Can You Build a Better Brain?

ACE CENTER LEADER REPORTS  

The Strategic Plan
Transformation in students is exciting for all of us to see, as their dreams evolve into potential, and in time, lives change.Organizational transformation is no less exciting to me and I am pleased to report that with the completion of our Strategic Plan, we are readying the institution to pursue our dreams of scaling ACE to reach ever more students nationwide.  Read more>>

Longitudinal Study
ACE's ability to grow nationally is largely due to our ability to provide evidence-based studies demonstrating our successful outcomes.  Our current longitudinal study is looking at cohorts from seven ACE partner colleges.  What sets this evaluation apart is the use of instruments to study changes in identity, self-efficacy, leadership, mindfulness, and other factors developed in conjunction with Martin M. Chemers, a research professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Read more>>

ACE Presentations and Collaborations
I have been presenting and participating at an array of conferences in the past few months, including the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Principal Investigators Conference, Washington State's Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) conference, The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) Big Ideas Fest, and an Achieving the Dream (ATD) workgroup.  Read more>>

Announcing Changes in ACE leadership
This is a critical maturation point for the ACE Center and for me as the founding director.  The changes underway demand more of my time be used to build strategic partnerships and less to manage day-to-day operations.  To make this change possible, I am happy to announce that Jim Knickerbocker, Ph.D. has been appointed the new Managing Director of ACE.  Read more>>

Jim Knickerbocker, Ph.D., Managing Director,

and Director of College Partnerships

  

I extend my appreciation to the ACE Center for my recent appointment as Managing Director.

 

Many talented individuals drive ACE's success, consistently working for what is best for student outcomes.  The work is never easy, and that has been especially true during this economic downturn that has severely impacted budgets at community colleges. As I speak with our ACE college partners, I am humbled by how many of these dedicated individuals remain hopeful about how they will advance ACE on their campuses, at whatever pace is possible.  Our work on our new Strategic Plan will help ensure that the ACE Center is prepared to meet the needs of our college partners as ACE programs are adopted by more colleges nationwide. Read more>>

 

 

Process Changes 

The ACE Center is preparing itself for scaling in a number of ways, starting with listening to suggestions from faculty and partners.  Read more>>  

 

Faculty Projects

Last fall we hired experienced ACE faculty to lead or participate in a number of ACE projects. Read more>> 

   

 

Beth Nelson, ACE Center Program Manager

 

 

Infrastructure  

There's never a dull moment in the "behind the scenes" management of the ACE Center. We're winding down from conducting Cabrillo's Winter FELI as well as the instructor workshops and incorporating our learnings to continue to improve our event management services. We've already gotten a start on the summer FELI and workshops, so be on the lookout for more details soon.  A shout out to Fran Guerrero, event coordinator for all of her hard work in making sure that these events went off smoothly!  Read more>>   

 

Faculty Development
We are gathering information to create a defined ACE instructor certification process.  

 

We are also researching the ACE career path opportunities that would be attractive for the ACE community.  Read more>>  

 

 

 

Antonio M. Alarcón, Program Coordinator and
Natalia Córdoba-Velásquez, Recruitment & Research Coordinator

Recruitment

The ACE Center has been working with our ACE partner colleges to assess the effectiveness of recruitment systems at each college. This has provided the ACE Center recruitment team with wonderful additions and adjustments to make to the Recruitment Kit, which is currently under revision.    

 

Increasingly, Learning Communities are playing a larger role at community colleges. On every campus, there is great potential for recruiters for ACE to partner with other Learning Communities by sharing resources and student prospecting opportunities. Successful partnerships between ACE and other Learning Communities may include staff giving presentations on behalf of each other at recruitment events; acting as "feeder" courses for each other; sharing alumni phone lists; encouraging students to take the other programs upon  completion; sharing joint projects, tabling opportunities or social events; or working together to negotiate special exceptions during registration or scheduling.  By partnering effectively with other Learning Communities on campus, recruiters demonstrate the power of community-based models both in the classroom and in the workplace.

