Last updated on April 26, 2016
(Pictured: Panelists answer questions during the forum. Picture by: Blake Bouza.)
By: Blake Bouza, Assistant Editor
The presidential cabinet of Volunteer State Community College held a forum in the cafeteria on Monday, April 4.
All vice presidents on the cabinet were present save for Jane McGuire, Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness, Research, Planning and Assessment.
Student club representatives posed questions for the cabinet members to answer.
Sandra “Domino” Hunt, president-elect of the Student Government Association, asked how the college would be implementing STEM into lessons.
Dr. Jerry Faulkner, President of Vol State, said that Vol State does have a 3D printer and drones. “We’re sending faculty to professional development workshops to learn how to use this technology and we ask our faculty back and see how to best implement it at the college,” Faulkner said.
“We’re trying to be on the cutting edge, but we don’t want to be on the bleeding edge,” he said.
Dr. George Pimentel, Vice President for Academic Affairs, said that the school is working on integrating smart boards into the classroom and added that getting tutor.com availability back is in the works.
“There are certain legal things we have to do as a school, but as soon as that passes we will bring tutor.com back, definitely,” said Pimentel.
On the subject of Supplemental Instruction being disbanded, Pimentel said that SI is a very small, though important part of tutoring.
“It only affects certain classes. Classes where the professor thinks it will be useful,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel said that oftentimes a student needs more help with content and writing papers, which the Language Center in the Ramer building helps with, and where SI would not be as helpful.
“What we’ve decided to do in the short term is to turn over to each division dean a budget that they will then use for tutoring or SI,” said Pimentel.
Individual faculty members will then request of that dean what kind of tutoring they need. If the faculty member needs SI, then they will request it from the dean.
“Faculty and deans have the option to put something else together,” he said.
“We know we need more parking,” stated Beth Cooksey, Vice President for Business and Finance. “We have two contracts under way. One will be a temporary gravel lot, the other will be a permanent lot.”
Cooksey said that both lots will be available for the fall semester.
“The whole solution for parking at Vol State, along with TBR (Tennessee Board of Regents), is to move parking to the edges of campus,” she said.
Cooksey held up her phone as she said many students and faculty are not paying attention to where they are going much of the time, and it is for the safety of everyone involved if parking is moved to the edges of campus.
The temporary lot will be located in front of the maintenance building, and the other lot will be an extension of the H lot at the rear entrance of campus.
More sidewalks are also in development, said Will Newman, Senior Director of Plant Operations.
Tami Wallace, Director of Public Relations, said that students could begin to use the Vol State app to be informed of student activities and events happening around campus.
Comments are closed.