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Johnson County Community CollegeApril 2013

Coach hits home run

Kansa unites nature with art

The

Open Petal

College resurrects

Radio Bach

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There are several ways to learn at JCCC. You may choose to take a multi-week class to earn college credit that can be applied toward a degree or certificate. Or you may want to take a shorter class – one that takes place for just one day or a couple of evenings

– that gives you just the information you need that you can apply immediately. Those are the classes offered by the Continuing Education branch at Johnson County Community College.

JCCC’s Continuing Education branch is a leading provider of professional education, licensure, certifications and skill development courses for area businesses and industries. Last year, we had more than 11,130 enrollments in our computer/information technology, professional education, health care, small business, public safety and health information systems programs. We also provided customized contract training programs to 193 area businesses; our customized projects included competency development models, designing curriculum, instructional guides and assessment. We’re proud to be an important source for workforce development for the metropolitan area.

On the lighter side, we also offer personal enrichment classes in subjects ranging from gardening to fitness and cooking to photography, as well as youth programs during the summer and throughout the year. If you need more, then we have a career services program offering workshops, individual career counseling and weekly job clubs; contract language services for area businesses needing translation services; drivers education and motorcycle training; and adult basic education. There’s lots to teach and lots to learn.

The name of this magazine – The Open Petal – refers to the open petal in JCCC’s logo, symbolizing the college’s openness to new ideas. Continuing Education is yet another way that JCCC stays open and responsive to new innovations and ideas. You’ll learn more about JCCC’s Continuing Education branch in this issue of The Open Petal (and at http://www.jccc.edu/ce/). I’m sure you’ll find something of interest!

Sincerely,

 

Judy Korb

Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer

The

Open PetalApril 2013

EditorDiane Carroll

Associate VP, Marketing CommunicationsJulie Haas

Senior Graphic DesignerRandy Breeden

PhotographerSusan McSpadden

WritersMelodee BlobaumAnne Christiansen-BullersTyler CundithJudi Reilly

Writer/EditorTim Curry

The Open Petal is published four times a year by Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66210-1299. It is produced by Marketing Communications and the Office of Document Services. To find the magazine online, go to jccc.edu and search for “The Open Petal.” To subscribe or to offer a comment, call 913-469-8500, ext. 3886.

Stay in touch with JCCC by visiting jccc.edu, or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JCCC411 or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/JCCCtweet.

Or you can connect by visiting jccc.edu and clicking on “Connect with JCCC,” where you can also subscribe to JCCC Update, an email newsletter sent twice a month.

When planning your estate, please remember Johnson County Community College. For more information, call the JCCC Foundation at 913-469-3835.

The View From Here

The open petal is a symbol of JCCC’s openness to new concepts and ideas as it strives to serve each member of the community.

Judy Korb

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12

10

16Features 4 Dedication set for Kansa Earthwork artist Stan Herd leaves imprint.

8 Back in business College reinvents classical radio station.

10 Where should we go? New international director wants ideas.

12 End of an era Culinary students walk final paces in room 108.

18 These six are moving on Employees reflect on years at college.

25 Coach’s big year Desire to win came early.

In Every Issue

2 The View From Here

22 Alumni/Foundation Psychology professor sets up scholarship.

23 Continuing Education Branch reinvents itself with rebranding.

26 Campus Life

28 Sports Upgraded baseball field shines.

30 The Rear Window

On the CoverBaseball coach Kent Shelley enters the Hall the Fame and gets the renovated baseball field he has always wanted.

Photo by Susan McSpadden

C O n T E n T S

Kansa adorns campusEarthwork by artist Stan Herd will be dedicated April 25

By Anne Christiansen-Bullers

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Stan Herd, Study for Kansa A site-specific earthwork at Johnson County Community College, 2013.

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Kansa, an artwork that uses the earth as its canvas and plants as its paints, will officially become a permanent part of Johnson County

Community College when it is dedicated at 2 p.m. April 25 at its site on the western side of the campus.

Stan Herd, a Lawrence artist known internationally for his earthworks, created the piece on a quarter acre of land between the outdoor horticulture garden and the road leading to the sports parking lots.

The unique artwork developed as a result of Herd’s visit to JCCC in November 2010. As a guest speaker for the Kansas Studies Institute, he talked about prairie art and introduced students to his own work.

James Leiker, director of the Kansas Studies Institute, said, “At the time, the organizers [of the event] said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if he could do something here?’ We began to work almost immediately on a way to get him back to campus.”

Stan Herd, Study for Kansa. A site-specific earthwork at Johnson County Community College, 2013

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Allison Smith, associate professor and chair of art history, and Lekha Sreedhar, associate professor and chair of horticultural sciences, joined Leiker in the effort to bring an earthwork to JCCC.

Herd said initial plans were simple. “Originally I was going to do something very simple, something temporary, a weekend event to introduce myself to the student population,” he said. “It then blossomed into something more permanent, a more involved and concrete work.”

The work is “concrete” only in its permanence, not its construction. Buckskin limestone rocks from Oklahoma are set in a circle with a 90-foot diameter. The stones get their name from their yellowish-brown hue, resembling the color of deerskins.

“When I first started, I thought I’d use only Kansas stones, but then I realized, ‘Hey, we’re only a few miles from Missouri.’ It’s a regional piece, not a Kansas piece,” he said.

The petroglyph inside the circle was inspired in part by author William Least Heat Moon’s PrairyErth drawing of an ancient petroglyph in a book of the same name, Herd said, and by the study of drawings and Native American objects offered by Bruce Hartman, executive director, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, located at JCCC.

The Center for American Indian Studies at JCCC provided advice in choosing an indigenous design. Sean Daley, associate professor of anthropology, and director of the center, with help from center associates Ed Smith and Travis Brown, settled on a circular figure, representing cycles and harmony.

The center also helped organize a ceremony before the work began to pay tribute to the land on which the artwork would rest.

“I try to do that every time I’m doing pieces like this – you know, more spiritual works,” Herd said.

Herd estimates that he spent more than 100 hours on the design portion of Kansa and three to four times that amount on the construction. The plants inside the piece will be planted this spring.

To ensure that the plants will grow properly, drainage was important. A trench two feet deep was filled with drainpipes and white rock before the larger rocks were placed on top.

“There’s a lot of work underneath this thing,” Herd said.

One area was specifically designed to drain more slowly than its surroundings. Near the top of the circle, a rock formation will gather rainwater and hold it for a few hours after a rain – a natural birdbath and watering hole that adds yet another earthy element to the piece, Herd said.

The rest of the earthwork will be planted in a mixture of

annuals and perennials of different colors, textures and heights. The incorporation of perennials gives the artwork some consistency, but the annuals will give horticultural science students and others a chance to experiment with

changing the look of the piece for every growing season.