 

 

Peter Bartlett, ACE Community Organizer

 

Community of Practice (CoP) 

The ACE Center held a Community of Practice (CoP) at Cabrillo College this past fall and expanded beyond California with sessions hosted by Southwest Virginia Community College and Delaware County Community College.  The CoP is meant to keep ACE faculty and staff connected with each other and with other ACE partner colleges in the region.  In the future, we hope to connect programs on a national level.  At each CoP session, we talked about the vision and purpose of a community of practice, shared stories, reflected on faculty and staff learnings, proposed new ideas, and discussed what support was needed.  Read more>>

  

BAY AREA SPRING ACE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE   

Date - Saturday, 26 March, 2011 

Theme- Renewal, 8:30 - 4:30  

Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA 95003

Room SAC -East 226

Registration fee of $10

If you have ideas for the agenda or would like to work with the planning team for the Spring CoP, please contact Peter Bartlett, ACE Community Organizer, 434 409-2540 or peterb@my-ace.org.
 

ACE MENTORING PROGRAM

Meet the Mentors!    

Spring '11

ACE Faculty Cohort Mentoring Sessions

For this spring semester, all ACE faculty are invited to attend ACE Faculty Cohort Mentoring Sessions led by Victoria M. Banales, Ph.D.  (bio) These sessions are strongly encouraged for less experienced ACE Faculty. More experienced faculty are also welcome and are likely to find the sessions beneficial.   For ACE teachers of courses such as English, math, computer skills, career counseling, movement, etc., the Faculty Cohort mentoring sessions are a great way to establish bonds with the wider community of ACE teachers.  Participants get the chance to ready themselves for the changing rhythms and degrees of intensity throughout the semester and receive support when student issues come up.

Faculty are welcome to drop in on any or all of the 90-minute teleconference webinars. Please note that the first half of each weekly session will be devoted to delivering key ACE program information, updates, deadlines, tools, and more. The second half will be reserved for support for problem solving and dealing with specific issues that may arise in individual cohorts.  Please refer to the  table of dates and times and Fran Guerrero at fran@my-ace.org for more information. 

Team Self Management Mentoring

  

For Team Self Management faculty, Master Mentor Vicki Fabbri, M.A. (bio) will schedule one-hour phone sessions with individual faculty for peer consultation about how the curriculum is being used, what other resources are available, and to receive feedback about potential changes from those who have worked with the TSM curriculum for many semesters. Vicki will be revising and refreshing the curriculum for piloting the changes by a handful of faculty in the fall. If you are a current or past TSM instructor to schedule your peer consultation session, please contact Fran Guerrero at fran@my-ace.org

Social Justice Research Course (SJRC) Mentoring Sessions

Sadie Reynolds, Ph.D.  (bio) will be leading the Social Justice Research Course (SJRC) Mentoring Sessions. The larger vision of these 90-minute sessions is to create a vibrant national community of SJRC instructors for the purpose of mutual mentoring and collaboration. There will be visiting instructors to lead feature sessions on topics of relevance, e.g. teaching social justice in two weeks, helping students devise research questions, tools for supporting students in data analysis, SJRC as decolonized pedagogy, or a topic of your choice.  The format is open.  Participants need a login and password to attend virtually, via a webinar and conference call.  Some participants will be attending in-person at the Cabrillo campus. SJRC instructors are encouraged to drop into these sessions whenever they're available.  Sessions will be held the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays (February 23, March 9, March 23, April 13, April 27, May 11, May 25.) One-on-one sessions will also be offered for new SJRC instructors. 

If you are teaching in an ACE cohort this spring or are planning to teach next fall and wish to attend any of these sessions, please contact Fran Guererro at fran@my-ace.org for registration and login information.

