In Brief: November-December 2023

Frisco Campus Professor Mike Panahi and his students Itay Kadosh, Leydon Goble, and Aditya Vashishth attended the Eighteenth Annual Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, hosted by Stephen F. Austin State University on Oct. 27-28. Students presented their research on “Efficiency of Gauss Seidel and Convergence of Iterative Methods.” They completed their research under Panahi’s guidance on iterative methods and conditions for convergence when successive approximations can generate solutions and when they converge to exact solutions. The presenters discussed a viable alternative algorithm that can provide solutions with sufficient accuracy and fast convergence. Students showed examples of tests for convergence and explored the statistics of convergence under different conditions.

Collin College volunteers worked with the city of McKinney to help remove trash from the area between Taylor Burke and 380 on the east side of McKinney Campus on Nov. 11. Eighty-nine students, faculty, staff, and community members removed more than 101 bags of trash and other large items. Organizers called the cleanup a great success and an excellent opportunity for faculty and students to engage in impactful community service. Thank you to everyone involved, with special appreciation going to Judi Wohead, Seema Endley, Susan Forshaw-Evans, Cathleen Akers, Alice Miank, and Gwen Miller. The campus looks forward to scheduling another cleanup in Spring 2024 on Earth Day or in conjunction with a City of McKinney event.

The Public Safety Training Center partnered with the Allen police and fire departments for a debriefing about the May 6 Allen Premium Outlets shooting on Nov. 13. This free event targeted at first responders drew so much interest from local law enforcement and firefighting agencies that four additional sessions have been scheduled to serve the 300 people who signed up. In addition to municipal first responders from as far away as Fort Worth, the sessions also drew police department personnel from The University of Texas at Arlington, The University of Texas at Dallas, and University of North Texas and security personnel from other open-air malls. Subjects included the initial attack and response, historical training, integrated response, obstacles encountered, evacuation and searches, lessons learned, and more. The remaining four sessions will be held on Dec. 11-12.

Jacqueline Grayczyk, manager of Financial Aid and Veterans Services, designed a winning entry in Texas Health-Prosper’s annual Bra Art Competition. The competition is meant to raise awareness about breast cancer.

Dr. Kyle Bellue has been selected as the new Sergeant of Arms for the Farmersville Rotary. 

The Technical Campus hosted the Engineering Technology Career Fair on Nov. 10.

Adam Clawson gave two instructional seminars on building a LinkedIn profile, and Carolyn Mitchell assisted with LinkedIn headshots. Industry partners and faculty offered résumé reviews. Those partners included GE Healthcare, Qorvo, Renaissance – Network Reinvent, Texas Instruments, and more.

Workforce coaches Kate Smith of Technical Campus and Deidra Carpenter from Wylie Campus represented Collin College at the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (TACROA) Conference in Denton in late October. The pair presented “Successful Strategies in Workforce Coaching” at the conference.

The Technical Campus recently hosted the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) Region III Student Leadership Conference with future safety professionals from Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma spending much of their time in the campus’s Safety Lab.

Workforce Coach Sean Sweeden can be spotted several times in the background of a news report on the Choctaw Nation’s “College Connect” event in Durant, Oklahoma. Check out this link to spot Sweeden.

Frisco Campus Mathematics Professor Connie Chan completed her Project ACCCESS fellowship with the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), culminating in a presentation of her poster project investigating student awareness of learning resources in asynchronous web classes at the 2024 AMATYC annual conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Project ACCCESS is a mentoring and professional development initiative for faculty in their first years of teaching college mathematics.