Random Bullets Friday

[Explanatory note: For those of you who are not big blog readers, "random bullets" refers to a day where the blogger has several small points to make but no one large theme to write about, so instead of one topic, the day's post is several unrelated bulleted points. You will often see this called RBOC ("Random Bullets of Crap").]

Apologies for not updating in the past week--I went away to visit a friend with a new baby for the long weekend, and then was at a VCCS meeting. Here are a few things on my mind now that I've returned:

• I spent the last couple of days in Staunton at the Joint ASAC/Deans meeting. (ASAC is the Academic and Student Affairs Council of the VCCS, composed of VPs, AVPs, some Directors, and some provosts.) One of the things we discussed is that it's time for a new VCCS strategic plan. Can you believe that Dateline 2009 is actually just about here?
• I've heard from a few faculty members that they experienced higher attrition this past semester (spring) than usual. Are you experiencing that, or does it seem about the same to you? Have any thoughts on what might have caused it, and/or what we could do to reduce it?
• As of yesterday, ELI enrollments were up 13.1% over last summer (which is 2.6% above our growth target for the summer term!). The College overall is up 7.6% over last summer. So those of you who have been getting lots of queries from students about getting into full classes--that's part of the reason! If you do get those queries, please let Joanna Knoll (our new faculty liaison) know. It helps us to figure out where we need new sections and new instructors.
• Have you tried yet to create your own avatar? (Do you know what an avatar is?) It can be a fun way to express yourself online. Nantana (one of our IDs) just shared with us one site where you can make them--check it out and play around a little! The IDs can help you put your avatar into your course, if you'd like to. The site is: http://uk.avatars.yahoo.com/index.html. If you want help with something like this, contact ELI ID Help (eliidhelp@nvcc.edu).