Nelly Ford (left), Pete the Panther, and representatives from SFCC’s Student Government Association (SGA) perform a skit for Guide to Personal Success (GPS) new student orientation on May 11. Ford portrayed a new SFCC student who had many questions about the college’s programs and services, while various administrators, faculty, and staff provided the answers. Approximately 150 new students attended the first GPS orientation in the SFCC University Center Auditorium, then broke up into smaller groups to tour the campus and participate in learning sessions about various aspects of the college. GPS, the college’s new First Year Experience course, is being launched this summer for incoming students to take part in voluntarily.

Cappo will receive a $5000 endowment established and funded by the Highlands County Health Facilities Authority to celebrate exceptional nursing educators. 

 “The endowment is awarded over a period of two years, half of which is to be used to support a project related to their profession and the other half as an honorarium.” said Don Appelquist, executive director, South Florida Community College Foundation, Inc.

Cappo’s proposed project during her tenure is to develop a competency tracking tool using either the college’s current student management portal, Desire 2 Learn, or developing new software in-house that will enhance student success when progressing to the next level of their nursing education. As programs continue to grow to meet the demands of the community, this tracking device will help document individual student competency at every level from nursing assisting, practical nursing, nursing transition, registered nursing, and future programs. The tool would track exactly how many times a skill was performed during clinicals and simulation days, and what skills students needed to remediate.  The tool would build from simple to complex components in every program and every facility, and faculty would be provided with tablets to track the students’ performance in SFCC’s facilities and all clinical sites.

“Students would be able to see their results and improvement thus increasing their confidence while the documentation will help them enhance their employment portfolios,” Cappo said. “Producing a seamless tracking of competencies will help both faculty and students as we continue to strive for excellence in South Florida Community College’s Nursing Department.”

 The appointment is for two years and is highly competitive within the department.  Selection of the honoree is jointly made by a selection committee and the college faculty as a whole. The selection must then be certified by SFCC President Dr. Norm Stephens. 

“The Endowed Teaching Chair program helps us attract evermore qualified faculty members to our institution,” Appelquist said. “It also gives us a way to show our appreciation to the outstanding faculty members we already have and to celebrate excellence in the classroom.”

South Florida Community College Nursing Professor, Kathleen Cappo, receives the Endowed Teaching Chair in Nursing award during the SFCC Foundation, Inc.’s Annual Spring Gala. Pictured (from left) Dr. Michele Heston, director, SFCC Nursing Education, Cappo, and Dr. Norm Stephens, president, SFCC.

Angie Noonon, SFCC registration data specialist, pins the cap on new graduate Alyssa Thompson

South Florida Community College’s Class of 2012 hugged friends, family members, and favorite professors, reminisced about classes and club activities, and talked about what they plan to do with the next adventure of their lives at the college’s annual commencement service Thursday evening.

“We are at our graduation. How does that feel?” Keiaria Williams, student speaker, asked the new graduates who assembled in the SFCC Theatre for the Performing Arts to accept their hard-earned degrees, certificates, and diplomas. Judging from the joyous, enthusiastic response from her peers, being part of the Class of 2012 felt pretty good.

Along with sharing her pride in their common accomplishments, Williams encouraged her fellow Panthers to apply the knowledge and abilities they acquired at SFCC the challenges that will meet them in their journey through life.  “I know that we are all going to move on to do great things,” Williams said. “I hope that we embrace life as it comes our way and that we continue to work hard because I’m sure it’s the only way.”

“The point is to be able to look back at these times, not to be stuck in them. No rush, though, because we’re about to reach our dreams, and we don’t even have our arms stretched. Imagine the heights you would reach if you could just get a little higher.”

Williams is no stranger to hard work. During the 2011-12 academic year, she was a member of SFCC’s Brain Bowl team, which competed in the National Academic Quiz Tournament’s (NAQT) Community College National Championships for the first time in its history. She served as public relations officer and secretary for SFCC’s Student Government Association (SGA) and was the student representative to the SFCC Museum of Art and Culture (MOFAC) advisory committee. She also formed the college’s first yoga club.

