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Yavapai Community College in Northern Arizona

Archive for Verde Campus – Page 8

College produces misleading population density map

By R. Oliphant

Thursday, February 11th, 2016

Consultants apparently are unaware of over 13,000 residents living adjacent Cottonwood

Yavapai College uses a population density map that significantly misleads anyone seriously interested in determining population density in the Cottonwood area. The map omits the fact that two unincorporated areas, Bridgeport and Verde Village, are immediately adjacent and surround the City of Cottonwood. According to the 2012 Yavapai County Comprehensive plan, those two unincorporated areas account for 13,483 residents.

The College has been told about the error in the density map below that occurs by eliminating these unincorporated areas. However, as late as February 9, 2016 the College continued to produce a density map, which limits density analysis only to incorporated cities and towns. It is reproduced below and is simply misleading.

Below is the map produced by the College February 9, 2016 to the Governing Board.

Categories : Verde Campus

Spring 2016 Faculty Exhibition

By R. Oliphant

Saturday, January 23rd, 2016

Recent work from Yavapai College Verde Art Faculty

The annual spring faculty art exhibit is now on at the Yavapai College Verde Art Gallery, 601 Black Hills Dr., Bldg. F-105
Clarkdale, AZ 86324. It will run until March 3 and is free to the public.

Gallery hours are: Monday – Thursday 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. Closed: Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

faculty exhibition 2 Come and view the “amazing” art work created by Yavapai Community College faculty, which is produced on top of their demanding teaching schedules. Exhibiting art faculty this year include Laura Bloomenstein, Ben Norton, Richard Ozanne, Bennett Roti, and Thomas Schumacher.

Categories : Art programs, Verde Campus

Cottonwood Journal Extra Newspaper Slams College Appointments

By R. Oliphant

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

Says “College staff will never care from far side of mountain”

An editorial in the December 23 Cottonwood Journal, written by Managing Editor Christopher Fox Graham, slammed the continued appointment of the Deans hired to supervise the Verde Valley and Sedona College facilities who live outside the area (and have no intention of moving here). The editorial was based on a front page story in the same issue, “Board fumes over college staffing.” The article reported on the most recent Dean to be hired for the Verde Valley, Kelly Trainor, who resides in Prescott. (The online version of the newspaper article may be found by clicking here.)

Deb McCasland 4

The Blog has pointed out in earlier postings that the top 4 administrative appointments to the Verde Valley Campus and the Sedona Center have all been Prescott area residents. And none of the appointees have indicated they will move from the Prescott area to the Verde Valley.

Shafted

Graham wrote: “A lot of phrases come to mind when we think of how Yavapai College views the Verde Valley, but `I think the Verde Valley is getting shafted,’ is perhaps the best, spoken by none other than Yavapai College District Governing Board member Deb McCasland, who along with Al Filardo, represents Verde Valley interests.” He asked one to imagine that the Governor of Arizona flew home to California after a day’s work at the state capital and analogized the image to the Prescott resident administrators running the Community College in the Verde Valley.

Does Penelope Wills intentionally make these appointments to control the Verde Valley?

He pointed out that “Deans who do not live in the Verde Valley do not hear concerns from neighbors, nor do they bump into residents at the grocery store, nor do they enroll their children at Mingus Union, Camp Verde nor Sedona Red Rock high schools and hear about their children’ friends’ college plans. They have no community connection to the Verde Valley, which perhaps is exactly what Wills wants.” (The complete editorial may be read by clicking here.)

Categories : Editorials/Essays, Underserving the Verde Valley, Verde Campus

College hoping for $50,000 in revenue from Wine Tasting Room in first year

By R. Oliphant

Wednesday, November 25th, 2015

Wine Tasting Room finally opened November 20 after several months delay

The Yavapai Community College officially opened a wine tasting room on the Verde Campus November 20. The College had apparently hoped to open it in 2014-15 and had budgeted $20,000 in revenue. That didn’t happen.

wine glass This year it is expected to bring in $50,000 in revenue, according to the budget adopted by the College Governing Board. That portion or the budget is reproduced below.

The wine tasting room is scheduled to be open to the public Thursday to Sunday, from noon to 6 p.m. It is located on the Verde Valley Campus in the Southwest Wine Center building, 601 West Black Hills Drive, Clarkdale, Arizona 86326.

