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June 29, 2010

Johanna Duncan-Poitier

Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges and Deputy for the Education Pipeline State University of New York State University Plaza Albany, NY 12246

Dear Vice Chancellor Duncan-Poitier:

Congratulations on your new position. In light of this appointment as well as your leadership in the Educational Pipeline, I want to let you know a few things we at Ulster County Community College (UCCC) and Rondout Valley School District (RVSD) have been doing this past year.

In January the administrations of the both institutions began discussions on how we might join in a closer partnership. We decided to focus on how technology is being used in the classroom. A planning group met frequently to design a “Summit” to showcase innovative projects and uses of technology in teaching both at the school and at the college level.

We created a wiki to document and share our discussions and meeting notes as well as being a place to house the presentations of the April 10 summit. The wiki is located at the following URL http://rondoutulsterconnect.wikispaces.com/ One of the goals of our partnership was to form individual teacher/faculty partnerships to work on a similar problem or opportunity and apply it to both the high school and the college. Work in this area has continued over the summer and an October 2, 2010 workshop has been planned to present to a larger group of combined faculty and teachers. Among the more popular presentations were these topics: Globalization 101, learning communities, service learning, technical equipment in instruction, and learning software applications.

Rosario Agostaro, Superintendent of Rondout Schools and Don Katt, SUNY Ulster President opened the April 10 summit with a vision that partnering and sharing techniques and technology we could progress toward the goal that every high school student who enters 9thgrade would graduate and be accepted into college.

As we plan for our second summit on October 2 at RVSD, we would be honored if you could join us and comment on how these activities support the Educational Pipeline and the role of the community college in realizing the Chancellor’s Strategic Plan. If you are unable to join us in person, perhaps we could prevail upon you to join us by video conference.

The UCCC/RVSD connection is an exciting endeavor. We believe we are conducting important professional development for both institution’s faculty that will result in improved results in student learning, retention, graduation and transfer. I would be happy to further discuss our efforts at your convenience.

Sincerely,

John W. Ganio Dean of Academic Affairs