Office of Inclusion and Diversity
Welcome HACC's Director of Men of Color Initiatives!
It is my pleasure to e-introduce the newest member of the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, Mr. David L. Stewart, who joins HACC as the Director of Men of Color Initiatives. David comes to us from Elizabethtown College, where he most recently served as the Associate Director of Intercultural Affairs. Previously, he held titles as the Associate Director of Multicultural Affairs/Coordinator of Pipeline Programs, and Associate Director of Admissions and Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment. In these positions, he was charged with working with a wide array of matriculating and prospective students who represent the diversity of the college. He had served his former institution as an active member of several campus committees, including the guiding committee for the Elizabethtown College Plan for Inclusive Excellence - the school’s first campuswide approved strategic diversity plan. He was also instrumental in creating and establishing the Mosaic Scholars program, a program that recognizes the accomplishments of students from diverse backgrounds and who will continue to foster diverse ideas on the campus of Elizabethtown College. Additionally, he is the architect of the Elizabethtown College Diversity Team, a student-run group that assists the Office of Admissions to increase campus diversity at Elizabethtown College.
A proud graduate of Howard University and Temple University, Mr. Stewart holds a master’s degree in Educational Psychology and has dedicated his life to ensuring that all high school students have access to post-secondary educational opportunities. David is a native and current resident of Harrisburg, where he has served on a number of community-based organizations and advisory boards that includes, most recently, the African American Memorial Fund, and formerly, the Dauphin County Fatherhood Taskforce (a father advocacy group), The Dauphin County Technical School Cooperative Education and Occupational Advisory Committee and has worked as the Student Assistance Program liaison for the Harrisburg and Steelton School Districts in his previous employment with Dauphin County Executive Commission on Drugs and Alcohol.
Please join me in welcoming David to the HACC community!
Black Lives Matter Conversation
On Monday, May 25, 2020, a tragedy that spread across our nation triggered worldwide protests within the Black Lives Matter Movement. George Floyd's death shocked waves against police brutality, police racism, and lack of police accountability.
Join HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, on Wednesday, October 7, from 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. as Nyle Fort, activist, minister, and scholar leads members of George Floyd's family and participants in a conversation titled “Black Lives Matter & the Legacy of George Floyd: A Conversation.”
This Zoom webinar event is limited to the first 500 participants. No registration is required. Click on the link to join us!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84754679219
Dial In: US: +1 312 626 6799
Webinar ID: 847 5467 9219
For additional information, please contact Monica Dixon-Howard at mrdixon@hacc.edu
HACC Gives Back – Gleaning
On Friday, Sept. 11, 2020, 10 HACC students and two advisors gave back to their community by gleaning apples from Peter’s Orchard in Gardners, PA. This socially distant volunteer opportunity provided much needed produce for families through The Gleaning Project at the South Central Community Aid Project (SCCAP). Over fourteen crates of Gala apples were gleaned during the two-hour period.
Volunteer opportunities are an excellent way to strengthen scholarship applications and resumes. To learn more about how to give back to your community, contact Wendy Brubaker at wabrubak@hacc.edu.
Next volunteer opportunity:
Central Pennsylvania Food Bank - Food Box Packing
Farm Show Complex
Thursday, October 8, 2020 from 8:00 a.m. – noon
Preregistration required: https://forms.gle/bE8A6z8VZnsitCLQ6
Limited space available, due to Covid restrictions.
Student Access Services (SAS) – Transitioning to the One College Model
On July 1, 2020, Vicki Van Hise began her new position as director of the Student Access Services (SAS) Department, overseeing the operations of SAS for all five HACC campuses and supervising the SAS coordinators. In addition to her new director role, Vicki will continue to manage and serve the Lancaster campus by remaining their SAS coordinator, a position Vicki has held since October 2010. However, to allow sufficient time for all of Vicki’s new responsibilities, some of the students on her caseload were reassigned to SAS coordinators at other HACC campuses. Overall, this change has been generally accepted by students because many of the students we serve are currently taking courses at multiple campuses due to the remote environment. It is an adjustment for faculty members because most are used to dealing with only the SAS coordinator at their campus. Once faculty becomes familiar with all the coordinators, we hope that they will realize we are all here to help them and students as a strong, caring, and united team. In this remote environment, SAS continues to do intake meetings with new students daily via Zoom, and the coordinators are all available as always to students, faculty, staff, and the community. As SAS transitions towards the one college model, this was just one of many changes for the department.
Another shift was having the administrative technician for the SAS department, Marsha Leonard expand her job duties to include all HACC campuses, and she supports Vicki Van Hise in her new director role, while still assisting Carole Kerper and the Harrisburg Campus as needed. Since Marsha has been with HACC since February 2003, she brings a wealth of knowledge to this position and was able to adapt to her new role quickly.
There has been a significant change to the way in which tests are proctored. SAS is still proctoring exams remotely using Zoom for our students requiring readers, scribes, oral proctors, and similar one-on-one situations. Due to the volume of extended test time accommodations requested by SAS students, our proctor availability, and limitations of using the academic makeup testing center staff, the faculty are responsible for providing extended time for testing whenever possible. In addition, SAS appreciates that the Learning Commons Testing staff are helping to support faculty with proctoring extended time exams. SAS has developed a strong partnership and excellent support relationship with the Learning Commons Testing Department’s staff; Elisa Cohen, Assistant Director, Testing, and Eric Camarillo, Director, Learning Commons, have both proven invaluable assets to the SAS Department, and we look forward to continued collaboration with them to provide the best possible testing and tutoring environment for all HACC students.
One of the last changes will be our unified budgets, but this will not occur until HACC’s next fiscal year. At that point, SAS will be able to share resources across all campuses and be better able to serve our students.
We all realize that change is never easy, but we know that the SAS department has successfully made it through the initial stages of what will become an ever more unified department.
HACC Student Campus, College and Community Resources Padlet
Abagail Robillard, Gettysburg Campus SGA Secretary, collaborated with Wendy Brubaker, Assistant Director of Student Involvement, and Makaela Moatts, Lancaster Campus SGA President, to turn an on-campus resource bulletin board located at the Gettysburg Campus into an online tool. Padlet, an online bulletin board, can be organized with clickable links, images and color coding to provide a clean look and ease of use. Students are encouraged to visit this tool to locate resources within the College and community to help them be successful this semester. To access the Padlet, click here.
This tool is an ongoing project and the team welcomes additional resources within our service region. Please submit all suggestions for resources to Abagail Robillard at afrobil1@hacc.edu. Please include any links, flyers or images with the description of the resource.
Congratulations to Abagail and her team for a user-friendly tool that supports student success!