DSC board approves new courses

Brandyn Krampert
In Motion Staff Writer

A series of new programs and courses were approved during the Daytona State College Board of Trustees meeting in March.

One was three certificates to train transit technicians, which is part of a partnership with Volusia County and Votran. The classes will be held on-site at Votran and they will select the instructors but will be credentialed according to DSC standards. The other program was an Advanced Technical Certificate in Web Systems Software Development.

A finger spelling class was added to the catalog for American Sign Language students as well as two criminal justice classes related to forensics, introduction to humanities, literature and culture and an expansion of the Quality Ehancement Plan class, College Resources from a 1 credit class to a 3 credit class and will be required for graduation.

It’s essentially a course to teach students the resources from the DSC-UCF Writing Center to the library to the Academic Support Center. Amy Locklear, Vice President of Academic Affairs said, “We’ve always heard that this is the best practice for the students to get in touch with all the resources that we know will help them succeed.”

It’s one effort of DSC to increase student retention rates and for the college to gain a better standing for the performance-based funding from the state. Other recent implementations have been shortening the add and drop period, creating a new math pathway for non-STEM majors and creating a new required developmental English course.

Recently the school ranked 23 out of 28 colleges in a preliminary ranking, although the funding model is still being revised and won’t officially be released until the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

DSC Interim President LoBasso said, “It has energized us. I’m confident we are ready for it. It’s a good thing.”

But according to Chris Mullin, executive vice chancellor of the state’s college system, performance funding will only account for about 1 or 2 percent of a school’s overall funding.

Other plans expressed at the meeting to increase retention are to enforce students to register on time for classes, hiring more advisers on campus and making orientation mandatory.

The model will be based on rates of retention, graduation and employment among other things.

In other news, the school’s marketing department won a silver ADDY Award for 2015 provided by the American Advertising Awards that attracts over 40,000 entries a year within the advertising industry.

The Vice Chair, Forough Hosseini gave an update to the board on the presidential search committee to find another president for DSC.

She reported that they had an overview of the different listening sessions that the committee conducted in early March at each of the campuses and reviewed the Sunshine Law for those on the committee that do not know of what they can and cannot do on a public committee at their last meeting. She also noted that they had discussed different search firms and that the process is on schedule.