Sreedhar said she’s excited to be a part of the effort. “The students and I are eager to see what plants and colors Stan will choose for the first year so we get an idea of his vision.”

After that, there’s room for flexibility.

“There will be two or three areas where the students can plant with annuals to their liking, even after I’m gone,” Herd said. “I also like the idea that we might use some of these planting-bed areas to experiment with something so it becomes an outdoor classroom.”

Working with the faculty, staff and students of JCCC to create Kansa was challenging but exhilarating, Herd said.

“We were building the plane down the runway, as it were. But that’s the fun part for me; that’s the art part,” he said. “We’re not building a building, we’re creating something that has moveable parts, and the process is what it’s about.

“It’s not the final process; it’s the process and the relationships that you build with people that makes the art stand the test of time.”

The project is a collaboration among many departments on campus. Support and funding of the piece came from the Kansas Studies Institute, the Center for American Indian Studies, the Student Sustainability Committee, the art history department, the horticultural sciences department, the Nerman Museum and the president’s office.

Dedication detailsThe public is invited to attend the dedication of Kansa at 2 p.m. April 25. Weather cooperating, the events will be at the site and in the gardens surrounding the Horticultural Sciences building on the west side of campus. In case of rain, events will be moved inside the Horticultural Sciences building.

A brief indigenous ceremony organized by the Center for American Indian Studies will be followed by comments from JCCC President Terry Calaway and artist Stan Herd, among others.

“This was a great collaboration,” Herd said. “Many departments and many people were integral to the development, including Allison Smith, Jim Leiker, Lekha Sreedhar and the members of the JCCC grounds crew who donated hours and machinery. They all added tremendously to the effort.”

“Everyone we talked to wanted to be a part of this project. Stan’s work is the perfect marriage between art and nature, and I think a piece like this at JCCC says that we care about both.”– James Leiker, director,

Kansas Studies Institute

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“Stan Herd’s site-specific earthwork significantly extends the college’s collection and reflects our long commitment to area artists.”– Bruce Hartman, executive director,

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

Artist Stan Herd is known internationally for his earthworks.

Radio Bach is backStation fills void for classical music fans

By Diane Carroll

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Kansas City’s longest-running classical radio station, which went off the air a year ago, will be back this spring in a new format.

KXTR, also known during its last year as Radio Bach, has been resurrected by Johnson County Community College. It will reappear with former morning show host and program director Patrick Neas as an Internet station. You’ll find it online at radiobach.com.

“We want to become a voice for the arts in Kansas City,” said Andy Anderson, who will oversee the effort as the college’s professor/dean of English and journalism. “The arts organizations in Kansas City that we have visited with have been very excited to see that we are picking this up.”

Anderson and Emily Behrmann, manager of the JCCC Performing Arts Series, along with Julie Haas, associate vice president of marketing communications, approached the college board’s management committee late last year with the idea of reviving the station. The committee agreed to try the station for three years and then assess how well it was working.

Organizers of the effort said in March that they expected to be on the air by April. Anyone with a smart phone or an iPad or a computer to access the Internet will be able to tune in 24 hours a day every day of the year.

“It’s the new era of radio,” Neas said. “We feel like we are pioneers and it is so important to have a voice. For Kansas City to have such a vibrant arts community and not have a radio station dedicated to the arts is just not right. We want to bring classical music from the heart of America to around the world.”

KXTR began broadcasting as a classical station in the 1950s. In March 2012, the station’s owner, Entercom, switched the station to a business format, leaving classical and art lovers without the full-time coverage they had come to expect.

Entercom donated the station’s compact discs to Kansas Public Radio. But JCCC now owns the radiobach.com URL and has access to all of the music in digital form. The college station will have a huge library of music, Neas said, five times more than most classical stations.

“I think it is the one thing that will distinguish us,” he said.

Neas will be the program director and Jayme Monacelli, who has 15 years experience in radio broadcasting, will serve as the general manager. Initially, Neas will focus on programming music but expects to eventually have an on-air presence. Monacelli, the station’s other voice, will

be conducting interviews with musicians and artists from throughout the metropolitan area and handle the nuts and bolts of the operation.

With Internet radio stations (and with many traditional stations these days) all of the content is pre-recorded. Instead of tuning into a frequency on the AM or FM dial, a person connects to the Internet and creates an account to log in with a password. Access is free.

“That’s sort of where the world is moving, especially for specialized and more focused kinds of audiences,” Anderson said. “Many of the people who will be listening are probably more used to traditional radio but cars are coming out now with Internet radio and everyone has their computer now and I think it is more a matter of showing people how to

log on and sort of get them introduced to it.”

With the Internet, almost anyone can start a radio station. Neas and Monacelli could run the station from their respective homes but the college does have a professional sound booth for

their use in the Regnier Center. That space will be convenient for recording interviews with performers or others who want to talk about an upcoming art event.

Anderson said the new station would not have any impact on ECAV Radio, the student-run station. But it is possible that students will have a chance to work with professionals such as Neas and Monacelli, he said, and students might be able to do some interviews for the station.

Behrmann said that the radio station would augment the college’s support for the arts and provide an avenue for the college’s Performing Arts Series and the Kansas City arts community to become more connected.

“When we told the Friends of Chamber Music, the Kansas City Symphony and Harriman-Jewell Series of our plans to get the station up and running, all were in support of the effort,” she said. “I hope they will be interested in appearing on the station to help promote their events.”

The annual budget for the station is $50,000. Internet radio is a fairly low-budget way to broadcast, Anderson said, which helps make the effort feasible.

The college hopes to defray the cost by cultivating donors and grants. Once an audience takes hold, he said, he hopes that arts groups will consider advertising on the station.

Anderson feels good about the venture. Neas is a well-known voice in the arts community, he said, and has a lot of connections there.

“I think that sets us up in a strong position,” he said.

“We want to bring classical music from the heart of America to around the world.” – Patrick Neas, program director

Jayme Monacelli and Patrick Neas will run the station.

10 | The Open Petal

Tom Patterson wants to know what you think about international education. To that end, the new professor and director of International Education at Johnson County Community College

is on a fact-finding mission to see where current strengths and weaknesses lie as he charts a course for internationalization in the future.

His plan is to survey the JCCC faculty and approximately 3,000 students with the help of the college’s Office of Institutional Research. He said he would then take those results to the International Education Committee to make recommendations to steer the future path of international education.

“It will provide a point for discussion about what skills and experiences our students and our faculty have and also what they would like to do with those skills and experiences in the future,” Patterson said.

“This college is very fortunate to have people very interested

in international education, very well traveled and interested in the global world,” he said. “We just need to find out who they are and what direction they would like to see the college go.”

Patterson became director in August 2012, using the months between then and now to acclimate himself to both Kansas City and JCCC. “I moved three times, if you would believe,” he said. “I finally am starting to feel settled…though I still have boxes that need unpacking.”