This year, 538 students applied to receive two-year associate in art, associate in science, or associate in applied science degrees. College credit certificates, vocational certificates, and advanced technical diplomas were presented to 235 students. Another 114 graduated from SFCC’s Adult Education program.

Dr. Norman L. Stephens Jr., SFCC president, joined Williams in congratulating the new graduates for their efforts and expressed his hope that they would use their education and talents in the service of others. “On behalf of our very dedicated faculty and staff and our Board of Trustees, I commend our graduates for reaching this important milestone. You have worked hard and learned important lessons that should prepare you for a successful future. We encourage you to serve the interests of others and to help those who may be less fortunate. We expect you will continue to learn as you experience life along with its many gifts and challenges, and that you will find fulfillment in all of your endeavors.”

Dr. Stephens recognized five Honors Program graduates: Matthew Broxson, Sharleen Focant, Laura Patino, Rachel Reid, and Jennifer Segers.

Members of the SFCC District Board of Trustees in attendance were: Timothy Backer, chair, Tami Cullens, vice chair, Derren J. Bryan, Dr. Louis Kirschner, Kenneth Lambert, Lana Puckorius, Kris Rider, and Patrick “Joe” Wright.

Distinguished guests were: Jeff Mechlin, president, SFCC Foundation Board of Directors; John Scherlacher, president, SFCC Alumni Association; Adrian Cline, DeSoto County superintendent of schools; Wally Cox, Highlands County superintendent of schools; and Wendell Williams, former trustee and former charter member of the state Board of Community Colleges.

Guest soloist David Radford sang, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from the musical Carousel. He was accompanied by Doug Andrews, SFCC’s dean of Cultural Programs.

The invocation and benediction were delivered by Pastor Andrew Katsanis of Grace Bible Church in Sebring. 

Glenn Little, vice president, Administrative Services, and Doug Andrews, dean, Cultural Programs go over the commencement program.

Ricardo Pantoja (center), coordinator, TRiO Student Support Services (SSS), congratulates two graduates he mentored during the program’s first year – Yesenia Calderon (left), president of SFCC’s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), and Sylvestre Valencia. Both received their Associate in Arts (A.A.) degrees.

Tami Cullens, vice chair of SFCC’s District Board of Trustees, and Dr. Norm Stephens, SFCC president, share the excitement the 2012 commencement service.

The Craig family congratulates 17-year-old Bianca Craig for receiving her Associate in Arts (A.A.) degree with SFCC Class of 2012. Pictured are Wayne Craig (left), Bianca’s father and SFCC student services advisor, mother Stephanie Craig, Bianca Craig, and grandmother Pauline Auyang.Dr. Charlotte Pressler, professor, English and Humanities, and director of SFCC’s Honors Program, gets a hug from one of her students, Gregory Artrip.

Kimberly Cheraz – staff assistant I, part-time, DeSoto Campus

The SFCC Lake Placid Center office staff provides students with the same enrollment, advising, and testing services they would receive at the SFCC Highlands Campus. Pictured (from top left) Stephen Staik, student services advisor, and Randy Paeplow, director, SFCC Lake Placid Center. (Bottom left) Shirley Errico, staff assistant II, and Melanie Moody, office manager. Not pictured Mary Hirsch, staff assistant I; John Prentice, maintenance supervisor; Gary Mullins, maintenance worker; Linda Tagesson, ABE/GED instructor; Sharon Hall, part-time ESOL instructor; Kathy Rouse, aerobics instructor; and Karin Grunden, tai chi instructor.

Take a look at the exterior of the South Florida Community College Lake Placid Center and it’s easy to see there’s a story behind it. Built even before the Hotel Jacaranda, the SFCC Lake Placid Center is the oldest building the college owns. It offers one of the more unique histories of the area while providing a convenient location for students living in Lake Placid to take the classes they need.

