November AFC News

By amaiden | Published: November 9, 2011

Awesome Adjuncts

We have another awesome adjunct to applaud! Adjunct faculty Gail Drake, who teaches IT courses here at Woodbridge was recently honored at the Heroine in Technology Gala.  At that event, she received the Lifetime Heroine in Technology Award.

Check out the link below for even greater detail on Gail’s achievement! You go Gail!

Gail is awesome!

Upcoming AFC Elections 2012

THE AFC  has decided to postpone the election for new officers until January of 2012, in order to give us time to recruit new candidates for these awesome new leadership positions the council has created. Please consider running for a leadership position with the AFC. The AFC is announcing the following new leadership positions:

 AFC Vice Chair * AFC Public Relations Chair *AFC Treasurer* AFC Secretary

If you would like to run for any of these leadership positions please review the descriptions below and nominate yourself in the comment section of this blog. With your nomination,  please  provide  a short description  explaining why you believe you can fill the particular leadership position for which you are running.

For more information on these positions, and what you need to do in order to run, please click the link below:

AFC Elections 2012

 

Adjunct Wednesdays- Every Third Wednesday

On October 19, 2011, the AFC hosted our very first Adjunct Wednesday event.  Those who attended got a free dinner courtesy of Dr. Hill who was generous enough to assist the AFC with funding for that event.  Former AFC Chair June Forte also made an amazing salad! Seriously! It was so very good! If you weren’t there, too bad you missed out. At our next event, on November 16, at Wegman’s we will be having informal professional development chats by sharing our best teaching practices with each other. Once again, dinner is on the provost.

The purpose of adjunct wednesdays is to bring adjuncts together to socialize, network, discuss concerns and get a little bit of  professional development under our belts.  We will host two sessions each semester, during the mid semester months. Mark your calendars for the spring semester Adjunct Wednesdays:  A Chat and Chew at Wegman’s on Wednesday March 21, 2012 and we’re going to to try the canoe thing again, (hopefully the weather will oblige us) on Wednesday April 18, 2012.

The AFC- What’s In It For Me?

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about why adjuncts should bother to be involved in the AFC. I find that question rather disturbing. Why wouldn’t you want to be involved? Do you want to be counted? Do you want to have a voice with regard to what happens with your employment and employment conditions here at NOVA as an adjunct faculty member? Because there are so many of us and because many of us work in the evenings, it is very easy for our concerns to be discounted; and not even intentionally. We get discounted because we are not around during prime time and/or we are not speaking up. We’re not voicing any concerns; and if we don’t do that, then conditions will never improve for adjuncts.

Since inception, the AFC has pursued issues such as a more reliable pay schedule for adjuncts, advocating for more work space on campus for adjuncts and  has attempted to provide adjuncts with useful professional development opportunities and information. If you are not involved with the AFC, and you are not communicating your concerns to the AFC, you are essentially saying that you don’t matter and that you don’t care about what happens to you as an adjunct. If you do care, you need to become involved. You need to attend AFC events where possible, and you need to communicate with AFC officers about your concerns. So, what’s in it for you? A better and more productive employment experience at NOVA.

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New Pay Schedule

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

When do I get paid? I’ve been working for months now and I have yet to see a single, solitary paycheck! It’s outrageous! This used to be a common NOVA adjunct lament, but if all goes according to plan- no more! Thanks to NOVA’s new Human Resources Information System (HRIS).

 

Due to the implementation of a new HRIS system NOVA adjuncts are getting more frequently. With the new HRIS system, adjuncts should expect to be paid once a month, typically near the middle of the month. Under the old system adjuncts were paid only twice during the summer semester, and three times during the spring and fall semester, for a total of eight pay days per a year. Under the new system, (which was initially implemented during the summer semester) adjuncts can probably be expected to be paid four times during the spring and fall semester and three times during the summer semester for a total of eleven pay days per a year. (Which is progress, all things considered. It used to be that adjuncts were only paid once per a semester. Can you imagine? Oh the horror!) The fall adjunct pay dates are drum roll please: September 16, 2011, October 16, 2011, November 16, 2011, and December 16, 2011. (If all goes according to plan with the new HRIS system, so let’s keep our fingers crossed!) Let’s also give a special shout out to Norman Meres, the present Adjunct Faculty Council Chair, and June Forte former Adjunct Faculty Council Chair for their persistence pursuit of this issue on behalf of adjuncts.  June put the issue on the table, and Norman kept the issue on the table! We are seeing progress in this area, in part, because of their efforts! Thanks Norm and June!

