Welcome from College Senate Chair Jack Lechelt

August 20, 2024 / Faculty/Staff Highlights

My name is Jack Lechelt, your Chair of the College Senate. I’m also a political science professor at the Loudoun Campus. I’ve been at NOVA since 2006. If you want to know more about my boring life, you can read this brief bio.  

This is a busy time of year and we’re all getting situated, but I want to let everyone know that the College Senate has a lot of opportunities for you to get involved in our shared governance structure. NOVA’s College Senate represents everyone at NOVA: students, staff and faculty. The Senate comprises representatives from all areas of NOVA, including all campuses, Pender and anywhere else NOVA exists. Each campus has a kind of “mini-Senate” called a forum council. There is also a collegewide body called the College Staff Forum Council for College staff who are not on a campus. Watch Spring elections for forum councils. Winners serve two-year terms on their forum councils. Just after those elections, the forum councils elect a few of their members to serve on the College Senate for a one-year term. The College Senate then selects its leaders for the year. This past spring, the College Senate elected John Sound as vice chair, Beth Lanthier as your secretary and I chose Ashlie Warnick as the parliamentarian. These are wonderful people and we look forward to working with you. Keep your eyes open for fall special elections: we need to fill several vacancies on several forum councils. If you’re curious about what that will entail, please contact me or any of the Forum Council chairs listed above.  

Beyond forum councils and the Senate, there are committees of all sorts to ensure our College leaders hear your opinions and ideas. I cannot promise you that our efforts carry the day, but we are heard. Our effectiveness depends on a lot of factors, some of which are beyond our control, but your involvement is the one factor you have control over, and I am certain that you can help us help NOVA and our students.

Here is some useful information you can refer to later:

Title/Group

Name

Email Address

Chair, College Senate

Jack Lechelt

jlechelt@nvcc.edu

Vice-Chair, College Senate

John Sound

jsound@nvcc.edu

Secretary, College Senate

Beth Lanthier

elanthier@nvcc.edu

Parliamentarian, College Senate

Ashlie Warnick

awarnick@nvcc.edu

Chair, Alexandria Forum Council

Sue Jean Cho

scho@nvcc.edu

Chair, Annandale Forum Council

Alex Bohn

albohn@nvcc.edu

Chair, College Staff Forum Council

Jamie Ellis

jellis@nvcc.edu

Chair, Loudoun Forum Council

Mike Polcen

mpolcen@nvcc.edu

Chair, Manassas Forum Council

John Sound

jsound@nvcc.edu

Chair, Medical Education Campus

Nick Zefran

nzefran@nvcc.edu

Chair, Woodbridge Forum Council

Tony Smith

easmith@nvcc.edu

Chair, Personnel Services Committee

Donna Minnich

dminnich@nvcc.edu

Chair, Instructional and Student Services Committee

Vacant for the moment

 

 

The world is a bit crazy right now. Lots of international tension and a national election season is upon us. As a political scientist, I care about all of that. But I find that getting involved in more local issues is a great way to meet nice people who want to do good things. I hope you’ll consider doing good things with us.

If you have ANY questions or concerns, please reach out to me at jlechelt@nvcc.edu.

Submitted by:
Jack Lechelt, Chair of the College Senate, JLechelt@nvcc.edu