On January 27, all Clark College employees will receive an email from Shanda Diehl requesting that they complete the Clark College Climate Survey 2015.

The information collected from this survey will allow the College to identify the positive and negative aspects of our climate. The executive leadership is committed to make improvements to climate based on the results of this survey. We cannot do this without your feedback!

The college has a proven track record to make improvements to the climate based on past climate survey results. Based on the 2011 and 2013 climate survey results, administration has made strides to improve in the following areas:

• Shared governance,
• Diversity,
• Communication,
• Compensation, and
• Food service.

Executive leadership regularly reports the improvement activities related to the climate’s strengths and weaknesses to the Board of Trustees.

The results of the survey are anonymous. No login is required. Planning and Effectiveness will not report individual responses, nor will it report aggregate responses where individuals may be identified through their responses to demographic questions. Any individual names provided in the open-ended comment section will be removed before publishing the results.

The success of the survey rests with you. Every employee here at Clark College plays a crucial role in enhancing student learning. The more satisfied employees are with the climate of their work environment and their ability to influence it, the more effective their work becomes to improve student learning.

Because each employee plays a role in student learning, each employee’s perspective is equally important, including those of part-time employees, adjunct faculty members, full-time temporary and tenured/tenure-track faculty, classified staff, and administrators. We need everyone’s input!

Please look for Diehl’s email on January 27, 2015. The survey will be available online; a link will also be available on the ClarkNet homepage. Your time is a guaranteed investment in improving the climate of Clark College.

Eleven years–that is how long Clark employees have been generously donating backpacks and supplies to school-aged children of Clark College students through the Annual Backpack Project. This year, employees sponsored 76 backpacks, adding to a cumulative total of well over 600 backpacks collected so far.

Once again, the Office of Planning and Effectiveness oversaw the donation process. Student parents were identified by staff members from Financial Aid, Child & Family Studies, Eligibility Programs, and Veteran Affairs. In August, employees from across the college volunteered to purchase and fill backpacks. Each donor was given a shopping list that included basic information about the child–age, gender, favorite colors and themes–as well as specific items that child would need at school. The backpacks were presented to their recipients before the beginning of the school year.

Through emails and thank-you notes, students expressed their gratitude at receiving the backpacks. One parent’s response expressed the realities faced by many families with both children and parents in school: “I received the backpacks for the kids today and I am overwhelmed with gratitude,” she wrote. “I didn’t realize that supplies would be included. … I appreciate the support. It was a difficult decision to come back and finish my degree. There is a lot of family sacrifice involved, [and] gestures like these make a big difference. Thank you.”

Another student wrote, “As a single working mother, this is a great stress relief.” Yet another card read, “I’m currently homeless, so this helps so much.”

The children also expressed delight as they picked up backpacks stuffed full of supplies. As one child put it: “I really like it, and can’t wait to use it for school.”

Story and photos submitted by Susan Maxwell