Weekly Newsletter: Tuesday Is News Day

CLS Faculty Handbook

The CLS Faculty Handbook is a great resource that can answer many of the burning questions you have about CLS policy, staffing, evaluation, and more! Plus, you can find instructions for badge requests and grade changes. 

The easiest way to navigate the CLS Faculty Handbook is the search field.  Look for the magnifying glass 🔍in the upper right corner of the homepage and type your keyword (badge request or collection form or CLS KISS document).  

Many of our colleagues  worked hard to make the Handbook the best that it can be.  Please honor their hard work by using it! (Shout out to the OG Fac HB folks: Jeanne C, Colin S, Kendall D, Jennifer Z, Carrza D, Sue B, Sean N, and Sarah S!)

If you find information that you believe to be out-dated or if you think we should add something to the CLS Faculty Handbook, please drop a comment on the CLS Handbook Updates form. 

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Save the Date: CLS Assessment Meeting, April 7 

Join Rebekah Starnes and the Assessment Committee from 1pm-3pm on April 7 to hear insights about the latest round of CLS Assessments - the ENGL 1301 Research Essay!

More info to come closer to the meeting date.

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Chris Gardner on the Radio, Feb 11

Chris Gardner will be a guest on Bookmarked—a weekly radio show on 104.1 KZSM, San Marcos' True Community Radio—today (Feb. 11) from 4-5 CST. This week, he and Dr. Priscilla Leder will be discussing Percival Everett's novel James. You can listen in online!

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ACC Main Message on Federal Executive Orders from the Chancellor

On January 29, Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart sent an email addressing the ways that federal executive orders may affect ACC and the surrounding community (email subject: Message from the Chancellor: ACC response to federal executive orders). 

CLS knows this is a time of uncertainty and wants to highlight the Chancellor's guidance about immigration officials.  The Chancellor said this: 

We don’t anticipate immigration officers will appear on ACC campuses without some form of prior notification that would allow us time to ensure detailed communications and directions for the entire College. 

If immigration officers change their existing protocols and appear in your office or classroom, I want to protect you from that pressure and expectation for response. I will share a clear, legal protocol for you to connect any potential officer to the official College respondent. 

ACC will always comply with the law, and here is what compliance will look like to ensure we follow our protocols to keep everyone safe:

1. If immigration officers come into your workspace (office or classroom), stay where you are, assure them you will comply.

2. Ask them to wait where they are while you connect them with the appropriate help. 

3. Then, immediately contact the Chancellor’s office at 512-223-7598. 

4. The district will be prepared to work with immigration officers directly. 

5. Please continue your work as usual while we deploy our protocols. Our ACC Police will join the immigration officers to notify you of the appropriate next steps.

The Chancellor's email also reminded the ACC community about support available through Employee Assistance Program or the Office of the Ombudsperson. 

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Some Additional Info on Teaching In the New World Order Related to the ACC Message on Federal Executive Orders from Wendy 

Quite a few people have asked me for more information about what to do given the Federal Executive Orders. I think there is great help in having resources, but also I don't want us unnecessarily frightened. So far, no college has seen immigration control coming into classrooms. Yet, there are things you absolutely can do proactively to help your students--even if it does not involve having to call the Chancellor's Office.

1) Be generous with allowing students to be absent if they are afraid or unwell or having to care for family members impacted by the new orders; there is also a ton of flu and illness going around. Perhaps relax penalties for absenteeism and offer make up work.

2) Do not ask anyone their immigration status, whether or not they are pregnant, if they have been vaccinated, or other personal information. Fine if folks want to discuss it, but that is sensitive, private information and it hasn't a thing to do with improving your teaching or the students' learning.

3) Just be kind. When in doubt, choose kind.

Here are a few resources CLS folks might be interested in reading--Many thanks, Amber Clontz, for collating the list!

- ACLU Know Your Rights: How to protect yourself during an immigration raid

-ACLU Know Your Rights in Spanish

-Immigrant Legal Resource Center: Know Your Rights (Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Vietnamese, Tagalog)

-National Immigrant Justice Center: How to create a safety plan and defend your rights as an undocumented immigrant 

-Austin American-Statesman: Local advice and legal support 

-Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Immigration Preparedness Kit 

PS. The advice and language from Seattle is incredibly helpful: 

Faculty and staff should remain polite and may wish to say, “I understand you are here for law enforcement purposes, but I am not authorized to grant you permission to enter nonpublic areas or accept any documentation on behalf of the university”. 

