Bert's Alerts - April 3, 2015
In the Spotlight
On Monday, April 6, College of Western Idaho (CWI) kicked off a new social media promotion aimed at celebrating personal milestones of current and future CWI students. The U.0 Upgrade Contest will encourage people to share photos that embody the College’s new marketing campaign. Participants can enter by taking a photo depicting their CWI Upgrade, sharing the photo through Instagram or Twitter and tagging the hashtag #cwIupgrade in the caption. Learn more by reading the full article.
News Highlights
Paramedic Program Hosts Accreditation Visit
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Paramedic program hosted a site visit in March as part of its effort to achieve national accreditation. The program, which is offered through CWI’s Workforce Development division, is seeking accreditation through the Committee on Accreditation of Educational Programs for Emergency Medical Services Professions (CoEMSP). CoEMSP sent two evaluators to review the Paramedic program for initial accreditation. Feedback CWI has received indicates the visit was highly successful.
The program is seeking accreditation to ensure the program’s quality instruction meets national standards, which are maintained by the CoEMSP in an independent, objective peer-review manner. The accreditation standards also help ensure students are prepared to deliver adequate care for the community upon graduation.
For more information about CoEMSP visit http://coaemsp.org/.
Law Enforcement Program to Host Information Session
On April 9, the College of Western Idaho (CWI) Law Enforcement Program will host a public information session for anyone interested in learning more about the new program. The event will take place at 4 p.m. in room 322 of the Nampa Campus Academic Building. Program Chair, LeRoy Forsman will be on hand to answer questions and meet with potential applicants. This year’s deadline for the program’s competitive entry application is May 1.
CWI Scholarship Deadline Extended to April 30
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Foundation is happy to announce the deadline for online scholarship applications will be extended until April 30. The CWI Foundation has both general and program-specific scholarship opportunities available to students for the 2015-16 academic year. Visit cwi.edu/scholarshipapplication for more information. Students are encouraged to check the scholarships webpage often as new scholarships are regularly being added and applications may need updated.
CWI Performing Arts Faculty to Showcase Talents
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Department of Visual and Performing Arts is proud to present an intimate evening of classical and contemporary music performed by CWI’s outstanding and multi-talented performing arts faculty. The faculty will showcase their talents in a public recital on Friday (April 10) at 7 p.m. in the second floor atrium of the Nampa Campus Academic Building.
This wide-ranging recital will feature instrumental performances by Svetlana Nagachevskya-Maddox (piano), Jacob Ineck (guitar), Karel Lidral (saxophone), and Rob Walker (trumpet), as well as vocal performances by Vernae Buck, Jim Poston, Marianne Saunders, and Bonnie Salewski.
The free concert is made possible by a generous donation from Dunkley Music.
STEM Earns March Madness Bragging Rights
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) hosted its second annual March Madness virtual training, March 9-19, which brought together Academic Transfer and Professional Technical Education programs for creative collaboration. This year’s training was turned into a friendly, collegial competition that put programs in head-to-head competitions of sharing classroom best-practices. The winners were determined through a faculty vote. The CTL is happy to announce the winner of this year’s March Madness training competition is the school of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
STEM won three resounding victories by sharing their ideas on best practices; from creating a safe and fun way to do student introductions to two wonderful ways to assess student understanding. CWI’s Executive Vice President for Instruction and Student Services, David Shellberg, presented the trophy to Assistant Dean Maia Kelley, Department Chairs Susan Aydelotte, Nicole Frank, and Willard Pack, and STEM Administrative Assistant Heidi Mackenzie on April 1.
Although STEM claimed the trophy, the real winners are CWI’s students as faculty shared and learned a number of new techniques meant to create engaging and positive learning environments. Jana McCurdy, Psychology faculty, commented, “I really enjoyed the format of this presentation. It was very helpful for me to consider each idea and which ones I could incorporate into my teaching… there are a couple of these I plan to try.”
The CTL would like to thank everyone who participated in the competition and congratulate STEM.
April Staff Senate Meeting
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Staff Senate will host its next meeting on Thursday, April 9, from 8:30-10:00 a.m., at the Nampa Campus Micron Center for Professional Technical Education, Room 1117. All CWI staff is invited to attend these monthly meetings to share ideas and concerns, or simply receive an update on Staff Senate activity. If you're unable to attend but would like a meeting update or to share a discussion topic, please contact a staff senator or email staffsenate@cwi.edu or leave an anonymous question or concern in the suggestion boxes at any of the following five locations:
- Ada County Center (Pintail)
- Canyon County Center
- Nampa Campus Academic Building
- Nampa Campus Administration Building
- Nampa Campus Micron Center for Professional Technical Education
Staff Senate meetings are the second Thursday of every month at various locations. Visit the Staff Senate page on myCWI for more details! https://my.cwi.edu/committees/senate/default.aspx