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Awesome Adjuncts!

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

Adjuncts are doing awesome things! At the end of the 2011 Spring Semester, an all-adjunct group quickly coordinated, funded and organized a production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. A special shout out to: LeeAnn Thomas, Organizer, Laurean D. Robinson, Publicity Manager, and Leisha Anderson and Deannna Fleishmann, Stage Directors. These awesome adjuncts dedicated a tremendous amount of time, effort and money to this event.

The Vagina Monologues, has been performed in colleges and communities all over the world since 1996, and is part of V-Day organization’s global efforts to end violence against women and girls in the world.  V-Day is a global activists movement to stop violence against women and girls. In 2010, more than 5400 V-Day events took place around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $75 million and reached over 300 million people. Each year V-Day spotlights a specific group of women to raise awareness. In 2011, women in Haiti were selected for the spotlight.   The event was a benefit performance for Prince William County’s Domestic Violence program, ACTS Turning Points, whose mission is to raise awareness and end violence against women and girls in the community.

Everyone was invited to participate in the event: faculty, students, staff. Adjunct faculty who typically would never meet under ordinary circumstances were working together, alongside their students. Not only was this an amazing opportunity for a community service project that was near and dear to many of the adjunct faculty who participated. Theana Kastens, one of the amazing performers explained that the Vagina Monologues “breaks the “giggle” barrier into serious talk about the immensity of female capacity.”  And so it was really not only this cool way to raise money for a great cause, but it brought about this sort of incredible female bonding experience for female faculty and students a like. Such fun was had while doing the show!

Special Thanks Also to Adjunct Faculty Cast: Amber Maiden, Deanna Fleischmann, Theana Kastens, Leisha Anderson, and LeeAnn Thomas. Student Cast: Alexandrea Harris, Alyssa (Yssa) Kroll, Carmen Ocasio, Destiny Johnson, and Lighting Technician, Christopher Stull. Special shout out also to the Communications and Humanities  Division for their amazing and awesome support of adjuncts! Special thanks to full-time faculty, Dr. Carmen Figueroa, administrative staff Maddie Coradin, Lesley Nyborg and Acting Dean Lori Leeker, as they dedicated their time and support to make the event a great success!

Also, special shout out to Tariq Rahimi, an adjunct from the Natural Science and Math Division, who received the 2011 Adjunct Faculty of the Year Award! From the Board of Directors of the NVCC Alumni Federation! Tariq Rahim is an awesome adjunct!

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To Be a Mentor or To be Mentored, It’s All About Professional Development

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

There’s a great deal of interest in getting various types of mentoring programs up and running at NOVA, college wide and specifically on the Woodbridge campus. Mentoring is very important for adjuncts, because all too often, we are isolated within our community college systems. Many of us work during the evenings when there aren’t many full-time faculty and staff around. Many of us only work part-time, because we have other full-time jobs and really don’t have the time to engage with the greater NOVA community. Many of us adjunct full-time, but between many different campuses. This simply doesn’t leave much time for professional development.

But professional development is extremely important! It’s critical to your profession! If you really want to be really good at what you do, (whatever it is that you do) you need to seek out at least two professional development opportunities a year. And there are plenty available to you. NOVA offers several professional development opportunities. Some of these opportunities are directly on campus, for example the Technology Applications Center (TAC) Representatives  (Julie Quinn and Bo Yang) typically offer workshops throughout the semester that are amazingly informative and provide great insight on how to use the technology that we have to use at NOVA more effectively.

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), which is based primarily out of the Annandale campus, offers many professional development opportunities, which sometimes do end up being offered directly at the Woodbridge campus.  The Virginia Community College System (of which NOVA is a member) also offers many amazing professional development opportunities for adjuncts that are absolutely free! The New faculty Seminar held in the fall in Glen Allen Virginia (right outside of Richmond) at the Wyndam Virginia Crossings Hotel and Conference Center, is a really nice event that every new faculty member should attend!