The SFCC Lake Placid Center was originally called the Lake Placid School when the first building, Building 100, was constructed in the early 1920s. “It was a community public school back in a time when students in all grades went to the same school,” said Randy Paeplow, director, SFCC Lake Placid Center. “The school served grades one through 12 until the 1970s.”

 Throughout the years, more buildings were added on – Building 400 in the 1940s, Building 200 and 500 in the 1950s, and Building 300 in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Lake Placid School was converted solely to a middle school, which it remained until the mid-1980s. Then, in 1989, the SFCC Foundation, Inc. purchased the school for $1 from the Highlands County School Board.

“The Highlands County School Board donated it, but property can’t just be given away, so the SFCC Foundation, Inc. purchased the building for $1, which paid for the paperwork and transfer fee,” said Don Appelquist, dean, Resource Development, SFCC Foundation, Inc. The foundation then donated the building to the college.

SFCC’s Lake Placid Center is also a bit of a tourist attraction. Located in the Town of Murals, the center would not be complete without a mural or two of its own. With murals “Dr. Melvil Dewey,” developer of Lake Placid and inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, painted in 1991 by artists Roy Hampton and Terry Smith and located on Building 100, and “Airboat,” featuring a family riding an airboat through a lake, painted in 1993 by artist and SFCC alumnus Keith Goodson on Building 500, SFCC’s Lake Placid Center is a popular stop along the Mural Society’s mural tour. “We get a number of people who will come by the campus to look at the murals,” Paeplow said. “They’ve assisted the Mural Society in bringing visitors into Lake Placid and teaching about the history of our town.”

But while visitors may appreciate the beauty and nostalgia of the campus, students who live in Lake Placid appreciate the center for its convenience. Centrally located in downtown Lake Placid, the SFCC Lake Placid Center provides all of the services students need when enrolling at SFCC. “With the price of gas close to $4 a gallon, it’s a benefit to students to have a campus in Lake Placid so they don’t have to travel,” Paeplow said.  “We are a complete center where students can handle all of their financial aid, advising, registration, and testing requirements, the same services they would receive at any of the other campuses.”

Dr. James Hawker (right) reviews anatomy and physiology with Yuribia Terrone in the SFCC Lake Placid Center’s science lab.

“I haven’t had to travel to the Highlands Campus yet,” said first-year student Yuribia Terrone. “I’ve been able to enroll and take all of my classes here. It’s helpful to not have to worry about driving all that way.”

To provide Lake Placid students with the same instructional resources as well as bring the center up to date with the other SFCC campuses, the SFCC Lake Placid Center underwent a $1.8 million remodel in 2009 that included adding a science lab, a computer lab, and a lecture room with a Smart podium. The library has also grown. “With help from Library Services, we’ve been able to expand our collection with current resources we didn’t have access to before,” Paeplow said.

The center offers a variety of classes including academic courses for associate in arts degree-seeking students; adult education for GED, ABE, and ESOL students; and community education classes such as Zumba Toning, aerobics, and clogging as well as business workshops and computer classes. “We also work with instructors to offer prerequisite classes toward specific programs if needed, and soon we will be able to offer classes toward the bachelor’s degree program,” Paeplow said.

Exercise instructor Kathy Rouse has taught step aerobics, minigym, and most recently, Zumba Toning, for the Community Education department at the SFCC Lake Placid Center for 20 years. Her students range in age from their early 20s all the way up to their mid-80s. “Many have been taking classes with me here at the center for years,” Rouse said. Though there are other locations in Lake Placid that offer exercise classes, Rouse’s students stick with her. “I think the main reasons are the SFCC Lake Placid Center’s location,” she said. “We’re right in the center of Lake Placid, so it’s convenient. We also offer inexpensive drop-in pricing as well as a monthly fee, and we have a variety of classes students can choose from. We also have Zumba Toning, which is not available anywhere else as of yet. There’s just a wide variety of options here that might not be available elsewhere.”

“I like the environment,” said Community Education Student Paula Kincaid. “I’ve been coming back for 13 years because of the people and the variety of classes. It’s a benefit to all of us to have the center here.”

