LLCC is participating in the online Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) administration during the month of March. CCSSE is a national survey focused on teaching, learning, and retention in community colleges. To learn more about CCSSE visit www.ccsse.org.
We launched the survey on March 2, and 579 students have responded thus far. We are far short of our goal of 2000 completions. Please encourage students to share their perspective.
The vice president of student services is currently seeking nominations for Outstanding Graduate for Commencement 2021. The recognition of a student as the Outstanding Graduate is an important part of the commencement tradition at LLCC.
Each year, you have the opportunity to nominate candidates for consideration for this recognition. If you would like to nominate a student, instructions and graduate listings are attached below for your convenience. Submit the Outstanding Graduate nomination form by by the end of the day, April 8, 2021.
Nominees must have completed graduation requirements at the end of summer term 2020, fall semester 2020, or be candidates for graduation at the end of spring semester 2021 or summer term 2021.
If you have any questions, please contact Gailyn Draper at gailyn.draper@llcc.edu.
Outstanding Graduate Nomination Memo
2021 Grads with a 3.0 GPA or higher
In January, LLCC Student Success announced a partnership with Talkspace to provide online therapy services to LLCC students. As a result, we do not offer personal counseling services on campus anymore and have updated our crisis protocol to reflect the change. Below, please find guidance on what to do if you are working with a student in crisis or with a student who is needing additional support. In addition, a copy of the LLCC Comprehensive Reporting Guide can be saved or printed to serve as a reminder about student crisis response and mandated reporting.
Faculty and staff are also invited to attend a session on Professional Development Day to learn more about LLCC’s partnership with Talkspace, crisis protocol and Behavioral Intervention Team. Questions can be directed to Leslie Johnson, assistant vice president, student success at leslie.johnson@llcc.edu or 217-786-2848.
For the purposes of this protocol, the term crisis includes:
If faculty and staff encounter a student in crisis (suicidal ideation or homicidal), they should immediately report the situation to the LLCC Police Department at 217-786-2222. The police department will decide whether they need to take further action such as:
The LLCC Police Department will then inform the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) for follow up. The BIT will check in with the student, monitor their needs and progress, and initiate any actions necessary for the wellbeing and safety of all members of the LLCC community.
If faculty and staff encounter a student who is NOT in crisis but needs additional support, they should refer the student to Talkspace or community resources (view information on community resources). Referring a student to additional support like counseling is not difficult when you are genuinely concerned about the student and practice referring ahead of time. First and foremost, express appreciation for the student sharing information with you by saying something such as “I really appreciate you sharing this with me.” Other appropriate responses include: “I am concerned about you,” “It sounds like you have a lot going on,” “It sounds like things have been stressful for you,” “Do you have someone you talk to about these things?” “Would you be open to talking with a counselor about the things we discussed?” “I find talking with someone like a counselor about these issues is helpful, would you be interested in doing that?”
To get started with Talkspace, students can go to talkspace.com/llcc and enter the keyword emailed to their LLCC email or available on Blackboard, Canvas and LLCC Connect. They can also reach out to their student success coach for more information or the keyword. Also, please remember that you can refer students to their success coach for additional support or concerns.
Please note: faculty and staff who become aware of students experiencing sexual violence such as domestic violence, dating violence, stalking or sexual assault, whether or not it occurred on campus, should contact Shelby Bedford, compliance & prevention coordinator, immediately. Shelby will provide the student with information about their rights and options, connect the student to LLCC’s confidential advisors, and provide support and resources.
LLCC Finance has issued FY22 payroll dates. The dates are located on My LLCC > Employee Portal > Finance Department > FY22 Payroll Dates. If you have an employees that do not have access, please advise them of the dates.
Illinois Community Colleges Online (ILCCO) will be hosting an accessibility conference, Breaking Down Barriers, during the month of May. Registration is required; however, this event is free and open to faculty and staff at all Illinois community colleges.
This conference is an opportunity to engage in best practices in moving your instruction and your campus to a more inclusive culture. Each Friday in May, you will have the opportunity to engage with expert presenters that highlight and celebrate being accessible, designing with educational technologies that work for everyone, working towards institutional compliance and designing your course to have a focus on inclusive course design. Not only will you be engaged and hear from experts, you’ll also hear from your peers and your students.
Each Friday will begin with a keynote presentation followed by the option of selecting one of three tracks during the Zoom session. Choose to attend a lightning round with four, 15-minute presentations, a panel presentation track or hear more from the keynote presenter. Afterward, engage with participants all month long in the back-channel chat. Join ILCCO as they Break Down the Barriers and share stories and resources to help you and your campus on your accessibility journey.
10 a.m. – Keynote: Thomas Tobin, Ph.D. “Why Accessibility is “Step Zero” toward Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”
11 a.m. – Track 1: Lightning Round Discussions, Track 2: Fireside Chat Conversations, Track 3: Student Panel on Accessibility
10 a.m. – Featured Speaker: Dawn Monroe
11 a.m. – Track 1: Lightning Round Discussions, Track 2: Fireside Chat Conversations, Track 3: Follow up discussion with featured speaker
10 a.m. – Featured Speaker: Robert Gibson, Ed.D.
