The Student Government Association passed a resolution on Feb. 19 strongly opposing the proposed changes to the registration schedule.
“The current Add/Drop Dates benefit all students,” states the resolution, “removing the Add/Drop Date could negatively affect all students; especially the students effected by the Texas Legislature bill stating that students who enroll in public colleges and universities beginning in fall 2007 and thereafter may not withdraw from more than six classes during their undergraduate college career.”
As more solar energy companies are forming in Austin, Austin Community College will be offering two women focused classes. The two classes on solar installation will start on March 22 and will meet on Mondays and Wednesday at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m at Highland Business Center.
Campaigning will occurs during March 29 through April 25 for the Austin Community College’s Student Government Association election. The SGA has just accepted the necessary election packages for students wanting to run for office with SGA. Now those candidates will conduct interviews with an SGA officer. After these interviews are conducted and the Office of Student Life checks their GPAs to ensure they meet the required 2.5 GPA and are in good standing prior to the election, the SGA advisor and Student Life director will approve candidates to participate in the rest of the election process.
Even with the recent announcement of new jobs opening up in Austin in thanks to Facebook, it still doesn’t change the fact that more students are still worried about getting a job after college graduation.
Austin Community College’s Center for Public Policy, the Economics Department and the Center for Student Political Studies are hosting an interactive forum on March 10 at 6 p.m. called “The Jobs Summit, Will I have a Job after Graduation” for students to discuss solutions for those post college job searches especially in this current poor economy. The event is in Eastview Campus Multipurpose Hall, Room 8500.
It’s that time again. The Great Texas Warrant Roundup will begin on March 6 and will run to March 13. Representatives from the more than 250 law enforcement agencies and courts from around Texas will be combining forces to gather those of you that have outstanding warrants from traffic and parking tickets as well as city ordinance and penal code violations to higher charge warrants.
The board of trustees proposed methodology change for computing faculty pay has found resistance from the Adjunct Faculty Association.
The proposed change to the F10 board policy would expand the current comparative payment structure that uses the Austin market to one using “Texas metropolitan community colleges.”
Davis Jones is a 26 year old ACC student running for place 5 on the ACC Board of Trustees.
He expects to win.
“I’m a proponent of positive thinking,” said Jones. “I’m certainly going in humble; I’m going to do my best.”
Jones believes that the main value he will bring to the board is the unique perspective of a student.
“I’m not coming as a politician,” said Jones. “I’m not coming from a Democratic club. I’m not coming from a Republican club. I’m coming as a clear voice from ACC representing the students – representing the customers.”
When it came time for Guadalupe Sosa to vote for the chair person of the advisory committee, working on the plans for a South Austin Campus, she hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she should vote for herself. Sosa had brought the idea to build a campus in South Austin to ACC’s Board of Trustees, and she had been working on it tirelessly for years.
There were many qualified people in the room. She hesitated, but then voted for herself. She won the chair position by one vote.
SGA gathers signatures to back undocumented students’ chance for a college education
The Student Government Association (SGA) is now publicly endorsing the DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. It’s currently being debated before the House of Representative and the Senate. If passed, it would allow undocumented students (the children of illegal immigrants) that are high school graduates and have been in the country at least five years before the bill was enacted to gain a conditional permanent residency, according the bill’s text.
In an effort to help with the the rescue and rebuilding process in Haiti, the Student Government Association (SGA) has partnered with Student Life and hip-hop artist NIKKAGE to plan the Haiti Relief Concert that will be held from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Feb. 27 at the Eastview Campus.
Students from Austin Community College and the University of Texas teamed up for a mock health care panel on Feb. 13 at the Texas Capitol. Playing the roles of Republicans and Democrats, the students discussed issues of the health care debate that is currently going on in Washington: primary care expansion, patient safety, hospital staffing, and healthcare for the uninsured and the underinsured. Students also heard expert testimonies from both sides of these issues.
A new parking lot is currently under construction at Pinnacle Campus. Projected to open for the fall 2010 semester, it will provide an additional 440 parking spots for students, faculty and staff.
In the meantime, students can catch a five to ten minute ride to campus with the help of a free shuttle servce. Located at the former Albertson’s parking area in Oak Hill Plaza, shuttles will run throughout the day. The first shuttle starts at 7 a.m. and the last runs at 8 p.m..
