INSTITUTIONAL PARTICIPATION

One of the great things about working at IVCC is that there is ample opportunity to be an active member of the college family.

There are numerous regularly scheduled activities and events that I've had the opportunity to be involved in. I've been an active participant in the monthly division meetings for the English, Math and Education division and have attended and participated in every Faculty Inservice and Development Day since taking my position in January of 2012.During the last three years, I've also participated in both the Convocation and Commencement ceremonies.

Another annual event IVCC hosts is the annual Career Expo as part of the spring Faculty Development Day. I've enjoyed the opportunity to represent IVCC to the 8th and 9th graders that have attended this event each of the last three years. The morning is a great chance to show prospective students what IVCC is about while having them interact with us, each other, and the content.

At the start of my first semester in my position, I was invited to a "New Employee Luncheon" hosted by President Jerry Corcoran. This was a wonderful opportunity to meet other new faculty and staff members and network with others from around campus and hear about what's happening in their departments.

During the summer of 2012, I participated in the Faculty Summer Institute offered by CETLA. Click here to read more about that experience.

In the fall of 2012, I began the New Faculty Orientation Class along with colleagues Shane Lange, Carmen Hartford and Tony Ruda. In this course, we had many guest speakers from other areas of the college. For example, we learned to navigate the databases in Jacobs Library through a scavenger hunt. Tina Hardy presented to the group about disability services. Emily Vescogni talked to the group about SOUP, an IVCC inititiave that encourages students, faculty and staff to Search, Organize, Use resources, and Produce. An overview of Classroom Assessment Techniques was shared by Adam Oldaker who has taught the course in recent years.

That same semester, Cheryl Hobneck and I teamed up with DePue High School to prep high school juniors for the Accuplacer test using MyMathTest. Their ability to use the program stemmed from a grant they'd received. We set their account up and then went to their campus to share the program with the students and get them registered.

I co-presented with Dawn Lockwood at the ROE/IVCC Development Day held that fall at Mendota High School. Our session covered using QR codes in the classroom.

I had the pleasure to be a part of the Employee Appreciation Day 

planning team in both 2013 and 2014. Our theme in 2013 was a luau/beach theme. My chief responsibility was to cut out different beach/ocean shapes that were used by employees to write words of encouragement to their colleagues. The team served tropical-flavored drinks and snacks to college employees. "We're Lucky to Have You" was the 2014 theme. A photo station was available to employees to don festive apparel as well as a variety of snacks and drinks. Working on this team afforded me the chance to work with people I don't normally get to and have fun at the same time. 

During these first several years, I was directly involved in planning and running meeting with our developmental mathematics staff as well as meeting with our feeder high school math teachers. These meetings offer a chance to dialogue about our students and how we can best serve them as well as give insight to the high school as to what we are doing and our expectations for students when they get to IVCC. Cheryl Hobneck and I did a grade norming session with our developmental adjuncts which proved to be very informative and insightful. We had great discussion about why we grade the way we do (partial credit, etc) and what we're looking for on test answers.