He arrived from an 11-year stint as the dean of international programs for the community college district in Spokane, Wash., after various teaching and administrative jobs in Europe and Asia.

In addition to using the survey to seek input, Patterson said he’s also met with many students, faculty and staff during his first few months.

“I’m trying to get together with everybody who has an interest in what goes on here internationally and find out

International man seeks international plan

By Anne Christiansen-Bullers

Tom Patterson visits with student Shahnoza Seidmedova at an event featuring a visiting professor from China.

The Open Petal | 11

About Tom PattersonTom Patterson now is living only 900 miles away from where he grew up, but the journey in between has taken him thousands of miles away – both literally and figuratively.

Patterson grew up in Dickinson, N.D.

“There was practically no diversity,” he said, “which may explain why I went abroad.”

While in graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, he began studying Hungarian. It was only natural, then, that he would head to Budapest, Hungary, to improve his language skills.

“It was radically different from anything else I had ever experienced,” Patterson said. He thought that trip to Europe would last six months. It ended up lasting six years.

“I ended up in Poland, teaching English as a second language… Then I went to Texas, finished my master’s degree in linguistics.”

The rest of his résumé sounds like a travelogue:

• Poland, 1980s, lecturer, English as a second language, Jagiellonian University

• Japan, early ’90s, director, English as a second language program, Texas A&M University

• Poland, mid ’90s, director, English as a foreign language program, National-Louis University

• Florida, late ‘90s, director, ESL Program, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

• Singapore, late ’90s, teaching fellow, National Institute of Education

• Spokane, Wash., 2000s, dean of international programs for three-school community college district

“I may not have grown up in Kansas, nor did I graduate from JCCC, but I got here as soon as I could,” he joked.

what his or her ideas are,” Patterson said. “I don’t have ‘Tom Patterson’s plan.’ I want your plan.”

Results of the surveys and discussions will be used to address strategic planning, allocation of funds and prioritization of time and effort for the internationalization of JCCC.

According to Patterson, there’s a lot to do. Gone are the days when the middle states could segregate themselves from global matters. “Even Kansas isn’t in Kansas anymore. Really, it never was,” Patterson said.

He said Kansas, when measured in per capita (for its population), is the top exporting state in the country, sending out $12.5 billion in exports each year.

The state’s role as a global player in the world is set, thanks to the more than 75,000 jobs in Kansas directly related to exports, Patterson said.

Other current projects within the international education office include:

• A strong connection with the East-West Center based in Honolulu. As one of 20 regional centers, the JCCC East-West Center has helped faculty infuse Asian studies into college curriculum. Peter D. Hershock, director of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, visited JCCC in September to strengthen those ties.

• Opportunities within the Study Abroad program. “Most people think of Study Abroad when they think of international education,” Patterson said. “And that is a very popular program.” The sheer number of JCCC students heading to another country makes the college one of the top 10 community colleges in the nation for the amount of travel under the auspices of the college. However, not all of those trips are for college credit, and Patterson would like to see that percentage increase. “We’re working with even more instructors to connect that experience to the classroom in some way.”

• Reworking the requirements for scholarships to attend JCCC’s sister school, Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xian, China. Previously, applicants needed at least one year of Chinese language. That prerequisite has been waived as Patterson seeks more candidates for the 10 scholarships available for study in China.

• Cooperation with the University of Kansas and its Center for Global and International Studies to create a global and international studies concentration at JCCC that leads to a bachelor’s degree at KU. “We expect this program to be a popular course of study,” Patterson said.

• Cultivation of new and existing connections to other countries. Programs such as a faculty/staff exchange program with the Netherlands continue, as does the faculty exchange with Udmurt State University in Izhevsk, Russia.

“There’s a lot of diversity here,” Patterson said. “There are organizations for nearly every [national] group in Kansas City. All you have to do is look around and reach out.”

Culinary students dish up last luncheons in room 108

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By Melodee Blobaum

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Culinary student David Rieschick balances an order as part of a class assignment.

On most Thursdays during the school year, the lunchtime line forms early outside room 108 of the Office and Classroom Building at Johnson

County Community College.

Groups of three or four people chat as they wait for the doors to open and allow them inside for the culinary experience known around campus simply as “Hospitality Luncheons.”

Once inside, they’re treated to a multi-course meal planned, prepared and served by JCCC food and beverage management students as the final project of their final lab class.

The meal might feature a Moroccan menu, or soul-food

goodness, or a taste of New Orleans.

Regardless of what’s served, the dining experience may be the tastiest final project of all the final projects completed by students at JCCC.

The class, officially known as Food Management, pulls together all that the students have learned in previous classes and applies the knowledge in a practical way, said Edward Adel, assistant professor of hospitality management, who teaches the course.

During the course of 12 weeks, he said, each student will take on one of the roles required for a catered meal: captain or catering manager, head of kitchen, sous chef, baker, hot or cold food cook, server or dishwasher.

Photo by Susan McSpadden

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Adel makes the assignments, much the way a restaurant manager would prepare the schedule for staff in the front and back of the house.

The key position each week belongs to the captains, who are responsible for planning a menu around an assigned protein using a $250 budget.

“That reflects the real world,” Adel said. “A catering client would say what they want.”

Protein choices might include beef, pork, chicken, seafood, salmon, white fish or lamb – generally assigned based on the proteins being ordered for other classes that week, allowing the meal to be presented as economically as possible, Adel said.

For example, Carman Gilmore and Jeffrey Ward were paired as co-captains one week in February with chicken as their assigned protein. When she saw that they were serving chicken, Gilmore immediately thought of Black History Month, and suggested soul food as the theme.

As they talked, Gilmore said the pair began to define soul food as food that comes from the heart.

“It’s more than just cultural; it’s home and family,” she said.

The result was a menu that featured the kind of food their grandmothers might have made: fried chicken, mustard greens with bacon, Dr. Pepper glazed carrots, okra-and-black-eyed pea-croquettes.

For dessert? Sweet potato tartlets with brown sugar and

molasses ice cream and pumpkin seed brittle.

The ice cream recipe is one Ward developed for a Thanksgiving dinner for his family. “I drew the dessert card,” he said.

Captains create their menus early in the semester, and then the entire semester’s worth of menus are charted out on a whiteboard and critiqued. The students might decide that a particular side dish appears too many times over the course of a semester, or that another dish just isn’t feasible based on cost or the skills of the back-of-the-house cooks.

“That’s the kind of thing they might have to do if they were catering a week-long convention,” Adel said.

Though Adel said the captains are told they can order anything for their menu, the reality is that they can’t. Economics play a role in the menu choices and also introduce the future chefs and catering managers to the idea of making a less expensive item work as well as its more expensive counterpart.

