Rotary Auditorium

The Origins of Black History Month
What we now call Black History Month originated in 1926, founded by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was selected in deference to Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln who were both born in that month. Carter G. Woodson was born in New Canton, Virginia, on December 19, 1875, and was the son of a slave. He began high school at the age of 20 and then proceeded to study at Berea College, the University of Chicago, the Sorbonne, and Harvard University, where he earned a PH.D in 1912. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 to train black historians and to collect, preserve, and publish documents on black life and black people. He also founded the Journal of Negro History (1916), Associated Publishers (1922), and the Negro Bulletin (1937). Woodson spent his life working to educate all people about the vast contributions made by black men and women throughout history. Mr. Woodson died on April 3, 1950 and Black History Month is his legacy. Source:  inventorsabout.com/od/blackinventors/a/
BlackHistoryMonth.htm—Submitted by Diversity Task Force (02.08.12)

Focus on Diversity Archive

The International Club
Advisor, Sydia Gayle-Fenner, (704.878.4372, sgaylefenner@mitchellcc.edu)
The International Club explores a variety of cultural backgrounds for those who are interested in learning more about other cultures. Advisor, Sydia Gayle-Fenner, worked with her student team, and they hosted a panel discussion with a student from India, discussed weddings in different cultures with China as the main focus, and talked about customs and practices in different cultures. The International Club also co-sponsored the International Festival in April.

Mitchell Community College Christian Community
Advisor, David Moss, (704.878.3317, dmoss@mitchellcc.edu)
Mitchell Community College Christian Community allows Christian students on campus to get together for worship, Bible study, outreach, and fellowship. This club just started in Spring of 2011, and the Student Leadership Team worked with advisor, David Moss, to kick start an incredible program.—Submitted by Anita McGill (08.17.11)

ARCHIVE

Tips for Greener Trash Practices
According to the Seventh Generation company, if every household in America replaced just 20 tall kitchen drawstring trash bags made with virgin plastic with 20 bags made with 65 percent recycled content, we would save 39,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 2,200 US homes for a year. We would also save landfill space and reduce air pollution needed to produce the plastic. Here are some ways to be greener with trash disposal:

ARCHIVE

New Challenges: Memory Series
The brain can recall and store much more information than we generally think it can. To use more of it, we must first, as mentioned last week, give up negative self-talk. "I can," rather than "I can’t" must become our mantra. The Greeks developed mnemonics, later used by the Romans, and being revived today as a major method to remember lists of things. Short term memory involves mostly left-brain triggers such as order, sequence, and numbers. In addition to repetition, using right-brain triggers such as imagination, exaggeration, humor, absurdity, color and the senses, enhances the ability to move information to long-term memory and retrieve it more easily. If you were asked to remember and list the five Tudor English monarchs in order, you might think of going into a museum and in hall number seven (a lucky number) you see a portrait of Henry the Seventh. You think "how appropriate," and next to him is Henry the Eighth. Once again it seems logical. Then you hear over the intercom in a ghostly voice "EME" several times. EME is an acronym for Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. Now, think of the story, visualize and listen to it. Name the five rulers in order. If you can’t, reread the story and try again. —Submitted by Employee Development (08.25.10)

Take a Break from Work
If you begin working early in the morning and don’t quit until bedtime, there will be no room in your life to focus on anything but your job. So, make sure you take some time for non-work activities everyday or at least several times a week. Here’s how you can spend some of your time away from work:

Health & Wellness Corner Archive

• Accessing MCC|net Remotely
  MCC|net is the internal website for faculty and staff that hosts training materials, forms, upcoming events, benefits information and much more. Did you know that you can access MCC|net from your home, your office, while on vacation or anywhere else you can get an Internet connection? All you need is your username (lastname.firstname) and password and this website address: http://mccnet.mitchellcc.edu. If you have any problems accessing MCC|net, please contact David Ross at (704) 978-1304 or dross@mitchellcc.edu. If you do not have an MCC|net account, send an e-mail to David Ross with the following information:

  • Your Name

  • Title

  • Faculty/Staff

  • Department

  • Full Phone Number (not just the extension)

  • Office Location (building & room #—or Off-Campus if you have a home office)

  • E-mail Address

—Submitted by David Ross (09.01.10)

• A Greener Mitchell
  Did you know that the average worker prints about 10,000 pages per year? 

Did you know that the use of e-mail actually increases the number of printed pages by about 40%?

Finally, do you realize that the number of pages printed in most offices increases by 20% per year?

