HACC News: Late-Start Classes Offered, Free Financial Aid Sessions Available and More

Current News from HACC, Jan. 14, 2015 HARRISBURG, Pa. – HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, shares recent news as well as upcoming events available to the community, including:

• Top Four Reasons to Enroll in HACC’s Late-Start Classes
• Avoid Debt with Your College Education: Free financial aid sessions offered Feb. 19 at any HACC campus
• HACC, Elizabethtown College Sign Reverse Transfer Agreement
• More Than 900 Students Graduate in HACC’s Fall 2014 Commencement Ceremony
• HACC Raises More Than $120,000 for Students and Programs Through Golden Anniversary Gala
• Seven HACC Employees Receive Mini-Grants for Innovation
• HACC Theatre Presents ‘Godspell’ on Stage March 5-8, 2015
• Live at Rose Lehrman Presents ‘Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey’ Starring Jasmine Guy and the Avery Sharpe Trio
• Local Artist Featured in Upcoming Exhibit at HACC’s Lancaster Campus
• ‘Explorations of Order’ on Exhibit at HACC’s Gettysburg Campus

 
 
Top Four Reasons to Enroll in HACC’s Late-Start Classes
 
While HACC’s spring 2015 semester is starting next week, it’s not too late to register for late-start classes that begin Feb. 2, 2015 – offered in the classroom and online through the College’s Virtual Learning Program.
 
Why should individuals enroll?

1. “HACC provides a quality education at a portion of the cost of a four-year college. The teachers are caring and want students to succeed. Students who attend HACC are of various ages and walks of life.” – Ruth Topper, mother of HACC student
2. In 2013, students at HACC received more than $1.2 million in scholarships. Today, a full-ride scholarship is available at each of HACC’s five campuses and the Virtual Learning program.
3. “The part I like the most about HACC is the small class sizes and campus. All of my teachers thus far have known me by name and been able to call on me and answer my questions on a personal basis. The campus is just a lot more comfortable and less intimidating than a university campus.” Hannah Strobert, transfer student to HACC
4. “The evening, weekend and online classes allow for a variety of options for anyone who has to work their way through college like I did.” – Sara Allison, HACC alumna

 
For additional information and to begin the registration process, please visit hacc.edu/NotTooLate or contact a campus welcome center.
 
 
Avoid Debt with Your College Education
Free financial aid sessions offered Feb. 19 at any HACC campus

Finances shouldn’t be the reason for not pursuing educational goals. Learn about options at a free financial aid session hosted by HACC on Feb. 19, 2015, from 6-7:30 p.m. offered at each of the College’s five campuses in Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon and York.

The sessions are open to anyone; individuals do not have to be a HACC student.

HACC professionals are teaming up to answer questions about the college financial aid process. Attendees will learn about:

• Different types of financial aid at HACC, including scholarships, grants, loans and employment opportunities
• Additional resources to seek financial aid
• Ways to compare financial aid options from different schools
• How to choose the best option for your needs
• Process for completing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form and filing it online
• Changes to the FAFSA form

 
Learn how others have benefited financially and additional details about the event at hacc.edu/FinancialAidNight. Registration is not required but encouraged. 
 
 
HACC, Elizabethtown College Sign Reverse Transfer Agreement
 
Elizabethtown College is the second four-year institution to partner with HACC to offer a reverse transfer agreement that makes it possible to earn an associate degree.
 
The reverse transfer agreement allows currently enrolled Elizabethtown College students with at least 45 credits earned at any HACC campus to leverage their Elizabethtown College credits to be considered toward completion of an associate degree from HACC.
 
HACC and Millersville University also signed a reverse transfer agreement – the first such agreement for both institutions – in September 2014.
 
A student’s eligibility for an associate degree from HACC will be at HACC’s discretion, based on current degree requirements. An associate degree is a significant academic accomplishment and serves as a robust credential in a student’s academic portfolio.
 
For more information, please contact Christine M. Nowik, HACC dean of student and academic success, at cmnowik@hacc.edu or 717-736-4142.
 
 
More Than 900 Students Graduate in HACC’s Fall 2014 Commencement Ceremony
 
More than 900 students at HACC completed their associate degrees, certificates or diplomas during the fall 2014 term. The graduates were celebrated during HACC’s Commencement ceremony held Dec. 14, 2014, at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center.
 
A full list of the graduates is available in HACC’s online newsroom.
 
It is HACC’s Commencement tradition for faculty and staff members to present degrees, certificates and diplomas to family members who are in the graduating class. At the recent ceremony, two HACC instructors presented degrees to family members: 

• Jessica Charlton, English instructor, presented to her mother, Karen Charlton, who received her associate in arts degree
• Richard Hauck, graphic design instructor, presented to his sister, Anna Schuck, who received her associate in arts degree

 
During the ceremony, HACC changed the life of one of the graduates’ supporters by providing a $1,000 HACC tuition giveaway. Asa Knobelman of Lancaster received a voucher for $1,000 that may be used for tuition and fees for credit courses at HACC during the fall 2015 and spring 2016 terms and/or for tuition and fees for noncredit courses at HACC from July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2016.
 
Several graduates shared video messages with their family and friends at the Commencement ceremony. These videos are available on HACC’s YouTube channel.
 
HACC also offered live video streaming of the Commencement ceremony for the first time. Family and friends of students from around the world were able to support their graduates from afar, including Winfred Fox’s family in Kenya.
 