At that point an ACC instructor should immediately contact the Chancellor’s office at 512-223-7598

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For Dual Credit Faculty, ISD Policy Responses to Executive Orders 

Jason Sanchez, Director of Enrollments and Partnerships, shared the following: 

Attached is a collection of the ISD policy/response to immigration changes. We await information from a couple of ISDs and will add it as soon as we receive it. In almost every response, the campuses assured us that all high school campus visitors must go through the main office and should not arrive unannounced in their classrooms. Each ISD site varies slightly, but the general message is to contact a campus administrator, a principal, an assistant principal, etc. For students visiting ACC campuses, I've shared our protocols with ISDs. 

ISD Policy Response Due to Immigration Changes

We thank each of you for allowing students to advance their higher education journey.  

ACC CARES -  General guidelines for helping students in distress. Faculty and staff may be the first to notice that a student is struggling in some way. If they notice signs of distress, they can express their concern directly to the student and gather more information if they feel comfortable doing so.  Faculty and staff are not expected to take on the roles of counselors or diagnosticians. Alternatively, they can seek consultation from the Mental Health Counseling or a CARES team member via the online referral form.

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Faculty Info on CLS Webpage

Please double-check your faculty info on our CLS Webpage and send updates or missing items to Chris Stayton

Here's the info that we need from all CLS faculty: 

• Name and Honorifics (let Chris know if you prefer, for example, Dr. Wendy Elle vs. Wendy Elle, PhD.)

• Job Title 

• Degree and University

• Email

If you are Full-time faculty or a Voting Adjunct, we also need

• Interests 

• A photo of you

  • The image needs to be a minimum of 300px wide and 300px tall. Larger is fine. PNG or JPG files are preferred, but WEBP or other formats are okay. If you are unsure what any of that means, send your image, and Chris Stayton will be in contact.  Also, let Chris know if your photo needs any edits (remove glares, logos, or other unwanted objects). 

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Faculty Evaluation, Spring 2025 To-do List 

These five tasks are required components for the Faculty Evaluation process. 

• Submit your Faculty Reflection Form for Fall 2024 classes to the Academic Year 2024-25 Collection form BY JANUARY 31, 2025

• Submit your Syllabi for Spring 2025 to the Academic Year 2024-25 Collection by two weeks after the beginning of your courses.   

• Check the CLS Due List to see if you are in a Portfolio Year for Spring 25.  Remember Portfolios are now due May 30 2025.  

• Finish your ACC Mandatory Training and self-report on the Academic Year 2024-25 Collection by FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2025

• Complete your Administrative Duties (Syllabi and Office hours on Lighthouse!) no later than two weeks after the beginning of your courses. 

If you have questions or want amazingly detailed guidance for each of the required tasks, check out or print Faculty Evaluation Guidelines, Spring 2025, created by Beth Frye, our (AMAZING!!!) CLS Evaluation Committee Chair.

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Attendance Certification

Please remember to certify attendance for all of your class sections.  This process is quick, painless, and really important to our students and ACC. (Plus, they'll come find you if you miss this deadline!)

You will receive an email from the Registrar/Glynis Miller titled "Class roster student attendance certification" with these instructions: 

Student attendance certification is submitted using the MyACC / Course Management / Attendance Certification system. 

1. From the main ACC web page, go to Faculty & Staff and choose MyACC

2. Find the Course Management heading, and then click Attendance Certification

3. Select the desired Term and Course

4. Once in the course, find the View box options, and select the Certify Attendance Roster. 

5. All entries in the drop-down field default to an initial entry of 'Attended' to begin with. Faculty will then change the entry using the drop-down field to 'Never Attended', as needed. A selection must be made for each student.

6. Hit 'Submit' at the upper right corner of the roster to have your certifications recorded.

If you have questions like what counts as attendance? you can check out the Attendance Certification FAQ page. 

Deadlines by semester

14 week - February 14 

12 week - February 27

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Register for CLS Curriculum Conference--CCCs, March 7

Registration is LIVE for the CLS Curriculum Conference 2025, and we've got an amazing line-up of presenters and panelists.  Remember that the CCC is open to ALL Central-Texas educators, especially our partners in English and Writing in community colleges, so spread the word! 