And here’s the worst part… these figures don’t even include the money spent on storage (filing cabinets and office space), postage, lost documents (and time spent trying to find them), wasted or outdated forms and all the labor costs associated with printing any form, file or document.

With Dr. Eason and the State talking about more budget cuts for the upcoming year and with the passing of the Electronic Signatures Policy by the Board of Trustees last month—this would be a great time to start looking at reducing the amount of money spent on printing costs.

What can you do?

1. Find a copy of all the forms, files, documents and flyers that you print.  This includes syllabi, schedules, internal or external forms, manuals, samples (that you may give to students or employees), and anything else.  You don’t have to print them if they are already electronic.

2. Sit down and talk with me – I’ve worked with a number of companies and organizations to implement online applications and forms that have reduced their paper consumption from 80-100%.

3. Then we can determine the best way to reproduce some or all of your documents and forms online.

Greener Examples
Here are just a couple of examples based on conversations I’ve had of how we can go greener.

• Randall Willie in Co-op Education gives out a folder to just about every student that comes to Mitchell. The folder contains about 20 pages including timesheets, job description forms, example resumes, guidelines and other forms (in triplicate).  He said that most of the companies that have co-op jobs available fax in their job descriptions for posting on the website and job board—these require manual entry.  After our talk, we decided to create a web-based application that will allow students and employers to access and update their information, post job details, complete timesheets and more—potentially reducing his folder to 1 page with a website address and instructions (95% reduction).

• Judy Phillips in the Printing and Graphic Design Services Center has 2 forms (print requisitions and paper/stationery requisition). Surprisingly, she gets a number of these forms that are not completed correctly or are missing essential information (like quantity of copies needed). She also makes a copy of the completed form as a receipt. These forms can be reproduced online and setup so that they cannot be submitted until they are completed with all required information and a half-sheet receipt can be generated as needed.

 —Submitted by David Ross (04.07.10)

• Education is Important for Employees Too!
  Here’s a fact that shouldn’t come as a surprise: Mitchell is an educational institution.  I know, shocking right? 

While most of us think about the fact that we are providing educational services for our students, many of us forget that the staff and faculty also need to be educated… especially in the policies and procedures that allow them to get their jobs done.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that while the students of MCC have lots of great tools and information at their fingertips, the staff and faculty are left out in the wild to fend for themselves. 

What does this mean?  
It means that one’s efficiency and ability to get their job done is greatly hindered just because they don’t know what to do or how to do it.

This problem also filters down to anyone who is involved in the process or procedure that has to take time to correct the issue(s) created by the “uneducated” or walk the “lost” person through the steps manually.

The Solution
 To facilitate the education and ongoing training of the staff and faculty, the new and improved MCCnet will feature a new section called MCC101 (catchy huh?). 

This section will provide a place for any department or group to provide information such as:

• internal policies

• step-by-step procedures (including who to call if you get stuck)

• FAQs (frequently asked questions)

• the revived “Who You Gonna Call?” list (previously printed in the Personnel Directory)

• links to all associated forms/files/documents needed

Not only will having this information available online make it easier for new employees to get acquainted with how things are done, but it will also help all those included get the information they need, in the format they need and hopefully reduce the headaches on both ends.

How you can help.
If you have an internal policy, procedure or list of questions that you LOVE getting calls about every week; please don’t hesitate to contact me so we can sit down and figure out how the new MCCnet can make your life and the lives of your fellow co-workers less stressful and more efficient. —Submitted by David Ross (03.17.10)

• N.E.A.T.—The 4 Hotspots on Any Website

The web is full of acronyms—URL, FTP, SSL, even WWW… so why not add another to the mix?

N.E.A.T. is an acronym that I developed while for the Internet marketing for small business seminars I used to offer. It’s an easy way to remember the four hotspots on any effective website:

• News

• Events

• Announcements (or Alerts)

• Testimonials

While not every website needs to feature these sections, when they are included they can be some of the most effective for generating traffic from visitors and search engines.

Of course, as mentioned last week, the primary way these sections are effective is to be kept up-to-date with relevant content.

While all of these sections are fairly self-explanatory, I’d like to cover the last two to share some ideas on how these sections can be used.

Announcements (or Alerts) are brief bits of information, tips, dates, critical alerts, etc. that usually appear outside (or highlighted within) the rest of the content.  Currently, the inclement weather announcement and the text floating at the top of the page would fall into this category. They are displayed to give the visitors a quick highlight on information they “need to know.”