STUDENT PERSPECTIVES

Body/Mind Balance: Movement Awareness Class Assignment

 

In this issue, we bring you a different way of understanding ACE student perspectives, by sharing these powerful self-portraits that students created as part of their Body/Mind Balance: Movement Awareness course, taught by Sharon Took-Zozaya  (bio).  Sharon has been teaching at Cabrillo College for ACE since 2004. She teaches the Foundation Course and Team Self Management course and dance and somatics-based courses for able-bodied and disabled students.

ACE Student Life Size Drawing Link to more ACE student life size drawings

One of the final assignments for the Body/Mind Balance: Movement Awareness class is a life-size body drawing, a project that supports integration of experiences, growth and learning throughout the semester. Students use visual media to explore and express their sense of body image as well as feelings, insights and experiences with the body. Because this is primarily a non-verbal activity, it represents aspects of experience that may not be transmitted in written papers and oral discussions.  Read more>>  

INNOVATION IN THE FIELD

Many of the best changes to ACE come from faculty, staff, and college leaders who were looking for solutions in their own classrooms.  We are pleased to share a few of their ideas and initiatives here.  Please send your innovations to Laurie Rubin at laurie@my-ace.org so we can share your ideas.  

From Las Positas College

ACE as its own department

Las Positas College in Livermore, California has had an ACE program for the last five years.  It is called the College Foundation Semester (CFS) and involves two cohorts each fall. Our Bridge Semester includes the Foundation Course, Team Self Management, English, Math and Computer Information Systems.  We have struggled with how to plan for and allocate funding to courses in multiple disciplines.  Beginning in Fall 2010, CFS submitted its own 'discipline plan' to our College Enrollment Management Committee, the campus body that allocates funding to disciplines.  We had our plan approved and we are now a separate discipline with our own funding allocation.   Our new 'discipline' will now continue each year as a permanent part of our college.   We are very proud and excited to have institutionalized our ACE program.  

-Dale Boercker, Las Positas College. (bio)

From Southwest Virginia Community College   

ACE student emergency fund

Southwest Virginia Community College (SWCC) in Richlands, Virginia introduced our first ACE Cohort last fall and quickly recognized the extra challenges that some of our students face just to stay in the program for the entire semester.   We are located in a coal-mining community with some of the highest poverty rates in the state.  Many of our students catch a bus at 6:30 a.m. for a chance to get an education, and some have to walk a few miles just to get to a bus stop.  To help our retention rates, we have built an ACE contingency fund.  Mary Lawson, the director of the SWCC Educational Foundation started a fundraising campaign to raise funds to sustain the fund and the response has been good. Several of our ACE students have already benefited from the fund, receiving help to pay an electricity bill, getting assistance finding housing, and other emergency needs.  We are exploring ways to expand fundraising outside of the college community and may turn to our ACE cohort alumni for their ideas and enthusiasm in order to find additional support for the contingency fund.  

ACE in the summer

While still new to ACE, we are nonetheless excited to find ways to expand the program on our campus.  This summer, SWCC will be piloting an ACE Summer Semester, including a Foundation Course practicum to train more of our faculty.  We are still in the early planning stages and look forward to sharing what we learn as this program takes shape.  We hope that our efforts may serve as a model for other colleges.

-Phyllis Roberts, SWCC

From Hartnell College

ACE Student Club

Hartnell College  in Salinas, California has been an ACE Partner College since 2008. We run between three and seven cohorts each semester and use the Foundation Course as an entryway for our Nursing CTE program. Our ACE students decided to form a club to get together socially and to support each other. They held two fundraisers last semester and were excited by how they were able to raise money to take visits to other colleges. The students have also been volunteering as recruitment support and spreading the word about the ACE program.

ACE in the evenings and weekends

Hartnell has also been experimenting with an evening and weekend version of the ACE semester to serve our students who are unable to come to daytime classes. Because the curriculum kit didn't match our schedule, instructors at Hartnell got very creative and made it through most of the course curriculum in 10 evenings and 4 weekends.  We had excellent retention and plan to offer an evening/weekend cohort again in the spring.

-Hermelinda Rocha-Tabera, Hartnell College