Texas Border Business
McAllen, TEXAS – South Texas College hosted the Community College Association of Texas Trustees (CCATT) Leadership Seminar at the Nursing and Allied Health Campus on Feb. 28.
Administration from CCATT and its parent organization Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC) and presenters were on hand to speak and be a part of informational sessions such as cybersecurity on college campuses and legislative updates.
TACC Program Associate Cara Glancey explained the role that seminars and conferences play in the association’s mission.
“Our job is to facilitate a platform for other colleges to share what they’ve learned from a scenario, from different programs that they’re introducing onto their campuses,” Glancey said. “The benefits of sharing amongst each other is immense. That feeds into the economic development of Texas.”
STC President Dr. Shirley Reed said that collaborative sessions also allowed a chance to stay up to date with politicians that work in Austin and affect colleges directly.
Leonardo Castaneda, Director of Academies and High School Programs, was also able to share updates and successes of STC’s dual credit program which serves 23 school districts and educates more than 16,000 students as of Fall 2019.
Castaneda also discussed how the college supports its 570 dual credit faculty and monitors and measures program success over time.
“By pulling together community college trustees, we get on the same page, not only for issues at the institution but also identifying issues for the upcoming legislative session,” Dr. Reed said. “Today we had an opportunity to hear from representative Oscar Longoria who is vice-chair of the appropriations committee that ultimately funds community colleges.”
Dr. Manny Gonzalez, director of CCATT, spoke on the value of community colleges because of their knowledge of the area.
“Community colleges are doing a great job with regards to having a pulse on the needs of the region, their communities, more so than four-year institutions,” Dr. Gonzalez said. “Community colleges are able to be nimble to the needs of not just the workforce, but the students, the parents, the families. They’re more in touch with what’s ongoing just by their creation. It’s the nexus of where community engagement, college access, and higher education all happens.”
Matt Kelly, Governance, Risk, & Compliance Manager from the Texas Department of Information Resources presented on how institutions can keep themselves safe in regards to modern online crime. The Cybersecurity talk highlighted the trends that hackers might be using to attack or compromise information at municipalities or college campuses.
STC Board of Trustees Chairman Paul R. Rodriguez said STC welcomed their guest with open arms.
“For one we wanted to be good members of the association so we want to lend ourselves to their functions and their mission,” Rodriguez said. “And of course, this is one thing that they’re making an attempt to regionally reach out to Trustees to provide some good continued education and real information.”
The benefit of hosting the event was twofold for the college according to Dr. Reed, the association also got to enjoy their stay.
“Today was great not only to showcase the college campuses but for them to see our community and what a nice, vibrant, friendly, warm community we have.” Dr. Reed said.
 Leadership Seminar at the Nursing and Allied Health Campus on Feb. 28.){kind=link}