But if taking off a few days from work to attend a conference in Richmond is a luxury that you just can’t afford, mentoring or being mentored, just might be the way to work some professional development into your schedule. Having a mentor is a great way to evaluate your teaching skills, gain vital institutional knowledge and get informal professional development under your belt. (And professional development is very important if you are considering teaching full-time at some time in the future.)  If you want a mentor, simply request one from your assistant Dean in your division, or the CETL faculty advocate (Nan Peck, Jennifer Taylor) or from an AFC member (Norm Meres, June Forte, Amber Maiden, Julie Quinn, Jeanette Tucker, Lori Leeker).

On the other hand, if you would like to be a mentor, that’s awesome too! We have many adjuncts who have been doing what they do for many, many years, and are qualified to evaluate the teaching skills of lesser experienced adjuncts, pass on their institutional knowledge, and further not only someone else’s’ professional development, but your own! (As teaching is the very best way to further refine skills). The AFC is hoping to pilot a Teaching for Excellence Mentoring Program (where adjuncts mentor adjuncts) sometime during the 2011-2012 academic year, with a little help from the C and H, division.  Additionally, CETL is developing and college-wide mentoring program that will be open to everyone!

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Adjunct Fall 2011 Pay Dates

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

September 16

October 16

November 16

December 16


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Write for Adjunct News!

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

Write for Adjunct News!

Do you have news to share about some awesome adjuncts that you know? Do you have some information that you think is absolutely critical to adjuncts? (Professional development opportunities, opportunities for greater pay, awesome teaching tips?) If so, write it up! Submit it to Adjunct News! The Adjunct Faculty Council is all about adjuncts helping adjuncts to succeed, let’s do it! If you have news that you would like to submit to adjunct news, send your news or article to Amber Maiden at amaiden@ nvcc.edu. (Seriously adjuncts jump in and help out! I had to write this entire newsletter myself, and I’m sick of me!)

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AFC Elections Coming Up in 2012!

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

The Adjunct Faculty Council is an eight-member council, established in 2008 that reports to NOVA’s Woodbridge Campus Council. We convey the needs and the opinions of the adjunct community. And We need YOU!

Yes, it’s true soon, we will be going through  the great big national drama of choosing the big guy  (or gal) who will lead our nation to 2016, but that’s not what I’m referencing here. On a much smaller scale, the AFC needs dedicated and devoted members to fill, at least four – yes count them four (4)  new official positions. They are:

Vice- Chair 

Public Relations Chair

Treasurer

and 

Secretary 

So if you’re interested, please toss your name into the ring! Run for the AFC and make a difference! If your interested, please submit your name, which the position you’d like to fill and why in the comment section below.

If you don’t want to run, be sure to check back in and cast your vote (here on the blog) in January!

 

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Check Your Email!

By amaiden | Published: October 4, 2011

It is absolutely critical that adjuncts check their NVCC email accounts on a daily, (and at the very least weekly) basis. Why? Well, because almost all critical NOVA information gets distributed through email. But, you say, I’ve tried checking my mail via NOVA’s email system and it’s such a pain! (Indeed it may very well be.) But it doesn’t have to be. You have two options: 1. Learn how to use NOVA’s web-based Outlook system. (Which admittedly, I don’t find to be all that user friendly or 2. bundle the NOVA’s Outlook into another email account (like GMAIL) which is far more user-friendly using a POP, IMAP or SMTP feature.

What are these features? Honestly, I have no idea! All I know is if you elect to view your NOVA email in your GMAIL inbox, you can do that through the use of a POP, IMAP or SMTP feature. Some how, when you enter your email address and NOVA password to GMAIL, it allows Google to then bring your NOVA email into your GMAIL account. (You can add as many or as few accounts as you like.) My GMAIL account is my preferred email account because, I find it the easiest, of all of the web-based email systems  to navigate. I can easily check my AOL account, my NVCC account and my GMAIL account all in one place. GMAIL keeps all of these accounts separate. So, it’s easy to keep tabs on which email is coming from which account and you can even respond to NOVA emails, in GMAIL, using your NOVA username so it appears as if you are using your NOVA account. (Even though you are actually using your GMAIL account.  (You can even make phone calls too, for free! GMAIL is so cool!)