When: Friday, March 7, 2025, 12:00-4:00 PM 

Where: Highland Campus (HLC) in Austin, TX

Panels and Workshops: 

Session 1A, Service-Learning Opportunities for Liberal Arts Courses

Session 1B, Ain't Afraid of No Ghost(writers): Can Professional Writing Inform How We Teach Student Writing? (Workshop)

Session 1C, Teaching Students How To Do Research

Session 2A, Corequisites: Demystifying the Partnership

Session 2B, Trauma-Informed Pedagogy and the Power of Voice

Session 2C, Civic Engagement in a Divided Country

Session 3A, Back to Basics: Outwitting AI Shortcuts

Session 3B, Empowering Learners: Writing Adventures and Metacognition

Session 3C, A Beginner's Guide To Global Education and Multicultural Curriculum

Register today! CLS Curriculum Conference 2025 

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Conference Travel Request Form

Our division (Liberal Arts: Humanities and Communications) has a new, super-suave Travel Request Form. (Shout out to Toño Ramirez and Jean Lauer!) If you would like to request permission and $$$ for a conference, you start with the form. (This is AWESOME because it means it can't get lost temporarily delayed in my emails!)

• Faculty may begin process by submitting this form

• Upon completion, chair will automatically receive notification and be prompted to indicate approval with this form

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Textbook Selection (Summer 25) 

Important: If you opt for ZTC/OER, we still need you to complete the Textbook Selection process outlined below so that we can tag and label your class on the Online Schedule. 

Full-time and Adjunct INRW - Sue sent an email asking for textbooks orders; please be sure to respond.  (We're working on a Google Form for future semesters!)

Full-time English faculty - should have entered their textbooks or ZTC/OER selections on the Summer 25 Sign-Off spreadsheet (you can find the link to that spreadsheet in the Summer 25 Staffing Sign Off email).  Make sure you tell us if you want First Day Access!

Adjunct English Faculty will use the Textbook Selections: Summer 25 form.  Once you've accepted your summer assignments in eStaffing (Feb 8 for Phase 1 adjuncts and Feb 20 for Phase 2 adjuncts), please use the drop-down options in the Google Form to choose the textbook or ZTC/OER. You only need to select texts for courses that you are scheduled to teach; ignore the other courses.  

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Accessibility in Blackboard Courses

Moving forward, ACC and CLS want faculty to aim for a BB Accessibility score of 80% or higher. 

Resources for checking and fixing BB Accessibility in your courses:

Please check your BB accessibility score at the beginning of the spring 2025 semester and as you add new items to your courses throughout the semester.  Dean Toño Ramirez made this brief, helpful video to demo Accessibility Reports. If you need help fixing the accessibility of your Blackboard courses, you have resources!   

• Instructional design support is currently offering Workshop Sessions on Enhancing Accessibility.  They have three options: March 12 (Zoom), or April 2 (HLC). You can learn more or register here: DE Accessibility Training.  

• TLED has great resources on their Accessibility information page. 

• Within CLS, we are fortunate to have Amber Clontz helping folks get their Bb documents ADA reader friendly at her Blackboard Q & A Office Hour on Fridays--see the Information further down the newsletter for how those office hours work!.

• At the CLS Curriculum Conference (CCC) (register now!), CLS will have three Instructional Designers on hand to help with ADA Compliance for PDFs. 

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Blackboard Ultra (Let's Lion King It and BE PREPARED!)

The conversion to Blackboard Ultra will happen for our Summer 2025 courses. So, we need to get ready. There are options available for you RIGHT NOW as well as some things CLS has in the works to help get all 175+ of us on board for the new Bb Ultra.

(1) Beth Knight, AVC, shared the following for me to share with you:

Several training opportunities to help faculty get up to speed with the Ultra interface:

• Using Blackboard Ultra (Face-to-Face): [Sign up here]

• Using Blackboard Ultra (Virtual): [Sign up here]

• Using Blackboard Ultra (Hyflex): [Sign up here]

These training sessions offer four hours of PD

(2) CCC's will have Instructional Designers on hand to help with Blackboard Ultra training on March 7th. Huge thank you to Textbook and Technology Assistant Dept. Chair, Amber Clontz, who spearheaded that idea!

(3) Following our CLS Dos de Mayo Meeting (End of Spring Semester on May 2, 2025), we are planning a Bb Ultra Workshop in person at RGC. You'll need to sign up for it--more information to come!

(4) CLS-specific training sessions (check the next item for days/times). Recordings of the trainings will be provided.

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Blackboard Ultra Training with a CLS Focus

Join Alex Watkins and your CLS colleagues for a one hour introduction to BB Ultra! During this virtual session, Alex will offer an overview of BB Ultra, walk through the course copy and Ultra conversion processes, and take questions. 

Option 1: Tuesday, February 18 at 6:00 PM 

Option 2: Friday, February 21 at 11:00 AM

Register in this Google Form!

