) program at Sinclair Community College to provide intensive assistance to academically challenged, low-income, first-generation students and students with disabilities.

The SSS program details six ambitious but attainable objectives to address the needs of the participants. The implementation plan consists of intervention strategies customized to meet the special needs of each student. The strategies are prescribed and implemented by a team of veteran student-services experts who have had experiences similar to those of the participating students.

Services offered by the grant include academic advising and academic assistance such as tutorial services, a study homework room, and an early-alert system to facilitate timely interventions. A range of other support services include financial aid, cultural events, and career exploration. Transfer services and university visits are also offered to facilitate student transitions to universities.

The four-year grant renewal provides $267,986 per year to serve 160 students each year. Sinclair's Student Support Services program has been in operation for eight years.

SHIFT THE ENERGY! REVITALIZE THE PEOPLE AND PROCESSES ON YOUR CAMPUS

Heading into another self-study? Gearing up for another round of strategic planning? Facing another round of collective bargaining? Or maybe you're just looking for a way to shift the energy on your campus from a habitual focus on problems, deficits, and what's wrong to a focus on strengths, successes, and what's right. If so, send yourself and a team of leaders--chancellors/presidents, administrators, faculty, and support staff--to a four-day workshop to learn how to involve everyone on your campus in a strengths-based, collaborative approach to change. For dates and locations coming up in your region, go to http://CenterforAppreciativeInquiry.net.

The Seventh Learning College Principle:
A Framework for Transformational Change

Alicia B. Harvey-Smith, Editor
Pre-publication price: $24.95
Published by NASPA (http://www.naspa.org)

The learning college concept has been the most popular reform model for postsecondary education since the 1997 release of Terry O'Banion's A Learning College for the 21^st Century (Oryx Press). The Seventh Learning College Principle focuses on student affairs divisions in the work of transforming an institution into a more learning-centered organization. Lead editor Harvey-Smith draws on her recent research at community colleges to add a seventh principle to the learning college concept as the foundation for all other principles. The Seventh Learning College Principle is scheduled for a Spring 2005 release and is published by NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education). For more information, see http://www.naspa.org/publications or phone (301) 638-1749.

Going the Distance: Enhancing Educational Access to Rural Students

Northland Pioneer College's (AZ) two-county service area includes four campuses, six learning centers, multiple other learning sites, and 16 school districts in an area that covers nearly 22,000 square miles in northeastern Arizona. The service area includes the Navajo, Hopi, and White Mountain Apache reservations and, as a result, the college's enrollment of Native American students is the highest of any public institution in the state of Arizona (33 percent, or approximately 1,500 students a semester).

Because of the distances between locations — it is 200 miles from the northernmost to the southernmost center — , Northland Pioneer College has created the largest high-speed distance learning systems and the second largest dual-enrollment program of any community college in Arizona. Our distance learning system includes two instructional television systems as well as a computer network that supports access to full-text databases, online tutorials for using library resources, online access to librarians to answer research or study questions, and an online instructor assistance section.

These two innovative efforts allow the college to reach its widely dispersed student population, including Native American students on the reservations. Statistically, Native Americans have the lowest college participation rate of any ethnic group in the United States, but Northland Pioneer College remains committed to changing this statistic by providing a full range of educational services on the reservations, even though the college receives no tax dollars from them because of th reservations sovereignty. The college's distance learning and dual enrollment programs not only allow Native American students access to college-level work at minimal or no cost, they also provide the opportunity for all students within the service area to participate early in college-level courses, thus facilitating their transition to full-time enrollment at Northland Pioneer College.