If you don’t have a GMAIL account, all you have to do is sign up for one. Once you have it, you can start bringing all of your other accounts into GMAIL by providing the contact information Google needs to access those accounts.  Once you have established a way to easily check your NOVA account, you need to be able to prioritize which emails to read first.

Believe me, because almost all information is distributed via email, you will be inundated with emails from all over the community college system. So, whose email should your check first?

Well your students of course! Students will often email you (through your NOVA account, even if you have them a different email address) because it’s very easy fro them to do so through Blackboard. All they have to do is press a button to get to you that way, and so many times that’s what they do, and especially if you have them using Blackboard.

Secondly, look for emails from your Assistant Dean and any of the administrative staff in your division. Emails from these individuals often contain information that is going to affect you directly. If you don’t know the names of the administrative staff in your division, please get to know them. Administrative staff serves as the backbone of the divisions; and you should know all of their names and pay attention to all emails from them.

After that it all depends upon what you want to know and what you are specifically interested in. If you are interested in what is going on specifically at the Woodbridge Campus, be sure to always check out emails from the Provost-Dr. Sam Hill.  He’s always going to be updating you as to issues that are specific to the Woodbridge Campus. Also, Ann Turpin, Librarian and Alice Reagan, History Professor, who serve on the Campus Council typically, distribute information that affects the Woodbridge Campus.  Heather Witmer, Campus and Community Relations Specialist is the official Woodbridge PR person, so you definitely want to check out what she has to say about what’s up on the Woodbridge Campus.

Mark Bumgarner, Coordinator in the Student Services Center sends out announcements on behalf of Student Services. It’s important to check out what he has to say, because he provides you with information that can help both you and your students to be more successful.

Painting with a Broader Brush, you also want to check out anything from Nan Peck, the Director of CETL, the Center for Teaching Excellence and Learning. She announces all types of professional development opportunities, many of which, you can take advantage of right her on the Woodbridge Campus. (But even if the opportunities are on other campuses, you can still attend.) You also want to check out all announcements from Nan Otterritten, Director of Professional Development for the Virginia Community College System (VCCS).  She is responsible for announcing the professional development opportunities that are being hosted by the VCCS. (Often these are great opportunities, hosted at really nice hotels in Richmond. The VCCS will typically let you stay for one night, completely on them! )

To get an idea of what is going on throughout the entire six campus system, you want to check out Intercom, which is a newsletter that delivers updates on events occurring all over the NOVA community college system. You also want to pay particular attention to

Dr. Anthony Tardd, Acting Executive Vice President of Academic and Student Services, because he provides deadline information: attendance must be in…, classes must be dropped…, never attending students must be reported…grades must be in…., he will fill in the blanks, but you are expected to do your part by meeting the deadlines.

Finally, Steven Sachs Vice President Instructional & Information Technology will tell you many times over don’t allow your self to be a victim of an internet spammer/conartists. He also announces what NOVA is rolling out in terms of the latest and greatest in IT technology. (And it’s always changes, not it seems at the speed of light.)  It Help will notify you of all the internet spam and cons that attack the system, and will also notify as to when Blackboard goes down. William Flagler, Director of Office of Emergency Management and Planning will typically let you know when one or all of the campuses has been closed due to some kind of incident or emergency. He will also provide updates. But, you can probably access this information more easily by signing up for NOVA Alert.

 

 

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Adjunct Wednesdays!

By amaiden | Published: October 3, 2011

RSVP for Adjunct Wednesdays!

This semester the AFC will be rolling out Adjunct Wednesdays! What happens on Adjunct Wednesday? Well basically Adjunct Wednesdays are happening on every third Wednesday of the month. On Wednesday evening we will have some kind of social or networking opportunity for all faculty, but especially adjuncts.

The AFC has two events planned for Adjunct Wednesday; the first is a Picnic, Potluck Canoeing event. Yes you heard correctly, we are going on out canoes! (Won’t that be fun!)?  That event has been scheduled for Wednesday, October 19 at 6 pm, out on the lake! Please feel free to bring your favorite dish to share so that after our great canoeing adventure we’ll have something to eat. Everyone is welcome!

Sign up sheets will be posted in each division. If you plan on attending, please sign up, and let us know what you will be bringing.