“The SFCC Lake Placid Center has been a huge asset to the college and our students,” Appelquist said. “The building would have probably become an eyesore and maybe even remained empty or torn down had the college not been given the opportunity to acquire and put it to use. It’s a piece of Lake Placid history.”

Located on Building 500, “Airboat” is one of two murals that attracts visitors to the SFCC Lake Placid Center.

South Florida Community College employees supported the United Way’s Day of Caring on May 2 by painting two large exercise rooms at the Highlands County YMCA. The annual event is sponsored by United Way of Central Florida to encourage volunteerism, increase the awareness of local human service agencies, and inspire people to make a difference in their communities.

 Dr. Norm Stephens

 Govindah Ramnarain

Keith Loweke

 Sandy Klepinger

 Nat Imsdahl

 Dr. Robert Flores

 Eddie Cuencas

Cheryl Arpasi

“We’re thrilled to find our college among those eligible for the Aspen Prize again this year and to be recognized for the academic excellence of our students,” said Dr. Norm Stephens, president, South Florida Community College. “Student success is our highest priority. We have outstanding faculty. Their dedication and their caring approach makes our college deserving of this recognition.”

The Aspen Prize recognizes community colleges that deliver exceptional student results, stimulate replication of successful campus practices and leadership, and contribute to the development of high-quality measures and benchmarks for assessing community college student outcomes. To highlight the critical importance of improving student success across the country, the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program is challenging these 120 colleges to vie for funds from the $1 million 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.

Valencia College in Orlando was awarded the inaugural Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence in December 2011.  Four additional colleges shared the spotlight as finalists-with-distinction, including Miami Dade College (Florida), Lake Area Technical Institute (South Dakota), Walla Walla Community College (Washington), and West Kentucky Community and Technical College.  As with last year’s Aspen Prize, half of the 28 colleges in the Florida College System are eligible to compete this year, the most allowed in any state. In all, colleges in 31 states are eligible for the prize.  A full list of the 120 community colleges is available at www.AspenPrize.org.

The community colleges named to compete for this year’s Aspen Prize competition were selected using publicly available data on student outcomes. They were identified by using a formula that assesses performance and improvement in four areas: graduation rates, degrees awarded, student retention rates, and equity in student outcomes. As part of the Aspen Prize selection, the colleges have been asked to submit detailed data on degree/certificate completion, labor market outcomes, and student learning outcomes.

Ten finalists will be named in September 2012, and the Aspen Institute will conduct site visits to each of the finalists in the fall. An Aspen Prize jury, co-chaired by former Michigan Governor John Engler and former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley, will select a grand prize winner and four runners up in March 2013. The grand prize winner receives $600,000, and $400,000 will be divided among the four finalists with distinction.

SFCC student Keiaria Williams will be the keynote speaker during SFCC’s commencement ceremony on May 3.

As each graduate walks across the stage to receive their diploma during any of South Florida Community College’s commencement ceremonies, there is no question that one, two, or perhaps even a series of personal choices and decisions have led them to that moment. SFCC student and this year’s commencement keynote speaker, Keiaria Williams, will tell you that she is no different.

Raised by her grandmother, Williams moved to Sebring from a beach town in California. At first, she was caught off guard by the new culture of people that surrounded her. “People seemed to live a simpler way of life than I was used to,” she said. “They drove pick-up trucks; they went mudding; they raised farm animals…it was a huge culture shock compared to where I was from.”

As a high school freshman, Williams struggled to fit in and didn’t make many friends, but then the opportunity to join the Sebring High School Color Guard arose, and Williams soon found a group where she belonged. Not only was she finally making friends and acclimating to her new home, she also found that the Color Guard was teaching her important values including discipline and respect – for those around her as well as for herself. “I learned that you are not going to be like everyone else, and everyone else is not going to be like you. It really helped me embrace people’s differences.”

After some family struggles and poor choices led her to a stay in a group facility, Williams decided she needed to do something to positively improve her life. When she was 17 and a senior in high school, Williams became legally emancipated. “I didn’t have anyone else in my life anyway, and I felt it was the best thing I could do for myself at the time.”

