The official employee newsletter since 1998. 

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Judy Heatwole, MTD

Wellness & Development Coordinator

[email protected] | 208.732.6269

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Employees and significant others are always welcome at our CSI Employee Wellbeing events are as your suggestions for topics, presentations and information of interest.  Please reach out to any of our Advisory Team members with your thoughts!  Here's to your good health in 2019!

 

Spring Calendar of Events

 

Try our Chapel and Relaxation Center, TAB 245. The door is always open and everyone is welcome. A nondenominational Prayer Ministry is also a resource of the Chapel. Prayer boxes are available to leave requests for personal, CSI or general concerns. Requests may also be sent to [email protected]

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The CSI Foundation is pleased to announce the spring round for Mini-Grants and for Professional Development Grants. Up to $3,000 is available for each of these grants and projects are to be completed within a year of the award. The due date for electronic submission of these grants is midnight Wednesday, March 13, 2019. Use the CSI Common Grant Application to apply.

• Mini-Grants - to stimulate creative ideas and activities and their subsequent implementation that result in improved student learning and/or success. Click here for additional information. 

• Professional Development Grants - support travel to attend national conferences for the purpose of institutional improvement. Click here for additional information.

Application Submission Process: Please note that your application must be signed by your supervisor and Dean/AVP/VP for consideration. Once you have obtained the required signatures, scan the grant application and all supplemental documentation and email to [email protected] by midnight Wednesday, March 13, 2019. It is NOT required to bring a hard copy of your application to the Foundation office.

If you have further questions, please give us a call.

Kristen Adamson

Administrative Assistant, CSI Foundation

[email protected] | 208-732-6395

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FEBRUARY: "GREAT START"

Make your bed.

The "Great Start" Mini Challenge invites you to begin your day with a success - making your bed - for 23 out of the next 28 days. There's no need to go crazy and achieve military bed-making standards. Fluff your pillows, pull up your sheets and bedspread, and tuck in any loose ends. You can make your bed in less than 60 seconds. If you wake up earlier than your sleeping partner, you can still gently straighten your side of the bed without disruption.

Making your bed in the morning establishes a pattern of productivity and order that will transcend into other parts of your life. Order begets order, and success breeds success. Even though making your bed may seem pointless - since you're just going to get back in and mess it up later on - the impact to your life can be powerful and positive! Give yourself a gift of success each morning, as well as a tidy and more peaceful home environment to return to at the end of each day.

DOWNLOAD A DAILY "GREAT START" TRACKER

After you've finished this month's Mini Challenge mark the challenge as complete to be eligible for a prize drawing at the end of the year! You can earn one entry per month.

Judy Heatwole, MTD

Wellbeing & Development Coordinator

[email protected] | 208.732.6269

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Please plan to attend one of our Heart Health blood pressure checks on campus courtesy of our Medical Assisting Program throughout the month of February! Find days and locations in our Heart Health Blood Pressure Screenings message in this edition of eNotes. 

The American Heart Association's signature women's initiative, Go Red for Women, is a comprehensive platform designed to increase women's heart health awareness and serve as a catalyst for change to improve the lives of women globally.

It's no longer just about wearing red; it's no longer just about sharing heart health facts. It's about all women making a commitment to stand together with Go Red and taking charge of their own heart health as well as the health of those they can't bear to live without. Making a commitment to your health isn't something you have to do alone either, so grab a friend or a family member and make a Go Red Healthy Behavior Commitment today.

Commit to Better Health

As women, we tend to put others ahead of ourselves. But if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of everyone else around us. If you don't make your health a priority, who will? Making a commitment to your health isn't something you have to do alone, invite your tribe to achieve better health goals with you and make a Go Red Healthy Behavior Commitment today.

Click here to learn more about the signs and symptoms of heart disease and stroke, see a doctor regularly and learn about your family history. 

