In Brief: March 2022

Collegiate Academy Professor Jason Carneys ENGL 1301 students recently created 1,200 bookmarks and delivered them to three Collin County elementary schools as a Service Learning project. The students researched literacy and student engagement in Collin County as the basis for the project, chose the elementary schools, and brainstormed how they might get the schools students to engage with literacy. The fun, interactive bookmarks were a group project that they believe will spark engagement.

Collin College Alpha Mu Tau Chapter performed outstandingly well during the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Regional Conference, March 10-13, earning the following awards:

• Five Star Chapter Award
• Community Service Award
• Poster Project
• Hall of Honor for Alumni Neel Dodhia
• Hall of Honor for Outstanding Officers Deeksha Vivekanand
• Hall of Honor for Advisors Professor Brian Blanchard
• Continued Excellence Award for Advisors Professor Brandy Jumper
• Distinguished Chapter Advisor Team Professor Blanchard, Dr. Jessica Hargis, and Professor Brandy Jumper
• College Project of Distinction (Top honor)
• Honors in Action Theme 3 Distinction
• Continued Excellence Chapter (Three years of excellence)
• Most Distinguished Chapter

In December, philosophy professor Dr. John Macready published his book,A Continental Guide to Philosophy. He was interviewed about the book on the Converging Dialogues podcast and the Acid Horizon podcast in January and February. Listen to the Converging Dialogues podcast here:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/converging-dialogues/id1538513554?i=1000549850430.

Jennifer Rice, a math professor at Frisco Campus, had an article titled Cohort 16 Fellows Finish Strong published in the Winter edition of AMATYC News, a publication of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. Her article is on page 6.

The iCollin Virtual Campus and its executive dean Dr. Sarah Lee were recently honored with twoawards from the Texas Distance Learning Association (TxDLA). iCollin won the Excellence and Innovation in Digital Learning Organizational Award. Dr. Lee won the Excellence and Innovation in Digital Learning Individual Award. The awards recognize people, institutions, or corporations that have done the most to benefit and advance the applied practice of digital learning, in the opinion of the TxDLAs members, during the past year. Congratulations to Dr. Lee and the faculty and staff of iCollin on these honors.

In March, Collin College Law Enforcement Academy was invited to serve on a roundtable facilitated by the National Policing Institute located in Arlington, Virginia. The institutes mission is to pursue policing excellence through science and innovation. The focus of the roundtable was to develop a 21^stCentury Protest Response:Promoting Democracy and Advancing Community and Officer SafetyPlanning, Preparing, and Training for Mass Demonstrations.Academy Director Scott Donaldson, CCLEA Program Coordinator Bryan Russell and Instructor Larry Gordon participated in the discussion along with representatives from law enforcement, higher education, counterterrorism, community oversight groups, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Thank you to the participants for representing the college well on the national stage.

DigitalCommons@Collin has now reached a milestone of 75,000 downloads. Users around the world have now downloaded works from our repository 75,000 times.

The Commissioner of the Texas Higher Educational Coordinating Board (THECB) has appointed Professor Leslie Stanaland to serve on a Political Science subcommittee of the THECB to recommend field of study course sequences for transfer to public Texas universities a three-year term from February 2022 to August 2025.

Christine Mook, a reference librarian at Frisco Campus, was accepted to the International Librarian Networking Program (ILNP) and appointed to the American Library Association (ALA) Committee on Diversity. This year will mark the second cohort of the ILNP offered through the International Relations Round Table. For this program, Mook will be paired with a librarian (or librarians) from a different country, with whom she will communicate at least once a week for three months.

Amy Perdreauville, professor at the Frisco Campus, earned the Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP) certification through the GIS Certification Institute.

Dr. Bilal Abu Bakr, professor of Cybersecurity, had four students approved for publication in the Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences (MAS). Presentations by the students will be from March 31-April 1 at the 86^th Annual Meeting of the MAS. The articles are: The Implications of Quantum Computing on Modern Cryptosystems, by Austin Sanders; Analysis and Reevaluation of Ciphers in the Internet of Things, by Melissa Genovese; The Efficacy of Different Ciphers for IoT Devices, by Reed Couture; and Safeguarding the Modern Internet: Machine-Learning-enabled Web Application Firewalls, by Roger Crager. Congratulations to these students for being recognized in the MAS journal.

The Rehab Aide program was awarded a $27,500 Work-Based Learning Opportunity Grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The purpose of the grant is to expand opportunities for professional experience to students through work-based learning opportunities. The grant will run through Summer 2022.

New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro recently awarded the Collin College Public Safety Training Center a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center. The steel, which is roughly 16x16, is being prepared for display at the PSTC in cooperation with a team of faculty members and administrators at the Technical Campus.

Greg Forge, associate dean of Student and Enrollment Services at the Technical Campus, defended his doctoral dissertation at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Karen Musa, executive dean of Corporate College and Continuing Education, and Michelle Millen, dean of Academic Affairs at the McKinney Campus, recently had the article, A Student Is a Student Is a Student, published on The EvoLLLution, a website affiliate of the National Council for Continuing Education Training. The article can be viewed at https://evolllution.com/uncategorized/a-student-is-a-student-is-a-student/.

Traci Ramsey, associate dean at Plano Campus, was a keynote speaker at the Texas Junior College Student Government Association Region II Conference at Dallas College-Brookhaven Campus on March 5. Her presentation was titled, Health, Economic, and Educational Challenges.

For the fourth year, one of the two state finals competitions for the Texas AcademicDecathlonwas held at the Frisco Campus, February 25-27. Forty teams consisting of almost 360 students competed in the three-day event for honors and scholarships.The highlight of the three-day competition was an awards banquet attended by 688 competitors, their families, community supporters, and volunteers. The decathlon is enormous and requires hours of planning by the Collin College coordinator, Professor Bryan Rasmussen. Thank you to Frisco Campus Provost Craig Leverette and Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Dawn Richardson, and the volunteers for their support of the event. A special thank you to the committee leadership, including Eric Tobin and Grace Fox, Shannon Bates, David Boozer, Catherine Duke, Thomas Pickens, Jarred Stewart, Kaycee Washington, Sean Ferrier-Watson, and staff members Renee Long, Ashley McGee, and Amy Wetzel. The support of over 150 volunteers from the college and community was a crucial component of the event running smoothly. Partnerships with Texas AcademicDecathlon, Collin College, Lebanon Trail High School, Embassy Suites Frisco Hotel, and the convention center help the event infuse thousands of dollars into the Frisco economy. Additionally, there is support from our corporate partners State Farm and Eye Care Avenue, as well as Visit Frisco and the Frisco Chamber of Commerce. The committee would like to especially thank Jillian Barr of Embassy Suites, Shane Allen, Kat Balch, and Alicia Suschena. The event has also contributed more than $50,000 in scholarships to the Collin College Foundation over the last five years, in addition to providing thousands in scholarships and awards to participating students.