But becoming legally emancipated at 17 was not an easy feat, and the discipline Williams learned in Color Guard began to take on a whole new meaning for her. “I had to prove to the courts that I was serious about it and not just some whiny, selfish kid.”

Williams moved in with her band instructor, and for three months, in addition to her schooling, homework, and after school activities, she had to complete mounds of paperwork, find a job, find an apartment, and convince a landlord that at 17 years old she would be a responsible tenant. With no means of transportation once she was granted legal emancipation and living on her own, she then had to depend on others to help her travel to and from school and work as well as take her shopping or any other place she needed to go.

“I knew that once I was independent I had to be responsible, so I set a game plan. I figured out what I needed to do, and I just did it without complaining. That was the easy part. But I was still in high school, and everyone else was hanging out and having fun, and I couldn’t do those things anymore. Being lonely was the hard part.”

Williams successfully made it through high school and began taking college classes at SFCC the day after her 18^th birthday. She quickly became involved in student clubs and activities, taking on even more responsibilities. She is a member of SFCC’s Brain Bowl team, has served as public relations officer and secretary for the Student Government Association, lent a student voice on the SFCC Museum of Art and Culture (MOFAC) advisory committee, and formed SFCC’s first Yoga Club. “I feel like it’s our choice to attend SFCC, and being involved in activities and giving to each other as college students is the best way to show we care.”

Williams credits her band instructor, Colorado Paniagua, with teaching her how to use her imagination and express herself without being afraid, her friends and roommates for always supporting her and helping her when she needs it, and three SFCC faculty and staff members for being inspirations to her. “Dr. Theresa James helped me recognize my abilities; Lisa Johnson-Decarie acknowledges every student and makes us feel like we matter; and Dr. Charlotte Pressler taught me that a single thought or question can take us farther in life than we ever imagined.”

Williams will attend the University of South Florida in the fall to pursue degrees in French and Sign Language. She wants to teach, travel, and build a career where she can make a difference. She recognizes that there is a world of possibilities out there for her. “I could work anywhere – big companies, small businesses, the government.” But her biggest dream she says with a smile, “Maybe someday I’ll work for a magazine in Paris…maybe.”

“Everyone goes through struggles, but all of your decisions and choices are on you,” she said. “Nobody else is responsible for what you do. Know yourself, realize what you want, and do what you have to do to get there.”

SFCC’s commencement ceremony will be held Thursday, May 3, 6:45 p.m., in the SFCC Theatre for the Performing Arts, Highlands Campus.

Any day of the work week you can catch Pam Jessiman, Dee Etta Rawlings, Pam Vestal, Susan Volpitta, Debby Null, Cathy Lewis, Laura Young, Lisa Johnson-Decarie, Maria Mitil, Courtney Green, Mary Wolfe, Mary Ann Little, and Tammy Snow walking, swimming, or working out in the SFCC Fitness Center on their lunch breaks.  “It’s great to be able to encourage each other to exercise on our lunch break,” said Pam Jessiman. “Most days we walk around campus and on the really hot days we go swimming in the pool, it’s great.”

If you are interested in joining their walking group, they meet up most days at the SFCC switchboard office and exercise on their lunch breaks, usually from noon until 1 p.m.  “Every day around 11 a.m., I email a few of my co-workers in the group to see if they want to exercise that day,” Cathy Lewis said. “The time I get to exercise with my friends means so much to me; we support each other in ways words can’t describe.”

“The group motivates me to walk and exercise, helps me think about healthier choices when eating, and strive for a healthier lifestyle,” Debby Null said. “We are all working towards a healthy goal.” 

Annual Employee Health and Fitness Month runs May 1 – 31. Sponsored byThe National Association of Health and Fitness, it is a month-long celebration for promoting workforce health.  For more information and ways to participate, visit http://www.physicalfitness.org/.

No matter what you do personally, exercise and healthy eating improves your life step by step.