11 a.m. – Track 1: Lightning Round Discussions, Track 2: Fireside Chat Conversations, Track 3: Follow up discussion with featured speaker
10 a.m. – Featured Speaker: Vance Martin, Ph.D.
11 a.m. – Track 1: Lightning Round Discussions, Track 2: Fireside Chat Conversations, Track 3: Follow up discussion with featured speaker
Sworn to protect our campus from lawlessness meet one of the newest members of the Justice LEAGUE, Chris Russell. Retiring from the Springfield Police Department after 25 years of service, Chief Russell began as chief of police at LLCC in June 2020.
Born and raised in Springfield, Chris is an LLCC alum and a graduate of Illinois State University and Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command.
Can you guess this Justice LEAGUE superfriend?
Superfriend name: Mighty Gem
Superpower: A real jewel when it comes to assisting students in Cass County
Submit your answer by email to LLCCFoundation@llcc.edu for a chance to win a prize!
Congratulations to Laurie Lewis-Fritz for her correct guess.
Remember to join the Justice LEAGUE superfriends at noon on Zoom on Professional Development Day for trivia, a superhero costume contest and the announcement of the LEAGUE Grant awards. The link can be found on the schedule of activities for PDD provided in an email by human resources.
The LEAGUE grant awards will be announced during the Zoom event. View this video of a former LEAGUE grant recipient to see how your donations benefit our students.
If you would like to make your donation now to the LEAGUE Campaign, please complete the 2021 LEAGUE Form or contact the Foundation at 217-786-2785 or LLCCFoundation@llcc.edu.
The LLCC Board of Trustees is meeting today, March 24, at 5:15 p.m. in the Trutter Center. Read the agenda.
Users are asked to submit their items through the SharePoint form between March 1 and 26 for the FY22 planning and budgeting process. Access to the form will close at the end of the day Friday, March 26.
To aid budget managers in submitting Existing Budget Increase/Decrease (budget maintenance) requests, the budget office emailed budget baseline worksheets to users. If you are a budget manager of an auxiliary unit and are making budget maintenance adjustments, you are required to attach the baseline worksheets to your forms prior to submission. See the directions pdf for more information.
Written directions and instructional videos have been created to assist users with form completion. These items and the link to the Planning & Budgeting SharePoint Form are posted to the FY2022 Planning & Budgeting link on the Finance Department’s SharePoint page.
As LLCC Academic Innovation & eLearning plans for the final stage of the transition from Blackboard to Canvas, it is time to start backing up any existing content in Blackboard that you would like to retain for future access or use in Canvas. The college’s license with Blackboard will expire at the end of this fiscal year (June 2021), and access for all users will terminate at that time.
In preparation for this system closure, AIeL has developed instructions (emailed March 23) to assist you with the process of exporting your courses as well as your individual grade books. For record keeping, it is important that you export each course and export the gradebook for each class as a separate file. You will produce two separate files for each course in Blackboard.
The deadline to have all Blackboard exports and backups complete is close of business, Wednesday, May 26, 2021.
If you have any questions about exporting course or gradebook content, please contact Gary Bach, instructional technology specialist at gary.bach@llcc.edu or at 217-786-2345.
Tomorrow, March 25, at 6:30 p.m., Emily Graslie will deliver a live-virtual presentation on “The Power of Curiosity” as a part of the NEA Big Read: Sangamon County. Join us as we learn about Emily’s creative journey as a lifelong champion of curiosity, through the lenses of fine art and science communication. Please pre-register at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sYUxB-qPTWuHIFBGiaRDOQ
Emily Graslie was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. After moving to Missoula, Montana to pursue an undergraduate degree in fine art painting, she fell in love with the campus vertebrate research collection as a place of artistic inspiration. What started off as a passionate volunteering position within a small museum eventually transformed into a career as an advocate for these under-appreciated repositories. As Chief Curiosity Correspondent for the Field Museum in Chicago, she served as creator, host and writer of The Brain Scoop, an educational YouTube channel with 200+ episodes about natural history that have been viewed more than 32 million times. In 2020 she made her broadcast television debut on PBS as Executive Producer, Host and Writer of Prehistoric Road Trip, a new series by WTTW Chicago about paleontology and geology in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming. Emily has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including the American Alliance of Museum’s Nancy Hanks Award for Professional Excellence. She’s a six-time Webby Award nominee and honoree in the ‘Online Science/Education Channel’ and ‘Web Personality/Host’ categories; a member of the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list in Education; and was named as one of the Chicagoans of the Year in the Arts in 2017 by the Chicago Tribune. Recently, in recognition of her outreach efforts, scientists at the Universities of Florida and Paraná in Brazil named a new species of butterfly in her honor: Wahydra graslieae.