Call to Order
President Elect Destiny Reay Presiding.
15 Rotarians attending.
Guests
Alexis Anderson
Josh Mohr
Makeups:
None this week.
Announcements:
Next week’s meeting will be a “This is Rotary” meeting.
Bingo starts October 1st and the committee is hard at work to make this happen. The first verifiers are Roland and Darren.
District 5370 is having their District Conference and fall training the first weekend in October.
RCC has invited us to join them in celebrating 90 years of Rotary in Camrose. There will be a dinner at the Best Western from 6pm-9pm on October 9th. Tickets are $25. Contact Dawn Anderson for more information.
Food for Thought: Gail forgot about her food for thought moment. Destiny shared a couple quotes
“Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character.” – Aaron Sorkin
“In this life we cannot always do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” –Mother Theresa
Happy Bucks:
Many people were happy this morning about the opening (not the official grand opening) of the Performing Arts Centre with 6 people donating dollars for the great show, the upcoming weekend of activities including a rock band on Thursday, a folk singer on Friday, and a mass choir concert on Sunday. Saturday there will be backstage tours running every half hour between 9am and 4pm schedule and information about PAC at www.camroselive.ca. Other happy bucks included going to Calgary for 45 year law school reunion, being happy about a lot of things, a nice retreat on the weekend and 4 other unnamed things, time spent in Grand Prairie with son and family and beautiful family pictures in the fall foliage, a penalty buck was paid for forgetting food for thought moment, a second dollar for the nice retreat on the weekend, returning safely from Tel Aviv, a surprisingly beautiful time in Winnipeg for a conference, attended a wedding in Grand Prairie and not living there anymore, wife came home with a kitten who is quickly becoming part of the family, completing and surviving the final Spartan race of the season, Sunday’s at Harry’s commiserating/celebrating the aging process, and a husbands 60th anniversary of graduating from high school.
Judge:
Judge Joy decided not to fine anyone, but re-emphasized the Canadian insert from the Rotarian magazine.
50-50 Draw:
Odell was all heart this morning, drawing the 9 of hearts. He will be providing the “food for thought” moment next week.
Speaker:
Our speaker this morning was a shared presentation by Harry Prest and Alexis Anderson. Alexis is the supervisor of the Augustana Faculty Learning-Advising-Beyond program.
Harry and Alexis talked about the Early Feedback System that has been developed at the Augustana Faculty. This program started as a pilot project in the Fall of 2012 to address the large number of first year students who are being forced to withdraw due to low grades. After some research it was found that there are many factors that influence the success or failure of first year students including hurdles such as poor study habits, lack of parental control, and having too much fun as well as difficulties due to family issues, financial concerns, mental health struggles and learning disabilities.
It was recognized that many students are in trouble by the end of September and if there was a way to ensure early intervention, more students would receive the help they need early enough to make a difference. A motion was passed requiring instructors of first year classes to use strategies to monitor and identify students at risk during the first 3 weeks of the term. This included maintaining attendance records, assigning quizzes or other assignments that would provide information to the instructor regarding the comprehension of the subject material by students. This requires a huge commitment by instructors and is not without its challenges.
If students are recognized as being at risk, an early feedback email is sent to the student expressing concern. This email also goes to the Academic Advisement Office for follow up with both the student and the instructor. It is the hope that early detection and early intervention will increase the success of students who may be at risk.
Looking back over the past three years, 20011/12 prior to the project, 2012/13 the pilot year and 2013/14 the 2nd year of the project, a 10% decrease per year can be seen in the number of students required to withdraw.
Some feedback from the project indicates that there are a significant mental health concerns among the students at risk (some of which were known, but undisclosed to the university) and that the early feedback system needs to be extended to senior students. It was also discovered that sessional instructors were not using the system as and such many students continue to be missed. The project will hopefully continue to grow and change and more students will find success early in their university careers.