This semester is the fourth consecutive semester where more Austin Community College students are starting here to get there. Compared to Spring 2009, this year’s enrollment broke a record with 41,050 students enrolled. Last year’s spring semester had 36,601 students enrolled
With the high enrollment numbers for this semester and a brand new campus set to open in the fall, the Austin Community College District has experienced record growth and might be about to get even bigger. Five communities in the ACC service district, the North Hays Effort, which is a collaboration between Buda and Kyle, and Bastrop ISD, Elgin ISD, and McDade ISD independently, are in the petition phase of the annexation process.
According to a press release, the ACC Board of Trustees unanimously approved the purchasing of three tracts of land adjacent to the Rio Grande Campus. “Basically we purchased an office building we were already leasing,” said Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration Ben Ferrell. “It’s one property subdivided into three.”
The tracts are located at 1209 and 1215 Rio Grande St., and 605 W. 13th St. The tracts add up to about half an acre, and will cost the college $2.1 million plus closing costs. Revenue bonds from 2009 will be used to cover the cost.
Proposed plan would make biking near Rio Grande easier and safer
The City of Austin is currently reviewing a plan that that would turn Nueces Street from W. Third Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into a bicycle boulevard.
A bicycle boulevard is a road that caters to both cars and bikes. Recently, plans for such a road have been discussed at two open houses. The third, and possibly last, will be taking place on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at Pease Elementary School. New findings about how traffic will be altered by the bike lane will be discussed.
Changes to the registration schedule that would move late registration and the add/drop period to the week before the first day of class are being considered by the ACC administration.
Currently students have three days after the first class day to register for class and make changes to their schedule by adding and dropping courses. If the new schedule is approved, students would have to register and make all changes to their schedule before the first day of class.
The Austin Space Aces, along with fourteen other groups from schools around the nation, were chosen to test an experiment starting June 16 at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Astronauts living in space have an issue of losing bone density, and the Austin Space Aces’s experiment called Smart Resistive Exercise Device (SRED) for free weight simulation in microgravity is designed to alleviate that problem.
Austin Community College’s Financial Aid office is still unable to offer the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grant to students.
The federal grant provides up to $4,000 per year to students who intend to teach in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves students from low-income families. The grant was created in 2007 by Congress as part of its College Cost Reduction and Access Act.
The Governmental and Community Relations office will begin taking candidate applications beginning Feb. 6 for the May ACC Board of Trustees elections. Board Place 3, Place 5, and Place 6 will all be up for election. These Trustees are elected at-large to oversee the entire ACC service area.
Potential candidates can already file an Appointment of Campaign Treasurer form that would allow them to legally begin raising funds for their campaign, but a candidate is not officially on the ballot until they fill out an application for a place on the ballot.
On Feb. 8, the Creative Writing Department will kick off its Spring 2010 Semester Literary Gathering. Students, whether they are in the Creative Writing Department or generally interested writers, are invited to attend this event at Austin Java Café at 12th and Lamar.
To help in celebrating Black History Month, the Tenth Annual Gospel Extravaganza will take place on February 6th at Austin Community College Eastview Campus. The performance starts at 1 p.m. in Room 8500.
Student orientation policies are still being changed and reworked as Student Life begins gearing up for the fall semester that will mark the beginning of mandatory three hour orientations for all new students.
Last semester proposals on how to accommodate this new policy included everything from dissolving certain Student Life clusters to simply cancelling traditional Student Life events.
The Student Life media team has earned an international Gold Award from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. With almost 5,000 entries from throughout the United States and several foreign countries, the team’s “Student life Stories” campaign made an impression with the judges.
Students with a passion of math and science have a new opportunity for financial assistance through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. Austin Community College has partnered up with St. Edward’s University to offer scholarships for math and science majors with at least 60 undergraduate hours. Students studying for an associate of arts in teaching at ACC are also able to apply. Other qualifications students will need for this project include a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher and the minimum required hours standard by the beginning of the 2010 fall semester.
The Center of Student Political Studies (CSPS) will be hosting their welcome back event on February third. The program will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Eastview Campus Multi-Purpose Hall in Building 8000.
The theme for the night is to inform ACC students on how to get involved in clubs, organizations, and charities in the community, and the benefits of being involved. The CSPS have invited guest speakers such as Texas Rep. Diana Maldonado, former Austin Mayor, Bruce Todd, and Peck Young, Director of Center of Public Policy and Political Studies.
Fred McGhee remembers what it was like to be the new guy in a new place, having to learn how to deal with the local cultural norms and learn a new language. McGhee moved to the United States when he was ten. Before that he had lived in Germany with his German mother and American father.
Capitol Metro bus trips will be free to all students attending ACC next semester. Starting Jan. 5, students can pick up their Green Passes from the cashier’s office as part of a pilot program that will allow them free access to Capitol Metro services, including the Metro Rail, when it becomes operational.
