By Steven Stilt
The Kaskaskia College Board of Trustees, during its meeting Monday night, approved the charter for a new student club, which will be known as the Wellness Club.
According to college officials, the club will aim to foster a supportive community focused on physical health, mental resilience and emotional balance. The organization will be open to all students, with a targeted outreach to psychology majors.
KC President George Evans says the club will be a welcome addition to the school.
“We do a really good job of recognizing individual organizations that are tied to their specific programs of function, but we didn’t really have the all-around group that individuals can just lean on each other, whether it’s somebody who has the ability to just vent, knowing that we have the resources here to provide them, or just kind of a support group for each other. What better way to lead something like this than to put it under the structure of one of our organizations, where the college will fully support it, give them a meeting space, (and) start them off with some seed dollars? And the idea was overwhelmingly positive.”
Evans says interest has already been strong for the new club, with around 18 students so far indicating that they are interested in participating.
Also on Monday, the board of trustees approved the purchase of Ellucian CRM Advise student retention software at a cost of $416,682. Officials say the software will provide enhanced analytics and tie in well with software that KC already has.
Trustees also approved the purchase of access points and switches from IT Savvy, at a cost of just over $55,000. The equipment will improve Wi-Fi coverage around the main campus.
The board also approved several faculty promotions. First-year probationary faculty members Stephanie Burgher and Kendra Mueller were approved for second-year status; second-year probationary faculty Sarah Foley and Shelby Guthrie were approved for third-year status; third-year probationary faculty Aryashree Kharel, Connor Pollmann and Whitney Wadkins were approved for tenured status; and Michael Geiger, Peter Vig, Brandi Wilkins, Marsha Baro, Sharon Elwood, Nichole Macon, Tessa Opfer, Cheryl Rushing, Charles DeBernardi, Lori Schmidt, Aaron Heinzmann, Robert Jervis, Kerri Richards and Mark Litteken were all approved for continued employment as tenured faculty.