They may be asked to use a cut of beef that must be braised, and learn to develop its flavor with slow cooking and sauces. Or they may substitute mature beets for baby beets.

“The food is purchased with a frugal dollar,” he said.

The captains are also faced with one more challenge: how the meal will be served. Four weeks feature the familiar American style service, with food plated in the kitchen. Three are served in the French style, with one course prepared tableside – such as a Caesar salad. Three are served Russian style, with at least one element served from a platter at the

Tiffany Lair goes over the menu before the luncheon.

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table. And the last is a buffet-style meal.

They get some help on customizing a particular style of service to their catering setting from industry professionals who serve as occasional guest lecturers for the classroom portion of the two-day-a-week class. Adel said the professionals discuss their service philosophy and how their company approaches customers. Adel also lectures on such topics as strategies for plating food to keep it hot or cold and preserve the quality.

“There might be 8, 9, 10 ways to dish the plates up,” he said.

The rest of the class time is spent in the kitchen. Much of the production work is done on Wednesdays, with the final rush of activity taking place on Thursdays.

What students quickly learn in the class is that they will succeed – or fail – as a team. If someone is sick, or doesn’t show up, the captains have to handle the situation, just as they would if they were managing a restaurant kitchen.

One week, for example, the back-of-the-house staff forgot to cook the vegetables, and had to scramble to get them done, Ward said.

“This has given me insight into the managerial side of restaurants,” he said. “Essentially our assignment each week is to open a pop-up restaurant, and this will give me insight when I open my own place.”

His dream is to open a seasonal farm-to-table style restaurant.

Gilmore, who someday wants to open an oceanside

bed and breakfast where locals stop by for good food and great entertainment, said she’s learned the value of communication between people in the front of the house and those in the back.

“You have to cover all the bases and communicate with your team, work together,” she said. “It’s learning the mechanics of it all.”

She’s delighted by the opportunity to go beyond the culinary expertise and pick up the management side of the food business.

“This just brings together everything I’ve been learning and shows how to put it together and into practice,” Gilmore said.

This is the final semester that the meals will be served in the familiar space of room 108. Next semester, the meals will move to the new Hospitality and Culinary Academy under construction on the east side of campus.

Adel said the new space will have a kitchen designed for serving the hospitality meals, a change from the retrofitted kitchen that’s currently used. Though the dining room in the new building also will serve as a classroom, it will have more of a dining room feel.

“There are lots of things we’d like to do in the new building,” he said. “It will have more of a restaurant feel and we’ll have options to be more creative – maybe offer guests a choice of soup or salad. It will feel more like a dining scenario.”

Handling kitchen duties are Matthew Stansfield, from left, Alex Maggard and Alix Osborn.

Testing the tablet

Ten faculty members at Johnson County Community College were selected for a unique technological experiment: give up time on a

desktop computer in exchange for a mobile device.

The cohort all chose iPads, that sleek and topical offering from Apple that currently holds 50 percent of the tablet market. And why not? They’re especially easy to carry and relatively easy to navigate. They provide wonderful applications – time-killers like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. But birds and fruit aside, are they ready for the classroom?

For one semester, the great iPad experiment group decided to find out.

“The worst thing we could have done is made these mobile devices an option for someone’s core machine without ever having tested it first, just throwing them in the deep end and only then having discovered what some of these limitations are,” said Jason Kovac, executive director of academic initiatives and coordinator of the project.

Kovac, along with Mary O’Sullivan, director of client support services, and Vincent Miller, director of the Educational Technology Center, met monthly with the group from September 2012 to February 2013. It was the first organized group at JCCC to take on the challenges of tablet computing.

The cohort started with the basics (How do you print from an iPad?) and ended with presentations using the iPad about how to give presentations using an iPad.

Participants were on the honor system. They were allowed to keep their desktop or laptop computer, but they were told to journal when they used any device other than the iPad.

Those results would be used to decide whether the iPad – or a similar device – should take the place of any of the more than 2,000 desktop and laptop computers (and 200 virtual desktops) available for faculty use.

“The value we tried to create is that feedback – to find out whether these devices are ready for prime time and can serve as their main device,” Kovac said.

Other colleges and universities have attempted similar experiments on a larger scale, Miller said, but JCCC wanted to start small.

In addition to the cost of the devices, the cost of the maintenance and support had to be considered. The JCCC helpdesk has six iPads available for faculty and staff to check out, O’Sullivan said, and 145 tablet devices in its total inventory.

“Even though these devices are relatively intuitive, technicians are learning alongside those in the pilot,” O’Sullivan said. “We’re going to be talking with the pilot group to leverage their experiences with those devices (and) find out what they want to carry forward into the classroom.”

Ultimately, those changes may not be happening soon. The results of the great iPad experiment are in, and it’s a mixed bag.

“We found out that it doesn’t work as a sole device, but it is a nice supplement,” Miller said.

Tablet devices still have a hard time interfacing with essential college systems, such as Angel (the online learning system) and Banner (the administrative computing system).

Participants found other uses for them, however, which they talk about on the next page.

Dan Eberle, from left, Jim Hillen and Alicia Bredehoeft have a few thoughts on iPads.

16 | The Open Petal

By Anne Christiansen-Bullers

Faculty members experiment with iPad’s functionality

Pilot participant: Jim Hillen, adjunct instructor of foreign languageWhat he liked about the study: Tips for getting away from pencil and paper and into “cloud” storage, where his notes (class and personal) are saved on Evernote and stored in Dropbox.Best takeaway: Quickly accessing email, despite teaching at different colleges in the metro area. “As an adjunct, I’m all over the place. My office is with me. With the iPad, I can respond quickly to students’ emails, and that’s important to me.”What he’s working on: Flash cards for the Spanish language, accessed by tablets and smartphones, that include the Spanish word, the English word and an audio recording of the word’s pronunciation.

Pilot participant: Alicia Bredehoeft, counselor and chair, counselingWhat she liked about the study: The camaraderie and shared focus of the first cohort. … I really wanted the pilot program to be about students, but it did have wonderful benefits for me professionally as well.”Best takeaway: Helping students on the fly. “Going to and from meetings, I would engage with students in the hallway. I found myself not engaging in a full-blown counseling session with them in the hallway, but if they were looking lost, I would see them looking distressed. Right there in the hallway, I could help them troubleshoot the first or second level of a question and then get them to the next level of help.”What she’s working on: Using her iPad effectively at home.