The state of Texas recently approved the establishment of a $25 million Jobs and Education for Texans (JET) fund which will provide community colleges and other training providers with equipment and resources to train workers.
Graduating Graphic Design students have one last assignment before leaving ACC. They have to show off their best work at this year’s Graphic Con, a portfolio showcase and reception.
The original proposal for the expansion of The Orientation Program and the redesign of Student Life has changed. While Student Life will not look exactly the same as it did this semester, the changes being made appear, as of right now, to be much less drastic than originally predicted.
The ACC Fire Training Academy is celebrating its move to its new facility on Dec. 2. The Academy is hosting an open house at the facility it shares with the Austin Fire and Police Department located at 4800 Shaw Lane in southeast Austin.
A small exhibition space is being built in the remodeled gym at Rio Grande Campus, but Art Department Chair Gary Webernick said the department still needs a larger gallery. Webernick and the ACC Art Department are once again petitioning the ACC administration for more gallery space in which to display student and faculty art.
Students and instructors display artwork in East Austin Studio Tour
Four groups of ACC artist showed their work at the eighth East Austin Studio Tours (EAST) at Graphic Glass Studios on East 5th street. The tour has extended from a two day affair into a nine day, two weekend event. Different art mediums, such as, ceramics, paintings, sculpture, and jewelry fabrication were featured within the tight range of studios in East Austin.
At the start of every fall semester, the Office of Human Resources starts collecting applications to fill faculty positions for the next fall semester. Around 30 full-time faculty members are needed in order to keep up with enrollment demands. The number of full antd part-time faculty hired is based on the ACC District Master Plan which is reviewed yearly and revised on a rolling three year schedule.
Austin Conservation Corps, a new organization created by ACC’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies (CPPPS), now offers students the job opportunities maintaining and building parks around Austin.
The Rio Grande Campus media center, room 225, is accepting donations on behalf of Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt-A-Turkey Project. Last year they sponsored three turkeys. This year they hope for more.
The parking garage at Austin Community College’s Rio Grande Campus was officially awarded a three star rating by the Austin Energy Green Building Program on Thursday, Nov. 19, at ACC’s Great Big Green Get-Together. The garage is ACC’s first green building.
The Student Government Association (SGA) has formed a DREAM. Act Committee in order to study the effect of the DREAM act on undocumented students at ACC. This committee was formed after Jose Torres, President of the University of Leadership, a group that is trying to mobilize support for the DREAM Act at colleges, made a presentation about the DREAM act at an SGA meeting on Oct. 30.
The Austin Community College student literary journal, “The Rio Review,” will host its release party on Dec. 2. The journal features student poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose, and artwork. The journal is published every semester and this will be the 23rd issue.
New org. plans a full semester of new events for ACC’S politicly minded students
The Center for Student Political Studies (CSPS), the new student volunteer branch of the Center for Public Policy & Political Studies (CPPPS), is up and running. This organization will focus on public policy issues, and has several politically themed events on the agenda.
The Creative Writing department carved out its own niche at the Texas Book Festival.
Department Chair Charlotte Gullick was at the festival letting people know about the unique resource the department represents. ACC is one of a small number of community colleges in the nation to offer an Associate degree in creative writing.
Each semester success workshops are provided to students in areas such as time management, eliminating stress and starting good financial habits. These are designed to improve a students performance in, and outside of their educational career.
Federal stimulus money saved or created almost 4,000 education jobs in Texas according to a report by the US Department of Education (DOE).The report said Texas used almost $30 million of the stimulus money awarded to it by the DOE.
The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce released its second annual progress report over the state of ACC last month. Despite enrollment rates already at a record high, the report recommends a drastic increase in the amount of graduates in health and technology related fields by 2015 in order to meet the Metropolitan Austin future workforce needs.
New mandatory orientation leads to restructuring of Student Life programs
Student Life (SL) is being reorganized in order to expand The Orientation Program (TOP) as a result of the college deciding to make orientation mandatory. Diversity, Intramural Sports and Recreation and the Leadership programs will no longer be stand-alone clusters. Some of the most successful aspects of these clusters will be blended into remaining programs.
President Obama was greeted with applause and cheers when he finally stepped onto the stage at Rudder auditorium on Oct. 16 at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The president was there to speak at the Presidential Forum on Service.
Ordinance would ban panhandling at all times in a greater area of town
The Downtown Austin Alliance (DAA), along with several residential groups and downtown churches are proposing an extension of the existing ban on night time panhandling. Austin’s current ordinance that regulates panhandling, the Austin City Solicitation Ordinance 9-4-13 originally adopted in 1992, allows non-aggressive panhandling, but includes restrictions on the time, place and manner in which solicitation may legally occur.
