West Texas A&M NewsWire

Nursing Receives Continued Accreditation

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Nov. 11, 2009

CONTACT: Dr. Helen Reyes, 806-651-2631, hreyes@wtamu.edu

COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu

Nursing Receives Continued Accreditation

CANYON, Texas—The Department of Nursing at West Texas A&M University has been granted continued accreditation of its baccalaureate and master’s programs in nursing education by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).

CCNE is recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as a national accreditation agency to assesses and identify programs that engage effective educational practices. The University first received CCNE accreditation in 1999 during the agency’s inaugural accrediting process, and this marks a continuation of that accreditation with no stipulations for the next 10 years.

A four-person CCNE accreditation team visited the campus in the spring to determine if the WTAMU nursing department met the agency’s accreditation standards with no compliance concerns. Dr. Helen Reyes, head of the Department of Nursing, received notification in October, that the WTAMU program had received continued accreditation.

“We are so pleased to receive continued accreditation from CCNE,” she said. “It indicates that we continue to meet the high standards set by the agency and speaks highly of our program, our faculty and our students. It shows that West Texas A&M University offers a quality baccalaureate and graduate nursing education for the region.”

—WTAMU—

University Mascot Places at Texas Bison Association Exposition

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Nov. 11, 2009

CONTACT: Shawn Burns, 806-651-2300, sburns@wtamu.edu

COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu

University Mascot Places at Texas Bison Association Exposition

CANYON, Texas—The West Texas A&M University Herdsmen traveled to the 2009 Texas Bison Association (TBA) Exposition Nov. 6-7 in Fort Worth, and their charge, University mascot Thunder X, walked away with a prize.

The University mascot earned high marks in various categories at the event but took the third-place prize in the yearling bull category. Thunder X, the only university mascot to compete at the TBA event, came to WTAMU in August 2008 as the first bottle-fed bison the Herdsmen have had in their rotation of mascots. He made his official debut in November of that year and now serves as the University’s official mascot. The Herdsmen is a University spirit organization in charge of the care and training of the live mascot, and the November 6-7 trip marked Thunder X’s first appearance at a TBA event.

“We weren’t surprised at how well Thunder X showed because we have a good animal,” Shawn Burns, University chief of police and Herdsmen adviser, said. “He did very well considering what he was up against. The first-place winner will probably end up at the national show.”

In addition to the mascot’s showing at the event, the WTAMU Herdsmen also were recognized by TBA officials with a Gold Sponsor Honorarium for their support and assistance during the Exposition. The WTAMU group helped with the loading of animals for the show and sale and provided technical support for the presenters and offered assistance to TBA board members during the event.

“The guys did a great job helping out with extra hands and feet, but they gain a lot, too,” Burns said. “They get the chance to talk to those who know the species, and right now we are trying to fine tune Thunder X’s feeding regime after talking to experts at the event.”

The Herdsmen have attended the TBA Exposition before. In 2008 the group spoke at the event about the method of handling and training buffalo, and their presentation was mentioned in the inaugural 2009 edition of the Texas Bison Journal.

—WTAMU—

Clark Receives AASCARR Distinguished Service Award

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Nov. 3, 2009

CONTACT: Dr. James Clark, 806-651-2585, jclark@wtamu.edu

COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu

Clark Receives AASCARR Distinguished Service Award

CANYON, Texas—Dr. James Clark, dean of the College of Agriculture, Science and Engineering at West Texas A&M University, is the recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of State Colleges of Agriculture and Renewable Resources (AASCARR).

Clark received the highly coveted award during the AASCARR 2009 annual meeting Oct. 5-7 at Sul Ross State University in Alpine. The award, which has only two previous recipients, recognizes outstanding members who have contributed significantly to the organization. A resolution read at the meeting commended Clark for being an advocate for AASCARR and noted his tireless work on the Farm Bill committee. The award also recognizes Clark’s work on teaching improvement and his promotion of the non-land grant mission.

“I really enjoy working with this organization, and I am humbled by this award,” Clark said.

He has been a member of the organization since 1992. Clark spent three years as treasurer on the AASCARR’s board of directors before being installed as president elect for 1998-99. He served as president for the 1999-2000 term and as past president for 2000-2001. He also has been an active member of numerous AASCAR committees and served as chairman of the Special Projects Committee. Clark also served as a representative to NASULGC (National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges) on International Committee on Organization and Policy, 2001-2004; Farm Bill Task Force, 2001-2007; and Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy, 2004-2007.

An affiliate of the Academic Program Section of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), AASCAR is an organization of state colleges and public non-land-grant universities emphasizing undergraduate education in agriculture, renewable resources and related disciplines.

—WTAMU—

McKee Named TIFA Educator of the Year

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Nov. 3, 2009

CONTACT: Connie McKee, 806-651-2415, cmckee@wtamu.edu

COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu

McKee Named TIFA Educator of the Year

CANYON, Texas—Connie McKee, instructor of speech communication and director of forensics at West Texas A&M University was named Educator of the Year for the Texas Inercollegiate Forensics Association (TIFA) at the Texas Speech Communication Association (TSCA) Convention Oct. 7-10 in Dallas.