Pilot participant: Dan Eberle, assistant professor of energy performance and resource managementWhat he liked about the study: “I found new ways to use the iPad, but overall I didn’t think my opinion about the device changed that much.”Best takeaway: “(A mobile device) can be everything you need, or it can be a window into the other things you need. And I found that I fit into the other category.” Some programs just work better on a desktop or laptop.What he’s working on: Comparative analysis. “Over the holiday break, we as a family tried the Nexus 7, an iPad mini, a Kindle Fire HD and a Google Chromebook. We sat around the table and tried different things. My kids are all teenagers now, and they will be the adopters if anyone is.” The results depended on what family members were looking to do. “The first device selected was the iPad mini. It just fits hands better than (a full-sized) iPad…but for the money, the Chromebook is the better deal overall. If they would just add a touch screen to that, I think they’d have everybody beat.”

Alicia BredehoeftAlicia Bredehoeft

Jim HillenJim Hillen

Dan EberleDan Eberle

The Open Petal | 17

One remembers when faculty members were called instructors, not professors, and another recalls a time when

adding machines could still get the job done in the accounting department.

Two more started working at Johnson County Community College back when was the campus consisted of its

first six core buildings: the Commons, the Educational Media Center (now Billington Library), the Science Building, the

General Education Building, the Campus Services Building and the Gymnasium. And all have seen the college expand over

the years, with the number of students increasing almost ten-fold and the number of buildings more than tripling.

At least 21 employees will retire in May, and with retirements up in recent years, The Open Petal invited some of those

who will be leaving at the end of this semester to talk about their years at the college. A half dozen agreed to share their

recollections and their feelings about leaving an institution that has been such a big part of their lives.

18 | The Open Petal

Short-timers share stories of their years at the collegeBy Diane Carroll

The Open Petal | 19

“I was so young when I came,” said Lori Vogelsberg, an administrative assistant in student success and engagement, who was 19 when she joined the college in 1979.

“I love the sense of community here. So many of us have grown up together; our kids have grown up together. It’s family and I think that’s the thing I will miss most.”

Vogelsberg has worked in student services since she started and now serves as administrative assistant for Dennis Day, vice president of student success and engagement.

Even in those early days, Vogelsberg said, the college staff gathered for a community breakfast to kick off an academic semester. Usually, five or six new staff or faculty appeared in the fall, she said, and the setting was small enough for her to meet and welcome them.

Vogelsberg received a Colleague Award from the JCCC Foundation in 2003 for serving on a committee that supported the Foundation’s annual Dollars for Scholars auction for scholarships. She was on it for 10 years, she said, remembering hours spray-painting in her garage and, as part of a team, employing other creative ways to make table favors and decorations on a thin budget. “We called ourselves the ‘You name it – we do it’ committee,” she said.

Vogelsberg is mulling her options for the future. She is planning, however, to get involved with the college’s Retirees Association.

Kristin Downing was 23 years old, with a master’s degree in counseling, when she joined the college in 1978.

She initially counseled students on the second floor of what is now Billington Library, then moved to the General Education Building and now sees students on the second floor of the Student Center.

“We have wonderful transfer and career services but the core thing that students want hasn’t changed,” Downing said.

“They still just want to be listened to and have someone who cares about them who can help them draw a plan for their life.”

The counseling center, now with 21 full-time and nine part-time counselors, has always been a busy place, she said. Two to three weeks before semesters, Downing said, the counselors serve a crush of students, numbering 300 to 400 every day.

Despite that challenge, Downing said, “I believe we have the best job on campus. It’s been a fabulous place to work.”

Downing has served as adviser to the women’s basketball team, developed a referral system for students in need of mental health services, served on numerous committees, including search committees, and led a number of efforts, including redesigning the student ambassador program.

She says she would be interested in returning to the college as a part-time employee, perhaps to help out during the counseling center’s busiest times.

Jan Cummings became affiliated with the college in 1982, starting out as an adjunct instructor in the interior design program. (No one was referred to as a professor at that time.) She went full-time temporary and then in the late 1980s became a full-time member of the faculty. For the last 15 years, she has been professor/chair of the interior design program.

“There have been lots of changes,” Cummings said.

The department has grown significantly, she said, and has established strong partnerships with philanthropic and non-profit organizations in the community. The program’s service-learning opportunities have allowed students to hone their design skills at places such as SAFEHOME, New Horizon Ranch in Rantoul, Kan., and the Center for Child Health and Development at Kansas University Medical

Lori Vogelsberg Kristin Downing Jan Cummings

20 | The Open Petal

Center in Kansas City, Kan. The department’s longest connection has been with the annual Symphony’s Designers’ Showcase, which raises funds for the Kansas City Symphony. That collaboration is in its 28th year, she said, and “we’re the only college or university that has been continually represented for that time.”

Cummings has maintained an interior design business over the years and she says she’ll probably build it up again. She also hopes to teach at the college part-time.

She said she thinks it’s time for her to pass the baton.

“I’m not particularly sad because new ideas are good. They pump new energy back into your program.”

Ellen Fisher, director of accounting services/grants, began in 1984 as the bursar. When students registered and paid for classes back then, lines stretched through the halls. Eventually, students began registering by telephone and then the Web.

I’ve seen a lot of changes – some good, sometimes not so good,” she said. “But you just have to go with the flow.”

Fisher said she has had a lot of on-the-job training and appreciates what she learned from Bob Prater, her former supervisor, who retired in December.

Initially, she compiled audit schedules and financial statements with adding machines, columnar ledger paper and a pencil. Computers were a big improvement.

She feels good about what she has accomplished. All of the college audits during her tenure have warranted unqualified opinions, which is the best rating possible. She also was a member of the original group of team leaders who implemented the Banner system, an effort that took place from 1993 to 1995.

“That was a big deal,” she said. “But everyone pulled together and we’ve still got it going today.”

Fisher plans to finish her dissertation for her doctorate in higher education and hopes to continue teaching accounting part-time at JCCC.

Sheilah Philip, a professor of theatre, thought she had hit the big time when she left Colby Community College in 1989 to join JCCC as a full-time theatre instructor.

Colby is a small Kansas college in an agrarian setting and she (along with her co-workers there) was impressed that she was joining a flagship school. It was culture shock for a while.

The first plays that Philip’s students put on took place in Craig Community Auditorium, room 233 of the General Education Building. At the time, the Carlsen Center – with its three theatres – was under construction.

“When I walked into the Carlsen Center for the first time the lobby was still open to the sky and workers were setting bricks,” she said. She and a co-worker celebrated the new building by climbing up a ship’s ladder to the grid, an openwork steel platform 90 feet above the stage floor of Yardley Hall.

Philip still thinks that the Carlsen Center offers the best spaces for theatre students in the Midwest.

“We really have something pretty terrific here,” she said.

Like the others interviewed, she said that she decided to retire this year at least partly to take advantage of a health insurance benefit that will be ending May 31.

Philip is still deciding what will come next for her but she is interested in working part-time with the college.