The second event is an informal Chat and Chew at Wegmans. This event has been scheduled for Wednesday November 16, also at 6pm. catch a light dinner and prepare to do a bit of networking. All participants have to introduce themselves, what they teach and provide a best practices teaching tip to the group. It’s an easy and informal way to get to know each other better, as well as, all of the various things that adjuncts teach at Woodbridge and the best ways to teach them. Think of all the awesome adjuncts you’ll meet!

 SAVE THE DATE:

October 19, 2011 November 16, 2011

Posted in Adjunct Wednesdays, AFC News | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Awesome to Adjuncts!

By amaiden | Published: October 3, 2011

Awesome to Adjuncts

The purpose of this column is to highlight awesome things that adjuncts are doing, or to highlight awesome things that fulltime or classified staff are doing for adjuncts.

 

Ms. Julie Quinn the Woodbridge Campus Technology Applications Center (TAC) mentor and Dr. Bo Yang of Woodbridge Campus Instructional Support Services (ISS) have been doing awesome things for adjuncts. Typically, either Julie or Bo, or both will present a technology session at the spring and fall adjunct conferences.  During these sessions, they explain how adjuncts can effectively use various technology applications which are available to them at NOVA.

In the sessions that Julie and Bo facilitate, (some of which are specifically for adjuncts, and some are open to all), they can give you all kinds of creative ideas on how to bring technology into your classroom. (And there is so much of it out there these days, from Blackboard, to Google Chrome, to YouTube to WordPress; it’s almost difficult to keep track of it all).

Attending one of these sessions is typically a very wise investment of time, as learning about these various applications often allows you to work smarter instead of harder. As one of my colleagues, recently expressed to me, “I love Blackboard! All I have to do is program the test and Blackboard grades it for me!”

It’s true. You can administer tests in Blackboard, and, if you so choose, Blackboard can even grade the test for you. It’s really not that difficult either. If you can read and write, you can easily create a test in Blackboard.

My life got so much easier when I attended a session hosted by Bo in the spring on the Blackboard Grading Center. Using the Blackboard Grading Center has completely eliminated my need to do any math in my grade calculation process, which I love! But outside of my own personal math anxieties, using this application has made grading a much simpler and far less time consuming process for me. If you aren’t already using this function in Blackboard, you may want to give it a try.

At the August adjunct convocation, Julie and Bo hosted a session on Safe Assign: Plagiarism and Educational Tool.  Another nifty feature in Blackboard is the Safe Assign feature.  Students who are tasked with a writing a research assignment can submit their papers to Safe Assign in order to ascertain how much material they are quoting directly from other sources. The Safe Assign feature checks the student’s work against a vast database and reports back to the student how much of their content is matching information found in the database. It’s also a great tool for teachers to utilize to determine if a paper has been plagiarized. Also, when students know that their work is going to be thoroughly checked for matching content, they tend to make more of an effort to ensure that they are not plagiarizing.

At the spring adjunct conference, Julie presented a session on web-based Outlook, (NOVA’s email system for adjunct faculty). I personally do not find this web-based system to be all that user friendly, but during that session Julie went over some Outlook basics that made using and understanding the system easier for everyone.  As I explained in the First Things First: New Faculty Orientation session at the convocation, checking email is very important. Every adjunct should check his or her email, weekly, if not daily. If signing into and navigating yet another email account, really bums you out, you can typically bundle all of your email accounts into one. I’ll discuss this further in the article “Please Check Your Email!”

Even if you have a personal technology application question, Julie might be able to help you with that as well. I’d been trying to set up a blog in WordPress for a while. I had a lot of questions as to how to go about it, so I asked Julie and found her advice to be extremely helpful.

At any rate if you want more information on the sessions that Julie and Bo will be rolling out this year, check the TAC website at: http://tac.nvcc.edu/training/index.htm or the ISS website at: http://www.nvcc.edu/woodbridge/iss/

You’re not strictly limited to the Woodbridge campus either, if you’d like to attend TAC sessions at other campuses, you can do that as well. Also, if you have any technology application issue that you’d like to see addressed at any of the adjunct convocations or conferences, let me know and I’ll try to get it on the agenda.

Posted in Adjunct Council Members, Adjunct Resources, Adjunct Wednesdays, AFC News, Awesome Adjuncts! | Leave a comment