WINE TASTING ROOM BUDGET

Categories : Verde Campus

Verde Valley to get new Associate Dean from Prescott

By R. Oliphant

Sunday, November 22nd, 2015

Dr. Kelly Trainor assumes new position January 4

Kelly Trainor

The Wills’ administration will shortly formally announce that Dr. Kelly Trainor will become the new “Verde Valley Associate Dean.” Trainer has been a full-time Yavapai College faculty member for nine years. He taught at the Chino Valley Campus for his first four years and has spent the last five years on the Prescott Campus.

He received his BS in Agriculture from the University of Arizona in 1996 with a major in agricultural education and a minor in watershed management. His PhD is in Microbiology from Arizona State University.

The Blog speculates that apparently there were no faculty qualified on the Verde Campus to assume the position. A Verde choice would have been refreshing.

Categories : Verde Campus

College Community Chorale, Women’s Chorale, and Symphonic band celebrate Veterans Day on Verde Campus

By R. Oliphant

Friday, November 6th, 2015

Outstanding concert; small but deeply appreciative audience

The Yavapai Community College Community Chorale, Women’s Chorale, and Symphonic band presented the “Homeland: Veterans Day Salute Concert,” Thursday evening, November 5 in the Community Room on the Verde Valley Campus. A small but very appreciative audience thoroughly enjoyed the concert.

The 57 member (40 for this concert) Community Chorale, directed by Dr. Judith E. Burns, sang a variety of patriotic songs including “A Tribute to the Arms Services,” “Shenandoah,” and “Give me Your Tired, Your Poor.” The 15 member Women’s Chorale, directed by Arlene Hardy, charmed the audience with special renditions of “Johnny Aroo,” “I hear America Singing,” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The 22 member symphonic band, directed by Maurice Terrell, played a wide-range of music from the stirring “In Storm and Sunshine” march to the emotionally moving tribute to military veterans of the Vietnam War, “Mekong.” The three groups joined in a number of other patriotic musical presentations.

The excellent narration for the program was provided by Dr. Craig Ralston, Yavapai College Dean for Arts and Humanities. Ralston, who joined the Yavapai faculty in July, 2014, is responsible for curricula in art, music, and humanities including art history, creative writing, history, humanities, philosophy, religion, Spanish, and theater. He obviously worked very hard to put together this program for the Verde Valley Campus.

Disappointing turnout. The turnout of local residents for the program was disappointing, with an estimated 25-30 in attendance. However, with around 60 singers and a 20 piece orchestra in the community room, there wasn’t room for many more concert goers.

Community Room completely inadequate. The need for a small 350 seat auditorium on the Verde Campus has never been more evident than it was at this concert. The Community room is simply not equipped for a concert program of this magnitude and quality. It does not have a stage that can accommodate such a program, seating is far from acceptable, and the ability to effectively utilize visuals such as lighting is almost nonexistent. It is not an attractive or comfortable venue for performing arts programs. (The College recently invested about $5 million in the Prescott campus Performing Arts Center to upgrade seats, lighting, sound, stage, etc.)

College administration ignores need since 2008. Verde residents have called for construction of an adequate small on-campus performance hall facility since 2008, when a comprehensive land-use study incorporating views from throughout the Verde Valley was presented to the College Governing Board. As with other recommendations in that study, it has been ignored by the Wills’ administration.

Categories : Editorials/Essays, Performing Arts Center, Underserving the Verde Valley, Verde Campus

Editorial suggests Sedona Taxing District secede from College

By R. Oliphant

Thursday, October 22nd, 2015

“Imagine what could be possible after we secede from college”

Christoper Fox Graham

In the October 21 editorial in the Redrock News, (Also in the Cottonwood Journal Extra) Managing Editor Christopher Fox Graham, outlines the future possibilities for Sedona and the Verde Valley if the residents could secede from Yavapai Community College and create their own East County community college. Mr. Graham points out that secession “would be a costly and litigious process for Yavapai College, but if President Penny Wills, and the Governing Board that is supposed to direct her actions, doesn’t listen to the needs of the Verde Valley — and understand the value of our tax money — a proposal by state legislators could make secession an alternative for taxpayers to have a return on our investment.”

This is an interesting and informative editorial and Blog readers can access it by clicking here. You are urged to read it.