Sheilah PhilipEllen Fisher

“There are so many opportunities on campus. You just have to take advantage of them.”– Debbie Drake,

administrative assistant

“Stan Herd’s site-specific earthwork significantly extends the college’s collection and reflects our long commitment to area artists.”– Bruce Hartman, executive director,

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

The Open Petal | 21

As an administrative assistant, Debbie Drake appreciates the college environment.

She joined the college 16 years ago (she previously had

worked at the college part-time for two years) and has worked full-time in administrative services since then. Her job can be unpredictable and she likes it that way.

“My job isn’t all Word and Excel,” she said. “There are folks coming in all the time,” often to see Executive Vice President Joe Sopcich. “It’s just an exciting office to work in.”

Drake belonged to the Office Professional League for a while, which gave her a chance to connect with other administrative assistants. She also participated in one of the college’s overnight retreats, a two-day event that put her in contact with about 40 other college employees.

“I think it’s important to put yourself in situations where you meet people across campus,” Drake said.

She’s also taken classes at the college, including ones in floral arrangements, cake decorating and fitness. “There are so many opportunities on campus,” she said. “You just have to take advantage of them.”

Drake, who will focus on helping out her mother, said she feels fortunate to have worked with people who encouraged her to do more than she thought she could.

“It caused me to stretch beyond what I ever thought I could do,” she said.

How retirements have gone up

19802

19854

19906

199513

200015

200519

201038

201136

201245

201332*

*As of March 1, 32 had either retired or been approved by the board to retire in 2013.

Sources: Human Resources, Board of Trustees records.

Debbie Drake

Brad Redburn, professor of psychology, believes that anyone who desires to go to college should be given the chance, even if there are obstacles standing in the

way. Redburn has recently created a means to help overcome one major obstacle for struggling students: financing.

A lifelong passion for teaching coupled with a philanthropic spirit propelled Redburn to establish the Professor Brad Redburn Scholarship at Johnson County Community College as a way to give back to the community and to students.

The first of these scholarships will be awarded in the fall 2013 semester. Interested applicants can apply by filling out the standard financial aid applications available through the JCCC Foundation. To be eligible for the scholarship, applicants must have a grade point average of 2.5 or better and be a citizen of the United States. Preference will be given to students in a single-parent family, a first-time college student in the family or a GED graduate.

Redburn also feels strongly about adding to the list of preferences those people that he calls the “underserved” of society. Due to a host of extenuating circumstances, he said, this portion of the population will be most likely to not have the means to attend college.

One example would be someone who has a criminal record, he said. It’s a demographic group that Redburn feels passionate about helping.

“I know many people who have been convicted of a felony, and I noticed that they really do want to turn their lives around, “he said. “Unfortunately they can’t because they have this conviction trailing them.

“We need to help these people give back to society and to put their life in a place where they can be productive members of society so they don’t go back to where they were before,” he said.

Eligible applicants do not have to study psychology or pursue a career in that field in order to receive the scholarship. Any student in any course of study is eligible.

“I did not want to limit that because I think that people need to go after their passion, whatever that may be,” he said. “If you have the drive and passion to attend school, then this is for you. I want you to do what you love, because I was fortunate to do what I love, and I want to promote that.”

As an educator for more than 26 years, Redburn said he’s done what he loves, and now he wants to continue making a difference in the lives of the students. This scholarship is just a tool to help students realize their passion, he said.

“Teaching is my passion. I am sitting exactly where I am supposed to be sitting,” he said. “I don’t know how I was so lucky to get where I am supposed to be but somehow, I was very fortunate. It just seemed very clear to me that I wanted to keep promoting education because it is so important. I wanted to do my little part to help people.”

Professor initiates scholarship for students

22 | The Open Petal

“I wanted to do my little part to help people,” Professor Brad Redburn said.

By Anne Hunt Photo by Susan McSpadden

The Open Petal | 23

Last year, Johnson County Community College adopted new school colors and a new logo as part of a rebranding to update its identity.

Now the Continuing Education branch of the college is undergoing a rebranding of its own.

The goal? To align the diverse offerings under Continuing Education – from business training to personal enrichment courses and license certifications for health care and other professionals – under the JCCC brand.

Everyone who takes a credit course at JCCC associates the class with the college, said Karen Martley, associate vice president of continuing education and organizational development. The Continuing Education branch wants everyone who participates in one of its offerings to also think of JCCC, she said.

The biggest visible changes will be the introduction of a new logo that ties Continuing Education with JCCC and the elimination of the name of the Center for Business and Technology.

The center’s name made sense when it was introduced 15 years ago, Martley said, because the college wanted the community to become more aware of its business offerings. But the needs in the community have evolved, she said, and the Continuing Education branch is restructuring its staff and updating its programs to meet today’s demands.

“We’re putting a lot of focus now on high-growth areas such as what is happening in Gardner and Edgerton with the new intermodal transportation hub,” she said. “That’s going to be a huge boost to the workforce and a lot of people will be hired. We’re also looking at high growth locally. There is a lot going on with Google in town and getting people up to speed on digital literacy. And health care is still huge.

“We want to make sure that our programs will be the right fit and that we are offering the right services at the right time.”

Martley envisions more programs like Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Help (HITECH). Continuing Education began offering HITECH as a certificate program about two years ago to address the need to train health-care workers how to perform tasks such as switching

health-care records over to online files. The program has since been moved over to the credit side of the college.

In an effort to best pinpoint the needs of the community, Continuing Education leaders have been restructuring their staff to allow some staff to be out in the community more often.

The changes have been under discussion for some time, Martley said, but the branch leaders wanted to wait to implement them until after the college did its rebranding. Now, she said, “the time just seems right.”

Continuing Education undergoes rebranding

Here’s what to look forThe Continuing Education branch has already started to use its new logo and phase out the Center for Business and Technology name.

You can now find the main Web page for Continuing Education at www.jccc.edu/ce. From there, you can link to any of the areas below.

Instead of looking for the Center for Business and Technology site, go to www.jccc.edu/workforce, where you will find workforce-related courses and programs.

If you’re looking for a short course on a hobby such as cooking or photography, you’ll find it at www.jccc.edu/personalenrichment. This site will also have information on driver’s training, motorcycle training and youth classes.

The Health and Human Services site will remain at www.jccc.edu/hhs. The division provides training for health-care certifications and licensures and a broad range of learning opportunities.

The Kansas Small Business Development Center, will remain at www.jccc.edu/ksbdc.

Find Continuing Education at www.jccc.edu/ce, www.facebook.com/JCCC.ContinuingEd and at twitter.com@JCCC_ContinueED.

By Diane Carroll

24 | The Open Petal

nationally known customer strategist Robin Lawton will share his message of Innovation Versus Stuff That Sucks from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday,

June 26, to an inquiring audience that really wants to know the difference.

The compelling presentation will be in the Capitol Federal Conference Center in the Regnier Center of Johnson County Community College.

