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October 9, 2015
Vol. 2, Issue 6
Board of Trustees

Chairman of the Board
Anna U. Bustamante
District 3

Vice Chair
Dr. Yvonne Katz
District 7

Secretary
Joe Alderete, Jr.
District 1

Asst. Secretary
Clint Kingsbery
District 8

Denver McClendon
District 2

Marcelo S. Casillas
District 4

Roberto Zarate
District 5

Dr. Gene Sprague
District 6

James Rindfuss
District 9

Sami C. Adames
Student Trustee

Chancellor

Dr. Bruce Leslie
Alamo Colleges
Alamo Colleges - Northeast Lakeview College Student Champions Military Canines 
Former Alamo Colleges - Northeast Lakeview College student Lisa Phillips' and her retired military working dog, Sgt. Rambo, who was recently named Military Dog of the Year.

When former Alamo Colleges - Northeast Lakeview College (NLC) student Lisa Phillips' retired military working dog (MWD) Sgt. Rambo was named Military Dog of the Year, it was the icing on the cake for Phillips, who successfully campaigned to have MWD's reclassified from "equipment" to canine members of the Armed Forces. The U.S. Congress passed the reclassification act and it was signed by the president last year.

Phillips' campaign to help retired military working dogs began with an essay she wrote in her English class at NLC, where she enrolled after an injury ended her service as a vet tech in the U.S. Army. In her essay, Phillips wrote about the financial burden families who adopt retired military working dogs face. Phillips' instructor encouraged her to take action to solve the problem, and, with guidance from speech professor Dr. Archie Wortham and the NLC Civic Leadership Club, she worked with members of Congress on the reclassification  effort. 

Phillips is the founder and CEO of the Retired Military Working Dog Assistance Organization, a non-profit which worked to have military working dogs reclassified. The organization also raises money to help cover the medical costs of the dogs once they retire and are adopted. Sgt. Rambo served with the U.S. Marine Corps and continues to raise awareness of the needs of retired military working dogs. He serves as the mascot for the non-profit Gizmo's Gifts, which provides care and support for such dogs. 

Two of the Alamo Colleges Awarded Title V Federal Grants To Assist Hispanic-Serving Institutions
Students at Alamo Colleges - San Antonio College (pictured) and
Alamo Colleges - Northwest Vista College will benefit from federal
Title V grants the colleges recently received.


Alamo Colleges - San Antonio College (SAC) and Alamo Colleges - Northwest Vista College (NVC) will benefit from recently awarded multi-million dollar grants from the U.S. Department of Education Title V program for federally-designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

SAC was awarded a $2.62 million grant from the Puentes Project. The grant, funded over the next five years, aims to provide bridges that help students navigate the academic and cultural divide from enrollment, to remedial education, onwards to college-level study, and eventual graduation and transfer.

Administered as part of the Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions (DHSI) Program, the Puentes Project's mission is to help increase the number of low-income and Hispanic students who graduate on-time and transfer to a four-year college or university.

A portion of the funds also has been earmarked for improving teaching technology with regards to online learning and remedial courses. Additionally, more than $417,000 will be used to modernize labs within the biology, geology and psychology departments.

NVC received a $2.4 million grant to improve graduation rates and math completion. The grant will fund the five-year "Project Math Paths" initiative, which is designed to provide "intrusive" student advising, accelerate the developmental math sequence and monitor student progress, along with other improvements.

Alamo Colleges - Palo Alto College is the only community college in the nation taking part in the Participatory Budget process.

Alamo Colleges - Palo Alto College Offers Participatory Budgeting Program

Alamo Colleges - Palo Alto College (PAC) students now have the opportunity to propose and vote on how institutional funds are used due to a worldwide project called The Participatory Budgeting Project (PB). This project is a different way to manage public funds by engaging stakeholders to collaborate and decide how to spend the funds. PAC is the only community college in the U.S. taking part in the PB process.

PB started at Palo Alto College in 2013 with groups of faculty and staff. Since then, faculty and staff members have been able to work together to submit project ideas with budgets up to $5,000. On the campus, the results can be seen in projects such as the Ray Ellison Center bike trail and the Palomino Patio, which were among the projects proposed and voted for by faculty and staff.

Now in its fourth cycle, the program has expanded and will now be available for student submissions starting in Fall 2015. A total of $25,000 has been set aside specifically for students to propose and turn ideas in to action.

PAC sophomore Robert James Casillas said, "It will be cool to see something on campus and say 'that was me, my idea,' or 'I had a say in that.'"

All currently enrolled PAC students will be allowed to take part in the voting process in the Fall 2015 semester, and the projects with the most votes will be funded and implemented in Spring 2016. However, only student groups and organizations will be able to propose and submit ideas this year.


The Alamo Colleges mission is: empowering our diverse communities for success. Our vision is: the Alamo Colleges will be the best in the nation in student success and performance excellence. The Alamo Colleges is one district with five community colleges serving more than 90,000 students annually from Bexar County and seven other counties in our service area. We provide an affordable, quality college education that leads to associate degrees, certificates and transfers to four-year universities. Hundreds of thousands of Bexar County residents who have come through the Alamo Colleges education programs are major contributors to the economy and culture of San Antonio.