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Mentoring: As Rewarding as Teaching, but without the Grading

We know your time is valuable, and mentoring doesn’t have to be time-consuming. We’re making mentoring easier than ever with prefab QM shells and Blackboard support from Instructional Designers, plus a new welcome packet that includes essential resources for new hires. What’s more, mentoring is Peer Dialogue. So, you’re not only helping a colleague succeed but also checking off a key requirement of Faculty Evaluation. And as a thank you, mentors receive a stipend for their service. Share what you’re great at! Sign up today.

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Blackboard Q & A, Fridays 3pm-4pm 

Need help setting up your Blackboard page?  Have a quick question about a Blackboard function?

Email Amber Clontz for the Zoom invite; she's hosting regularly on Fridays 3-4pm. 

• Can’t make the day/time? Send your availability to request an alternative :) 

Brought to you by the Textbooks & Technology Committee 📚🪱💻

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Please Promote: Student Research Symposium! 

Final weeks to Submit Work! Deadline Feb. 28!

The Student Research Symposium will take place on April 18, and we are accepting submissions through February 28, 2025. Please submit (with student permission) or encourage your students to submit their best research projects via the LAG website and its online form. We will consider any work that can be turned into a poster, presented on a laptop, or read aloud.

Please reach out to Chris Berni (cberni@austincc.edu) if you have any questions!

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Please Promote: Vision and Voice, May 3

Join us on Saturday May 3rd 10:30am-12:30pm for the 11th Annual Vision+Voice Literary Festival at the Highland Campus! Bring the family for a fun morning celebrating community, creativity, and self-expression starting with literary carnival games and ending with an awards ceremony honoring the winners of the K-12 Vision+Voice Poetry Competition. You can find more info about Vision+Voice at https://k12.visionandvoice.org/ 

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Please Promote: Online Writing Tutor

From Becky Villarreal

Becky Villarreal, ACC English instructor and LELA tutor, assists students with papers via email. They can email her directly at bvillarr@austincc.edu (with their papers in a DOC file and their instructor's directions) or click here to fill out a form. Email Becky if you have questions or check out her website.

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CLS Creative Writing Group, Feb. 14

For more info contact Rob Crowl. If you'd like to join the email list, click HERE. 

February 14th (12:00pm-1:30pm)

This Valentine’s Day, join host Jordan Easley for a fast-paced, fun-filled writing activity all about characters! Create a quirky character with secrets, desires, and charm, then we'll "match" them up with another participant and let the sparks fly. Whether it’s love, laughter, or drama, this activity is guaranteed to bring your characters (and your writing) to life! 

Zoom link: https://austincc.zoom.us/meeting/register/_YpYBECUQxe-RYd9nExu4g

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Please Promote: Competitive University Transfer Panel, Feb 12

From Anne-Marie Thomas, Associate Dean, Honors Program

Please share this Transfer Week opportunity with your students: 

As part of Transfer Week, the Honors Program is partnering with Transfer Services to feature a panel of six ACC Honors Program alumni who have transferred to highly competitive institutions/programs: Brown, Yale, UT, and Rutgers. Want the inside scoop on how they did it? Join us at the Highland Campus on February 12th at 6:00 pm for a wide-ranging discussion of transfer tips, scholarships, and more! Light refreshments provided. 

Register here. Attending remotely? Zoom registration is here. For questions, contact honors@austincc.edu 

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Please Promote: Student Submissions to Innovate, deadline Feb. 16

Innovate is a literary competition where students (including our Dual Credit students) can submit up to three short stories and three poems. Winners will be celebrated at ACC’s Vision Voice Literary Festival in April and published in our Literary ebook. First place winners will compete nationally for cash prizes 1st $500, 2nd $200, 3rd $100 and will be published in the League for Innovation Literary Journal; in the last several years ACC students have been winners of these prizes. 

For more information or to submit, visit https://innovate.visionandvoice.org/

Submission deadline has been extended to Feb. 16

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CLS Profile 2024-2025--Faculty Contributions

Please send us contributions for our next CLS Profile (2024-25).  We'd love to see a picture of you and/or your students, including selfies with students, photos with colleagues at conferences--especially CLS activities! (Don't forget to get photo permission forms from students signed.)  Aside from photos, we are looking for contributions in as many categories as apply to you; you can also nominate a colleague's reading(s) or assignment(s)!  Keep details concrete and short. The first CLS Profile was a BIG SUCCESS! And, we'd love to hear from loads and loads of our faculty for next years'! (Also, we'll ask for contributions through the first part of the Spring Term. This form will stay open--and feel free to share things as they come up)

Share your AWESOMENESS Here: Faculty Contributions for 2025 CLS Profile

Holler at Wendy Elle, Luanne Preston, or Dania Dwyer if you have questions or thoughts!