ACC has announced that the closure of the Pinnacle campus has been extended through Wednesday, Oct. 21. The college plans to re-open the campus on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Many veterans attending ACC have found it difficult to pay for books, rent and tuition this semester. Distribution of GI Bill benefits by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has been delayed and many ACC student veterans, as well as student veterans across the country, have yet to receive the money they are entitled to.
Students with fuel efficient cars should have better spots in Nov.
The Green Car Preferred parking program is not quite ready. The signs signifying the green parking spots are up and the list of approved cars is available online, but on Sept. 25 the Green Car Parking signs at the Rio Grande campus were covered with plastic bags.
“The tentative date for opening the spots for use is early November, but that is subject to change,” said Andy Kim.
The ACC Fire Academy began its first semester at its new home at the Austin Fire Department’s training facility. The Academy had been located in Taylor, Texas for 19 years. Taking advantage of its new facilities, the Academy is training cadets for the Firefighter Challenge held every year at the Buda Fire Fest.
Fifty percent more students applied for aid than last fall
This semester, there was an unprecedented increase in applications for financial aid. Last fall, 11,609 students applied for financial aid at Austin Community College, compared to this fall’s, 17,470 applicants. This is a 50 percent increase.
“We’ve had to work weekends, and we’ve had to definitely alter schedules to compensate for additional student body,” Financial Aid Supervisor Jason Briseno said.
The thunderous roar grows louder with each lap the pack of 14 roller girls take around the track. Padded elbows and knees knock and bump into the tightly packed bodies. ACC student April Lowery, or Apeschit as she is known on the track, is in the middle of the pack shoving and pushing the women around her. The violence is quick and dangerous. People fall, girls slam into the railing, and the roar of thunder continues to grow.
Metro avoids additional raise in fares by suspending service
Capital Metro had proposed a fair increase for January, however, instead of pursuing that, they are eliminating the remaining Dillo routes. The Dillos will be permanently discontinued on Friday, Oct. 2
Austin Community College’s official enrollment tally for fall 2009 is 40,248 credit students, an increase of more than 12 percent compared with fall 2008, when ACC had 35,798 credit students according to the Public Information and College Marketing Department.
The Diez y Seis de Septiembre Festival, hosted by ACC’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies (CPPPS) and the Latino/Latin American Studies Center, “El Centro”, was celebrated on Wednesday, Sept. 16, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Riverside Campus.
Students, faculty find old parking issues solved as new ones arise
The new Rio Grande Parking Garage is up and running for the fall semester. There is a total of 543 new parking spaces with 346 open for students, 195 reserved for faculty and staff and two additional spots for the retail space that is yet to open.
Former ACC student Nikolas Evans murdered in downtown Austin
Former ACC student Nikolas Evans exited the Moose Knuckle bar on Sixth Street Friday March 27 around 2 a.m. with his friend Hugo Lagunas when the two men were approached by a group of people on Neches Street, officials say.
Evans was trying to break up a fight when one of the men in the group punched Evans in the face, knocking him to the ground, witnesses told police.
Evans died from these injuries at the University Medical Center at Brackenridge on April 5.
Joshua Michael Bacak was elected the new student body president for ACC. Bacak was a senator for the South Austin Campus before running for President and also organized and led "Black Out," a student game night, and one of the biggest student led events. "I feel that I have the tools and experience from the five years in the Marine Corps, actually leading people, to excel," said Bacak of his qualifications for the position as President.
Capital Metro's forum hosted by the Student Government Association (SGA) took place at the Rio Grande lounge on Thursday April 23. At this event representatives from Capital Metro discussed new bus routes and spending plans with students. By next fall Capital Metro Board Member John-Michael Cortez plans for the $10 parking fee to make ACC's relationship with Capital Metro more environmentally sustainable by using it to pay for a semester bus pass and more amenities for bicyclists.
A bill that would allow people with a concealed handgun license to bring their gun on campus was discussed in the Senate State Affairs committee on April 27. SB 1164 would amend the Texas government code to give properly licensed individuals the right to have their concealed handguns with them in classrooms, dorm rooms and all other campus buildings.
A red carpet rolled out to welcome the 350 to 400 students streaming in to win their award or congratulate friends that attended the Night in the Life, an annual event celebrating student achievements hosted by Student Life (SL) at the Monarch Event Center, on Friday March 24.
and 
Get Connected