Categories : Editorials/Essays, Politics, Sedona Campus, Verde Campus, Yavapai Community College

College administration fights to keep individual campus costs from public view

By R. Oliphant

Tuesday, August 18th, 2015

College says it can’t give financial information as requested because it doesn’t keep books so it can; reluctantly agrees to provide some estimates

For more than 20 years, the Yavapai Community College has functioned almost completely out of the public eye. Its administrators have been able to do whatever they chose to do with taxpayer funds with little or no question. Given this history, the administrators were no doubt shocked by the action of the Verde Valley Advisory Committee to the District Governing Board.

The Verde Valley Advisory Committee to the District Advisory Board has been trying to obtain the specific costs of operating the Sedona Center and the Verde Campus in Clarkdale with little success.

Hiding data When the Committee asked for the information from Vice President Clint Ewell, he refused to provide it. He claimed that the financial records are not kept by the College in such a way as to provide the information the Committee was seeking.

At the District Governing Board meeting on August 5, 3rd District Representative Al Filardo asked the Board if it would join him in asking Ewell for the information. During the discussion, which you can view by clicking here, Ewell again stated that he could not provide the details the Committee sought. However, he reluctantly agreed to provide some financial information based on “estimates” to the Committee.

The detailed financial data is viewed as operational and is kept closely guarded by the Administration. The budget it produces fails to provide any details regarding the costs of operating individual campuses. Ironically, it closed the Camp Verde facility in 2010 and tried to close and sell the Sedona Center in 2013 because of low enrollment and operating costs. Amazing how those costs seem to be at the fingertips of the administrators when they want to close something down in the Verde Valley.

Categories : Advisory Committees, Budget, Sedona Campus, Verde Campus

Dean Ralston outlines why Verde Campus is struggling

By R. Oliphant

Saturday, August 8th, 2015

Suggests aggressive effort to get things going on the Verde campus, which is experiencing “tough times”

Dr. Ralston

For many, this was a breath of fresh air in terms of actually having an educational expert begin to analyze and share some of the reasons post-secondary education on the east side of the County has collapsed. It was also a stark warning of the college’s future on the east side of the County without a major injection of effort from the community.

Here, in summary, are the major factors he suggested that may explain, at least in part, the collapse since 2006 of the Community College on the East side of the County.

1. In at least one high school on the West side of the County, students were specifically told not to attend Yavapai College because the education was “substandard.” In his first year, Dr. Ralston has turned that view around. (May or may not have affected the Verde Valley enrollment.)

2. Yavapai College’s strict adherence to a minimum number of students (usually 15) before a class is offered is probably going too far. In Dr. Ralston’s experience, he had never been at an institution that had gone so far as to say, “if you’re not close to 15, we’re going to shut down the class.” He evinced concern that if courses are shut down for various reasons because enrollment has dropped, then programs associated with the courses will collapse.

3. Yavapai Community College faculty appear resistant to change. It is imperative that faculty engage with the community and the high schools. Dr. Ralston does not see the kind of investment at the high schools and in the community that is needed; rather, he sees a high degree of resistance from faculty because of perceived past failures.

4. There is a need for increased funding for recruiting, marketing and promotion of the Community College in the Verde Valley.

5. There is not an organized base of supporters, donors, people that the College can tap into to help make its presence in the Verde Valley known. There is a lack of participation from the community.

6. Dean Ralston warned: “Honestly, in the real world, this campus should not be open in a sense, these are tough times on this campus, …”

Categories : Advisory Committees, Verde Campus

President says cartoon and editorial inappropriate

By R. Oliphant

Wednesday, June 17th, 2015

Wills’ speculates that newspaper cartoon may hurt chances of getting gift if College loses out in grant writing war for DK ranch

At the May monthly meeting of the District Governing Board, President Penelope Wills refused to give Representative Deb McCasland an update on the grant application that was in the works for the D.K. ranch in the Verde Valley. However, at the June meeting, an obviously angry Wills’ gave a full update without being asked by anyone. That 4 minute report can be accessed by clicking here.

During the update, Wills focused on the Sedona Redrock News (but not by name) and a cartoon and editorial in that paper to take the blame if the College grant request is denied. Wills’ told the Governing Board that the paper seems “to be mocking” this potential gift.

If the newspaper was “mocking” the College and the potential gift, it should have come as no surprise to Wills. The Blog believes the Cartoon, which appears below, acccurtely depicts how most folks in the Valley feel about the domination by Prescott over Sedona and the Valley. Wills’ did not identify the date of the editorial so the Blog cannot link you to that item.

DK RANCH

Categories : Gift of ranch, Verde Campus