The Navajo County Community College District Governing Board heard a presentation given May 17 by Betsyann Wilson, director of NPC Friends and Family, who informed the board that $12,100 was raised at the NPC Friends and Family Scholarship Golf Tournament earlier this month. That, added to the $27,201 in funds contributed by supporters on Arizona Gives Day, brings recent contributions to $39,301 in scholarship funds for students.
Wilson, who has been the director since 2014, stated, “My goal when I first began was to have enough funds to have a year’s scholarships in reserve, as well as funds to pay for audits, insurance, etc. So now we’re there!”
She went on to say that the Pedal the Petrified fundraiser scheduled in September has already booked to the maximum 250 riders. A recent article in AAA Highroads magazine featured the event, resulting in 100 additional registrations within a week.
Ken Wilk, faculty and department chair in Construction Technology, gave an update on the I-Best project that involved building a home at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West Florida Street in Holbrook. Northland Pioneer College and Northeastern Arizona Innovative Workforce Solutions combined to recruit disadvantaged young adults over the age of 16, who wanted to learn a trade and complete their high school equivalency exam. The project began with 21 students in June 2015 and as of May 13, 10 students are still enrolled.
Wilk noted that some of the accomplishments that to date, four students of these students have received their GED, and all have received their OSHA 10 (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) card and have made Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) level gains, which is the measure of academic growth reported to Arizona Department of Adult Education.
It was also noted that I-Best student Antonio Soto placed second at the Skills USA State Conference in the Carpentry Postsecondary Division.
In other business, the board:
* Approved a change in technology providers from Logicalis to Sentinel Technologies for an adjusted cost of $138,773.92 including tax, for a savings of $24,677.
* Approved a sabbatical leave for Computer Information Systems faculty member John Chapin for the spring semester of 2017.
* Approved an intergovernmental agreement between Navajo County and NPC to provide emergency notifications to citizens and the college using the county’s Ready Navajo County emergency notification system.