When the acclaimed author and speaker first proposed the title of Innovation Versus Stuff That Sucks at a convention in Minnesota five years ago, there was obviously a little pushback.

Did he have to use “that” word? “Suck” is just so, so – unbusinesslike.

“My experience is that customers are very blunt about their perceptions of products and services that don’t work. In fact, we have no trouble as customers in talking about stuff that sucks,” Lawton said.

“And if the business community was defined as being people over age 55, then yes, (the detractors) would be right. But if we defined their customers as people who have been born after 1969, those people grew up with the entertainment industry, and ‘Innovation Versus Stuff That Sucks’ was nothing,” he said.

Lawton’s approach to thinking of the customer first goes far beyond just naming his seminars. For him, the customer-centered approach is critical to business success.

“I try to take the range of experiences that we have with stuff that doesn’t work and identify the five variables that cause us as customers to say, ‘This sucks.’ These five characteristics

apply to every product that doesn’t work.”

What are the five? One is complexity. Customers like things they can understand quickly. Lawton will share the remaining four characteristics at the seminar.

He’ll also define what “innovation” really means to businesses and what needs to happen in order for innovation to succeed.

“When innovation is being given as a burden, or a task for someone, they need a lot of information to be productive on it. I’m going to help fill that information gap. I’m going to say, ‘What is that information you need so that your innovation will have a chance at success?’” Lawton said.

Lawton has been president of International Management Technologies since 1985 and is author of a best-selling book, Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation and Speed.

“We are incredibly happy to have a speaker of Robin’s caliber at JCCC,” said Jennifer Winchester, business solutions consultant, Continuing Education. “His advice for creating a customer-centered culture is of paramount importance to so many industries today.”

How to registerTo register, go to jccc.edu and search for the keywords “Robin Lawton” and “innovation stuff” or call 913-469-2323. The early bird registration rate of $92 is available through May 22. Registration after that date will be $115.

Customer strategist Robin Lawton to share message on ‘stuff’By Anne Christiansen-Bullers

Robin Lawton makes a point during a January workshop at JCCC.

The Open Petal | 25

In January, Shelley became the first coach from Kansas to be inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame. The association, whose members include four-year and two-year colleges, presented Shelley with the honor at its annual convention in Chicago.

“It’s been an exciting year,” Shelley said. When he learned of the award, he said, “I found myself for the first time at a loss for words.”

Shelley has won more games than any baseball coach in JCCC history and is one of the all-time leaders in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference. He amassed an impressive 759-476-1 mark (.614) as he led one team to a National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) World Series, three squads to NJCAA Region VI titles and four teams to Region VI Eastern Sub-Regional championships.

His players have also done well. Thirty-one have been drafted or signed as free agents by Major League Baseball teams and 233 went on to play at four-year colleges and universities.

Shelly says that his desire to win came at an early age.

“My dad introduced me to the game when I was 5,” he said. “He was one of my first coaches and that is where my passion began.”

Shelley, who grew up in Lawrence, managed to get on a county team called the Wakarusa Warriors when he was 7 even though the minimum age was 8. Team members couldn’t afford uniforms so they wore white T-shirts and wrote their name on the back in black magic marker. On his shirt, Shelley wrote: “Refuse to lose.”

Shelley said his wife, MargE Shelley, still teases him about how much he loves to win and hates to lose.

After high school, Shelley played ball at Pratt Community College, where he was named Most Valuable Player in 1980. That award earned him a scholarship to the University of Kansas. During his senior year for the Jayhawks, Shelley was co-captain and the team’s starting catcher.

Shelley joined JCCC as an assistant coach in 1986 and was promoted to head coach the following year.

Shelley, who often is asked about his coaching philosophy, said he tells every recruit to earn a four-year degree and act as a role model in his community.

“If we play a small role in the development of that young man, then we have one of the best programs in the country,” he said.

It’s been a good year for Kent Shelley.

This spring, he got that state-of-the-art baseball field that he had been wishing for since he became head baseball coach at Johnson

County Community College in 1987 (See page 28). And that came own top of receiving college baseball’s highest honor.

By Tyler Cundith

Baseball coach basks in limelight as season opens

Kent Shelley’s father introduced him to baseball when he was 5 years old.

C A M P U S L I F EDatebookApril 19, Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Third Annual Regional Community College Assessment Conference at JCCC for assessment professionals from across a five-state region. Plenary speaker will be Susan Hatfield, assessment coordinator and professor of communication studies at Winona State University in Winona, Minn. To register, go to jccc.edu, search for the Outcomes Assessment website, click on the top

link and click on “Register Now.” Free for JCCC faculty and staff; otherwise $75.

April 19, Friday, 7 p.m., JCCC Got Talent! Show Live with Derek Hughes. Hughes, who will be master of ceremonies, is also a comedian. Sponsored by Student Activities. Yardley Hall. Free.

April 25, Thursday, 2 p.m., Dedication of new earthwork created by Lawrence artist Stan Herd to be held at the site of the artwork. It is located on the western side of campus

between the outdoor horticulture garden and the road leading to the sports parking lots.

April 26-28, Friday to Sunday, Anna in the Tropics, presented by the college’s theatre department. Friday and Saturday 7:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m., Polsky Theatre. Free.

May 1, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., Married in Harmony, a music department gala involving all music ensembles. Yardley Hall. Free.

May 3-4, 6 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday, Seventh Annual Health & Wellness Pow Wow. Dance contests and free health screenings. Sponsored by the American Indian Health Research & Education Alliance. For more information, visit www.AHREA.com. Gymnasium and Fieldhouse. Free admission.

June 26, Wednesday, 8 a.m. to noon, customer strategist Robin Lawton will present Innovation Versus Stuff That Sucks. To register, go to jccc.edu and search for the keywords “Robin Lawton” and “innovation stuff” or call 913-469-2323. Lawton will share his ideas on how best to put the customer first. Capitol Federal Conference Center in the Regnier Center. The early bird registration rate of $92 is available through May 22. Registration after that date will be $115.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain8 p.m. Saturday, April 20Yardley Hall

On stage

For tickets and information about these and other events sponsored by the Performing Arts Series, visit jccc.edu/TheSeries or call the college box office at 913-469-4445.

Christine McHorse at work in her Santa Fe, N.M., studio. Photo courtesy of Addison Doty

At the NermanDark Light • the Ceramics of Christine Nofchissey McHorse The exhibit opened in February and will show through May 26. For more information about the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, visit nermanmuseum.org. To read a story about the artist, go to jccc.edu and search for Christine McHorse.

