Strategic Issues Retreat Process
This year a major initiative of the Faculty Senate was to develop and implement a retreat-oriented process with Department Chairs and Administration to confer on strategic issues facing the College.  The process consists of two stages.  First, the Senate and Chairs held a retreat to brainstorm strategic issues on which to meet and confer with College Administration.  The issues selected for this cycle concerned the growth, management and culture of the Red Mountain Campus.  In late February, a second retreat will be held to discuss the issues with Administration and work towards reaching agreement on the directions required by college leadership to address the strategic issues.  This process will continue into future years with the intent of strengthening communications between the leadership groups of our College.

Faculty Senate Constitution
In the fall semester, 2003, the faculty of MCC approved a new Faculty Senate Constitution.  A key change in the constitution was the recognition of our active retirees as valued members of the faculty association.  Senate membership was expanded to include an active retiree representative with full voting rights.  Additionally, the new constitution codifies the right of active retirees to serve on campus and joint committees.  These actions will allow our Senate and College to continue to benefit from the experience and leadership of faculty active retirees.

Faculty & Student Recognition
Congratulations to MCC faculty who completed their sabbaticals for the academic year 2002-03.  Peter S. Brown/Life Science, Native Plants of the Southwest; Carolyn Fay/Speech Communication, Corporate Perspective on Teaching; Mangala Joshua/Physics, Learner Centered Physics Instruction; Shereen Lerner/Cultural Science, Archaeology Curriculum Revisited; Chas Moore/Library, Residency Requirements and Academic Internship in Information Resources and Library Science.

At the 2003 Advanced Technological Education in Semiconductor Manufacturing conference top honors were awarded to MCC's student technology team and their project, Vision Marble Sorter, a real-time, high speed vision inspection system that identified the color and size of marbles as they fell one-by-one from a hopper feed system.  Congratulations to Professor Scott Shaw and the student team of Sandon Adamson, Richard Byrne, Terry Casserly, Jerry Lacy, Steve Rector, Dave Tedford, Scott Thomas and Janice Wolfgang.