Judy Heatwole, MTD

Wellness & Development Coordinator

[email protected] | 208.732.6269

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Cost: Free

Audience: Public

Artist Statement:  A collaborative exhibition "Mare Nostrum" is a tribute to my travels to Greece from my native country, Serbia, with my family every summer in the past several years. The exhibition depicts a vast space of the Aegean Sea and a purity of its blue color. Lucid memories of this astonishing scenery as well as memories of my childhood at the Adriatic Sea, before the war in my native country, have inspired me to dedicate my most recent creations to these journeys. 

The exhibition is a collaboration with an Italian artist, Maurizio Giuseppucci, and his vision of the Adriatic Sea through photography and video work. Maurizio is an accomplished and versatile artist with a refined level of expertise for contemporary art.

Maurizio and I both grew up in two countries divided by the Adriatic Sea. The sea meant closeness, but political systems often times stood on a way and created more distance. By collaborating on this exhibition we strive to show intimacy in proximity for people of both lands. Our attachment to the sea was always beyond political differences between Eastern and Western Europe.

Joey Heck

Herrett Center Exhibits/Collections Manager

[email protected] | 208.732.6668

Herrett Center for Arts and Science         College of Southern Idaho
Museum, Planetarium, Observatory
Year round hours.   *Closed Sundays, Mondays, and federal holidays.		Tuesdays		9:30 am to 9:00 pm
		Wednesdays		9:30 am to 4:30 pm
		Thursdays		9:30 am to 4:30 pm
		Fridays		9:30 am to 9:00 pm
		Saturdays		1:00 pm to 9:00 pm

February

13th: Fat Tire Bike on Campus

23rd: Cross Country Ski - South Hills

For more information about any of these activities visit the CSI Outdoor Recreation Events Facebook page or the CSI Event Calendar.

Christa Gessaman

Outdoor Recreation Coordinator

[email protected] | 208.732.6697

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Come and enjoy some tasty soup from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in the SUB on the following dates:  

Friday, Feb. 15, at 8 a.m.

Friday, Feb. 15, at 12:15 p.m.

Description: Each Friday afternoon we will gather together and share lunch/treats while we discuss the daunting task of putting theory into practice, putting context into all the content we teach.

Location: HSHS 139

Facilitators: Clay Wilkie & Evin Fox

Topic: TBA 

Recommended Audience: CSI Employees

Monday, Feb. 18, at 12 p.m.

Description: The student-faculty brown bag provides a safe space for collaboration and creates an opportunity to build relationships between students and employees.

Location: SUB Fireside Lounge

Facilitators: Justin Vipperman, Matt Reynolds, Samra Culum, & Carolina Zamudio

Topic: Struggles/Worries while in College

Recommended Audience: All students (CSI employees are welcome)

Monday, Feb. 18, at 2 p.m.

Description: We'll be reading and discussing Teaching Naked Techniques this semester. We have a few copies of the book, so if you're interested, contact Jan Carpenter or Tiffany Seeley-Case. We'll start with the Introduction on January 28, and read a chapter each week after that. You can jump in any time, even if you haven't had a chance to get the book.
Location: Hepworth 176
Facilitators: Jan Carpenter and Tiffany Seeley-Case
Topic: Click here to purchase the book, or get a copy from Jan or Tiffany.
Recommended Audience: Students, Staff, and Faculty

Registration is now open for the Herrett Center for Arts and Science's 2019 STEAM Camp-In, which will be held Friday, March 15, 2019. One hundred third, fourth, and fifth graders will experience a night of fun and learning STEAM-that's science, technology, engineering, art, and math. The camp-in includes a STEAM-based workshop, the wacky science fun of Dr. Picklestein, a sneak-preview screening of the new planetarium show: Beyond the Sun, telescope viewing in the Centennial Observatory, a group scavenger hunt in the museum galleries, and a night of camping in among the museum gallery exhibits.

Snacks will be provided during the evening and a light breakfast will be served the next morning.

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For Immediate Release

February 5, 2019

Contact: Mike Keckler

208-332-1591 (office)

208-866-5734 (cell)
[email protected]

Guided Pathways Work Continues
By Debbie Critchfield, vice president, Idaho State Board of Education

The Idaho State Board of Education's guided pathways efforts are intended to enable Idaho students to plan and be prepared for life after high school.