She also was elected TSCA vice president elect for 2009-2010.

TSCA, the largest state professional communication association in the nation, represents more than 2,000 speech teachers from middle schools to graduate universities across Texas. The TIFA Educator of the Year is selected through a highly competitive process with nominees who are held in high regard by students, colleagues and administrators. Nominees also must be active TSCA/TIFA members.

“I was so surprised,” McKee said. “It is a great honor to be picked from your peers across the state.”

The vice president elect position coordinates recruitment activities for TSCA and is responsible for membership orientation at the organization’s convention. As vice president elect, McKee also will preside over the organization in the absence of the president. The position is a three-year commitment, beginning with vice president elect, followed by a term as vice president and then one as TSCA president.

McKee, who travels throughout the year with her award-winning forensics team, has been an active member of TSCA for several years and was named Secondary Teacher of the Year for 1997-1998 and received the TSCA Outstanding Service Award in 2007. During her service to TSCA, McKee has chaired or served on numerous committees including the Public Relations Committee, UIL Advisory Committee, Fiscal Review Committee and Nominating Committee. She also has conducted or participated in various convention programs for the organization.

Before coming to WTAMU in 2002, McKee was a speech and debate coach at Amarillo High School and taught speech communication part time at Amarillo College. She earned both her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree at West Texas A&M University.

—WTAMU—

WTAMU Chooses ActiveCrawl RSS for Emergency Alerting to Desktop

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Oct. 21, 2009

CONTACT: James Webb, chief information officer, 806-651-1240, jwebb@wtamu.edu
Rodger Melchiori, SpectraRep, Inc., 703-802-2979, rmelchiori@spectrarep.com

WTAMU Chooses ActiveCrawl RSS for Emergency Alerting to Desktop

CANYON, Texas—SpectraRep®, LLC announced today that West Texas A&M University has selected ActiveCrawl RSS as its campus-wide desktop solution for emergency notifications. Deployed through e2Campus, the leading unified emergency notification system for education, ActiveCrawl RSS allows campus officials to send emergency alerts to the computer desktops of all students, faculty and staff via text crawls that scroll along the bottom of the screen.

“With more than 8,600 students, faculty and staff on our campus, security and safety is very important to West Texas A&M,” said James Webb, WTAMU's chief information officer. “We believe desktop alerting is an efficient method to reach people during any type of situation since the campus population uses and tends to be near their computers and laptops for extended periods of time. Through its integration with e2Campus, ActiveCrawl RSS provides us with an automatic way to send out desktop alerts simultaneously with other platform alerts. It’s a major part of our multimodal approach to campus alerting and security.”

ActiveCrawl RSS is part of SpectraRep’s ActiveAccessTM suite of solutions for emergency alerting to the computer desktop. As a Certified Endpoint Provider of e2Campus, ActiveCrawl RSS is easily accessed through the e2Campus administrative interface to initiate and send alerts to the desktop. Text crawls are delivered within seconds of being issued. On the desktop, ActiveCrawl RSS sits in the desktop tray. When an event does occur, text alerts appear as text scrolls along the bottom of the screen. Alerts appear in front of any other open programs so they are not missed.

“At one point, we had considered implementing an in-house solution for desktop alerting, but with ActiveCrawl RSS included in the e2Campus suite we overcame many of the problems we encountered with bandwidth and functionality,” commented Webb. “It has enabled us to rapidly deploy the solution before school began and now we feel we are fully prepared should an event arise that we need to notify people about.”

For more information on the suite of ActiveAccess solutions for emergency alerting, visit www.spectrarep.com/product/activeaccess or email sales@activeaccess.com to request a personal demonstration.

—WTAMU—

WTAMU Officials Seeking Survey Respondents

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Oct. 10, 2009

CONTACT: Dr. Neal Weaver, vice president for Institutional Advancement, 806-651-2070, nweaver@wtamu.edu

COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu

WTAMU Officials Seeking Survey Respondents

CANYON, Texas—Officials at West Texas A&M University are looking for some input as they begin planning for the University’s second century.

A WTAMU Pre-Campaign Survey has been compiled by Gardner and Associates, a consulting firm in Fayetteville, Ark., and WTAMU alumni and friends are encouraged to take a few minutes and participate in the study. The survey can be found at www.wtamu.edu/alumni and will be available through Nov. 1. It includes 46 questions covering a range of topics, and all responses will remain confidential.

“We are asking alumni, friends and supporters to take the survey and provide direction for a fund-raising campaign that will help us meet the goals and needs of WT’s second century,” Dr. Neal Weaver, vice president for institutional advancement, said. “It’s a quick, easy survey, and we are hoping to get honest, candid answers that will help us continue with the University’s strategic plan and vision for our next 100 years.”

Questions on the survey cover the respondent’s connection to WT, familiarity with the University’s strategic plan and mission statement, perceptions and knowledge of University events, campus construction and renovation, opinions on WT leadership, fund-raising campaign possibilities and advisory board prospects. All information will be compiled and studied by Gardner and Associates and presented to WTAMU officials for cultivating future goals and plans based on survey results.

—WTAMU—