Testimonials are typically what others have to say about your products, services, etc.—and it’s one of the most frequently sought out sections of a website.  Amazon’s customer reviews is one of their most used and read sections on their site, because people want to know what others like them have to say about a product. Many businesses use testimonials in self-promotion—such as awards received success stories, etc.—however, these are most effective when comments from outside sources are included. —Submitted by David Ross (03.03.10)

• The Three Most Important Factors of the WWW
  Most people have heard the three most important factors of real estate: location, location, location.  But do you know the three most important factors for having an effective website?

It’s simple:

Content, content, content.

…You may have also heard: “Content is king!” (but that’s not really 3 things)

When people visit a website, they are looking for information, news, events, videos, photos, instructions, etc., etc., etc.—in other words content.  If your website doesn’t have it, they will likely do what many visitors to the MCC website are doing currently—they’ll go someplace else.

Website content needs to be relevant and more importantly—UP TO DATE.  Do you think Yahoo, MSN or any of the millions of websites would get even a trickle of traffic if their content were weeks old? No! So if you haven’t visited the public MCC website in a while, you’d be missing out on the fact that I immediately started making sure that just about ANYTHING that comes to me about events, news, announcements, etc. goes up on the News & Events scroller. This is also why targeted news and upcoming events will be shown on just about every page of our new sites (both internal and external).

Keep in mind that up-to-date and relevant content isn’t just important to our visitors—it’s also extremely important and crucial for search engines to index and link to us.  Many people (and search engines) are realizing that people don’t search using “keywords” as much.  More often they will type a phrase, a sentence, even a question and if your website has current information phrased similarly, you will show up in the results.

So remember this as we move forward with enhancing and redesigning our websites and know that when you are able to update the content for your department, group, club, etc. that you REGULARLY submit up-to-date information.

If your department or group would like to discuss how you can get more from the websites or if you have questions or ideas for the site enhancements, please don’t hesitate to call or email me. —Submitted by David Ross (02.24.10)

• Over the last 10 years, I’ve worked with all types of businesses, both large and small, helping them get the most out of their websites and their internet marketing efforts. Many people I’ve talked to during my extensive tenure at MCC have little knowledge about what an effective and functional website and web-based applications can do for the college, their departments, their employees and their students (mainly because, from what I’ve heard, we’ve never had a great web presence). So, at the request of several MCC staff and faculty members, I’m going to start providing tips, tricks, suggestions and insights in the Mitchell Columns newsletter. Some of these articles will be samples from day-to-day conversations I’ve had, while others will be multi-part bits of seminars and workshops I’ve led. I hope that as we move forward with recreating the Mitchell websites—both internal and external—that these tidbits will help you understand how we can all make the most of the WWW. If you have any web-related questions (Internet marketing, web-based applications, going paperless, email marketing, event planning/registration, online voting, social networking, etc.) or would like to talk about how you/your department could get more from the web, please email me and I’d be happy to talk with you further. With that, welcome to....
  Did You Know? TIPS FROM THE WEBMASTER

Upcoming topics to include:

• The Future of MCC on the WWW

• The 3 Most Important Factors of the WWW

• N.E.A.T… 4 Hotspots of Any Website

—Submitted by David Ross (02.10.10)

Immediate Updates

• Redesign of the Mitchell website (both public and MCCNet) with user-friendly layout/navigation, up-to-date content and a consistent look and feel

• Incorporation of a secure login to access MCCNet (since most of the information in there should not be publicly accessible)

• Creation of a (CMS) content management system (accessed thru MCCNet) to allow posting of up-to-date information by staff and faculty

• Development of an online school-wide calendar to include all events, meetings, holidays, etc. for all departments, groups and the college

• Categorization of news and events to facilitate displaying "targeted" content throughout the site so that incoming students learning about the registration process would be shown info about upcoming "Student Orientation" events or "How to Register" articles

• Online help/documentation/training including step-by-step walk-thrus for students and enhanced policies and procedures documents (by department), CMS training, etc. for staff/faculty

• Full search functionality

• Reorganization of all online documentation/forms so they’ll be found easier by students and staff

• Much more….

Future Enhancements/Considerations

• More web-based applications such as completion of requisition forms, new hire account creation, print/design requests, online helpdesk and knowledgebase

• Possible migration of 3rd party applications (myCIRCLE and others) into the MCC website

• Creation of a universal login system (one username/password for all web-based systems)

• Automated notification via text messaging, social networking, email, etc. regarding school closings/delays

• Opt-in eNewsletters for marketing, follow-ups, upcoming events, Mitchell Columns, alumni, etc.

If your department or group would like to discuss how you can get more from the websites or if you have questions or ideas for the site enhancements, please don’t hesitate to call or email me. —Submitted by David Ross (02.17.10)