Last fall, a work group comprised of education professionals from K-12 and higher education developed a budget proposal to create a "Parent Academy" program to engage and equip parents to guide and assist their child throughout their education. It is modeled after a successful program at the University of Arizona's College Academy for Parents. While the Parent Academy likely won't be considered by lawmakers this legislative session, we hope to bring it back next year. Meanwhile, work groups are busy working on implementation plans for Guided Pathways recommendations and I want to provide a brief update on our work.

Three years ago, the Legislature approved funding for college and career advising programs statewide, enabling school districts to hire advisors and student mentors to pick and implement a model that best fits the district's needs from a list of a half-dozen Board-provided model templates.

With college and career advisors in place across our state, we are working to ensure they have clear lines of communication with people at all of our colleges and universities in order to better help students transition from high school to college. Many of our high school seniors give every indication that they plan to enroll in college or a career technical program, but then never show up on campus when the fall semester begins. We call it the "summer melt" phenomenon and a contributing factor to this melt is that recent graduates often don't know who they can talk to about concerns or questions they have during the three-month summer lull between graduation and the beginning of their first semester in college.

We are working to create a coordinated support system for these students involving high school college and career advisors and counselors and their counterparts in the institutions so that students know who they can turn to for answers and encouragement. State Board researchers estimate Idaho's "go-on" rate from high school to college could increase 10 to 15 percent by curbing summer melt alone.

As with Parent Academy the Board also submitted a budget proposal to create a Summer Bridge Program for high school graduates to take up to six college credit hours during those summer months to keep them engaged and hopefully preempt summer melt. There are modest price tags associated with both proposals and we as a Board certainly understand competing budget priorities and the need to let these student success initiatives percolate a bit before they are formally considered by policy makers.

In the meantime, the Board and the Guided Pathways work groups will continue to collaborate and find ways to improve existing programs and resources. Smoothing the pathway leading from high school to college will result in more college and career technical program graduates, and that is good for our state, and the careers and lives of its people.

Contact: Brianna Bodily, SCPHD Public Information Officer, (208) 737-5985

Not worth the risk: Prescription drug abuse and vaping information panel offered in Magic Valley

MAGIC VALLEY- Nearly one in four teens admit to using a prescription drug that wasn't prescribed to them by a doctor, and a recent survey from the Food and Drug Administration shows 3.6 million middle and high school students are now using e-cigarettes (vapes) in the United States.

"This is an important conversation. Teens and tweens are trying prescription drugs in our area far more than people realize and often without understanding they can be very dangerous," said MaryAnn Doshier, Public Health Education Specialist. "People assume that because these drugs are prescriptions they are automatically safe. That is dangerously wrong."

South Central Public Health District (SCPHD) is teaming up with the Twin Falls School District and the Twin Falls Police Department to offer an information panel for local students and parents on February 13th. The panel will include:

• A prescription drug abuse health education specialist answering questions about the risks of sharing prescription drugs, how to talk about it with your kids, and keeping prescription drugs out of your student's hands.
• A tobacco health education specialist answering questions about vaping, Juuls, and quitting tobacco.
• A member of the Twin Falls Police Department answering questions about the legal trouble a student can face for distributing prescription drugs (dealing), taking someone else's prescription drugs, or vaping under the age of 18.

"Keeping our students safe and healthy is a joint effort between the schools and parents. It is important that parents take time to talk with their children about the importance of proper handling of medications, never taking pills offered to them, and the importance of reporting such incidents to an adult immediately, to help assure safety for all," said Eva Craner, Director of Public Relations for the Twin Falls School District.

The information panel is open to all parents and students in the Magic Valley with questions about prescription drug abuse and/or vaping:

For more information about prescription drug abuse, tobacco, vaping, or cessation classes please visit phd5.idaho.gov/tobacco, or call (208) 737-5900. 

Gainful Employment data for specific programs may be found on our GE website:  www.csi.edu/ge