26 | The Open Petal

Christine McHorse, Free Radical, 2012, micaceous ceramic 20 x 9.625” Collection Barbara and Eric Dobkin

Christine McHorse, Spine, 2010, micaceous ceramic 27.25 x 13” Collection Barbara and Bill Weldon

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo8 p.m. Saturday, April 27Yardley Hall

A great place to startWith an ACT score of 32, Josh Thrutchley had a variety of colleges wooing him. He chose JCCC. During his two years here, he participated in the college’s pre-med club. Now he attends the University of Missouri in Kansas City with aspirations of attending medical school.

Getting involvedCassie Fulk works as a student ambassador at the Center for Student Involvement and plans to attend Kansas State University after graduating here. She thinks she wants to get a double major in human ecology and business. “Wherever God wants me to be, I hope that’s where I am.”

Making a differenceForty years ago, Barry R. Grissom graduated from JCCC. Today, the Leawood resident is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas. That makes him the chief federal law enforcement official for the district, which has offices in Kansas City, Wichita and Topeka.

Closing in on a dreamAmanda Rulo, who expects to graduate in nursing this spring, says that two honors courses she took had a big impact on her. Honors Composition made her a better writer, she said, and Honors Psychology led her to get involved in starting the Active Minds at JCCC club, which raises awareness about mental health.

Coming to AmericaAfter leaving Vietnam for the United States in 1997, Hong Sievert decided to study interior design at JCCC. She now works at a Home Depot in Olathe and has won a number of awards, including the Gold Award for the Kansas City Homes and Gardens Magazine Remodel of the Year.

Online ExclusivesThere are so many ways to fit in at JCCC. Check out the ways these people took by going to jccc.edu, typing in the search words highlighted below and clicking on the top link.

At the NermanJessica Wedekind catches up on some reading Feb. 12 between visitors to the information desk at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum is open 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. It’s open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. It is closed Mondays and all college holidays.

The Open Petal | 27

Photo by Susan McSpadden

28 | The Open Petal

Now the JCCC baseball facility will be recognized as one of the premier baseball fields in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference after major renovations were completed last fall.

The college’s board of trustees approved the project at its July 2012 meeting and construction began in the fall. The improvements included a new playing surface, underground drainage, new dugouts, new backstop and fencing, and installation of lighting to allow play at night.

A state-of-the-art AstroTurf ® GameDay Grass 3D60 infill system has been installed on the entire playing surface, allowing JCCC to join Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State universities as the only college baseball programs in

the state with a full turf field. The field replaced the natural grass field that had been installed when the JCCC baseball program started in 1973. The new AstroTurf field is the same as the one that was installed last summer at K-State’s Tointon Family Stadium.

A natural grass-colored surface was installed in the infield, outfield and foul territory areas, while a traditional clay-infield color covers the warning track, base paths, infield dirt area, home plate circle and pitching mound. Additionally, permanent white lines have been installed for the foul lines and batter’s boxes.

The renovation gives JCCC baseball one of the top playing surfaces in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College

Several thousand come each year. Parents come to watch their sons compete. Johnson County Community

College alumni come to see the next generation of Cavaliers. Students, faculty and staff members come for

the sheer fun of it.

S P O R T S

nighttime strikesBaseball team plays first night game, thanks to field upgrades

By Tyler Cundith

A small group meets before the first night game on March 8.

The Open Petal | 29

Conference. It will give the team opportunities to practice and compete in all types of weather and to host top-notch amateur baseball championships during the year.

“My feet have not touched the ground since the night the board approved the project,” said JCCC head coach Kent Shelley. “What is being built now has been a dream of mine for 27 years. It is something I wanted for our players, alumni and community college. I am so proud of this facility and what it means to JCCC and the baseball community. It is now a state-of-the art classroom.”

A second phase of the project is expected to begin when funding is secured. That phase will include a 1,000-seat stadium with chair back seats behind home plate, an enclosed press box, a clubhouse and coaches’ offices behind the first base dugouts, restroom facilities and a concession stand.

The team tested the new lighting system one evening in February, and Shelley said all systems worked to perfection.

“As it was booting up, the field kind of came alive,” Shelley said. “For me, it really completed the project. The kids were really excited, and I was very happy with the performance of the lights.”

Night baseball was played at JCCC for the first time on Friday, March 8, when the Cavaliers took the field against Allen Community College.

In addition to the baseball field improvements, the athletics department recently completed upgrades to the locker rooms used by women teams in all sports and expects to do the same for the men’s teams. The six-lane, 200-meter track inside the Fieldhouse also has been resurfaced.

Athletics Director Carl Heinrich said that the projects are part of a facilities master plan that emphasizes the college’s commitment to long-term success.

“It’s an exciting time,” Heinrich said. “We have wonderful facilities here but we need to keep enhancing and improving them.”

This new entrance to the field would be part of a second phase of improvements.

The team huddles before its first game under the lights. JCCC won both games in the double-header March 8 against Allen Community College.

AstroTurf provides a better surface.

T H E R E A R W I n D O W

Photos by Susan McSpadden

Worth a look backThe biggest surprise of the winter semester had to be the back-to-back snowstorms that blanketed the

campus in February. The college shut down for several days, but still went on with a ceremony where

more then 80 people became U.S. citizens. Between classes and studying, culinary students fit in a

chili feed fund-raiser and fashion design students paraded their work.

30 | The Open Petal

The silly side comes out for students in the interpretative training program during Welcome Week activities on Jan. 15. Enjoying the free photo booth are Alicia Goldstein, clockwise from left, Tia Rivard, Isabella Mullins, Juliana Ladd and Ellen Corpora.

Members of the Golden Girls dance team show off their kicking style during a men’s basketball game March 2 against Hesston College. JCCC won.

The Open Petal | 31

For more photos, visit www.facebook.com/JCCC411. Or connect with Facebook by going to the

college home page at jccc.edu and clicking on “Connect with JCCC.”

Students brave the cold wind and blowing snow to make it to class. The college closed three days during February and cancelled classes early on a fourth day during back-to-snowstorms from Thursday, Feb. 21, through Tuesday, Feb. 26.

JCCC students and sisters Shadan and Shagan Moaed Abdulateef, both in pink and originally from Iraq, become U.S. citizens Feb. 22 in Polsky Theatre.

Fashion design student Jessica Hilt, left, blows a kiss and some sass to the audience after her collection was shown during a fashion show March 4.

JCCC’s culinary knowledge bowl team sells chili Feb. 20.

Board members with the fashion merchandising and design program have a little fun Feb. 19 during their photo shoot.

Puppeteering for The Fisherman and The Goldfish.

Maintenance workers E.R. Mosley, left, and Dean Spaulding work Feb. 27 to clear a path to Galileo’s Pavilion.

www.jccc.edu/TheSeries | 913-469-4445Performing Arts SeriesJohnson County Community College | NO ONLINE FEES | FREE PARKING

8 p.m., Sat., April 27Yardley Hall

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

12345 COLLEGE BLVDOVERLAND PARK KS 66210-1299

These guys are tutu much!