 
HACC Raises More Than $120,000 for Students and Programs Through Golden Anniversary Gala
 
The HACC Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to raise private contributions in support of HACC, raised more than $120,000 for HACC students and programs through the College’s Golden Anniversary Gala held on Oct. 25, 2014.
 
The evening celebrated HACC’s 50-year history with dinner, dessert prepared by HACC’s culinary students, a silent auction and dancing. Karen Morris-Priester, M.D., a 1996 graduate of HACC’s nursing program, delivered remarks about HACC’s impact on her life. Dr. Morris-Priester went on to gain national recognition as the first grandmother to graduate from Yale School of Medicine. Gala attendees also heard remarks from Peter C. Wambach, a 1967 HACC graduate who went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Penn State University and serve Pennsylvanians in the state House of Representatives. Wambach currently serves on HACC’s Board of Trustees.
 
The HACC Foundation thanks the following sponsors for their support:
 
50^th Anniversary Combined Sponsors
 
Premium Event Sponsor:
TE Connectivity Foundation
 
Catering Sponsors:
Eastern PCM, LLC
GreenWorks Development, LLC
 
Registration Sponsors:
James E. Grandon, Jr.
Murray Associates Architects, P.C.
PinnacleHealth System
 
Promotions Sponsors:
Norma Gotwalt
Thomas B. Richey
Central Penn College
Enders Insurance Associates
Gannett Fleming, Inc.
Highmark Blue Shield and United Concordia Dental
Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency
PSECU
Wilsbach Distributors, Inc.
 
Golden Anniversary Gala Sponsors
 
Silver Sponsors:
Bryn Mawr Trust
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC
Saul Ewing, LLP
The Hall Foundation
 
Bronze Sponsors:
Kristin M. Scofield
John J. "Ski" Sygielski and Steve Perrault
Country Meadows Retirement Communities
PNC
 
Ruby Sponsors:
Marion C. Alexander
Comcast
 
SHARE-IT! Sponsors:
BlueScope Buildings, NA
Dauphin County Medical Society
Gettysburg Campus Student Government Association
Josiah W. and Bessie H. Kline Foundation, Inc.
Schaedler Yesco Distribution, Inc.
Virtual Learning Student Advisory Council
 
Advertising Sponsors:
Jeff and Pam Shaffer
Bath Fitter
Carl E. Frantz, Inc.
Clean Way
Gettysburg Times
Homeland Center
Joy Daniels Real Estate Group
L.B. Smith Ford Lincoln
Murray Securus
Schaedler Yesco Distribution, Inc.
Soroptimist International of Harrisburg, PA, Inc.
 
 
Seven HACC Employees Receive Mini-Grants for Innovation
 
Seven HACC employees recently shared almost $20,000 in Seeds of Change mini-grants for 2015. Funded by the HACC Foundation, the Seeds of Change mini-grant program supports innovative ideas to collaborate, engage students, save money or generate new revenue. A total of 14 employees applied to this inaugural program.
 
The employees and their projects follow:

• Judith Dutill, assistant professor of communications, humanities and the arts, York Campus
  Project: Collegewide Radio Station – The goal is to establish a student-run, collegewide radio station. The radio station will be a live-broadcast audio stream originating from various campuses but sharing a single stream for continuity.
   
• Nicole Ernst, associate professor of geospatial technology, Harrisburg Campus
  Project: Camp Curtin Blight Mapping Pilot – HACC’s geospatial technology program has partnered with the Community Covenant Corporation and the Camp Curtin Neighbors United to map blight in the Camp Curtin neighborhood. As part of this project, the geospatial program is conducting a foot survey to map blight, create Web maps for the neighborhood and create a website that can serve as a repository for their neighborhood visioning project. The result will be a model template that can be applied to the mapping and documentation of blight in other Pennsylvania communities.
   
• Tammy Gingras-Moore, adjunct instructor of communications, Lancaster Campus
  Project: Collaboration Classroom – The goal of this project is to increase student engagement, learning and retention by creating a collaboration classroom. The new room will be highly mobile and allow easy collaboration between students. The project will feature seating that will allow for quick rearrangement of the room.
   
• Lindsey Long, director of financial accounting and reporting, collegewide
  Project: Document Scanners – Incorporating desktop scanners in the Office of Finance as part of the workstation will allow staff to be more efficient and effective in processing daily work by eliminating the need to travel across the department to a central, shared scanner. Also, a high-speed scanner will allow Accounts Payable Department staff to efficiently scan invoices and ensure timely and accurate payment.
   
• Forrest Lysinger, assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology, Harrisburg Campus
  Project: Community Innovation Center – The Community Innovation Center will provide a mechanism for students, faculty and community members to have access to the 3D printing and modeling capability at the Midtown Trade and Technology Center outside of the structured class environment. This will draw new students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and provide an incentive for STEM professionals and community members from the surrounding area to come and see HACC.
   
• Ruth A. Negley, associate professor of biology, Gettysburg Campus
  Project: “Essential Anatomy” Application of 3D Anatomical Models – Students in Biology 121, anatomy and physiology often struggle to learn anatomical structures, names and locations. Retention rates and class average scores on lab exams are lower than desired. The 3D “Essential Anatomy” anatomical models will serve as a learning resource to improve student retention and grades in this course.
   
• Mary P. Richards, instructor of English, York Campus
  Project: Readiness for Success in Work and Higher Ed – This six-week project will provide instruction and tutoring to create resumes and job application cover letters and to develop interview skills for 15 William Penn High School seniors. Instructors and tutors will be HACC business-writing and technical-writing students, HACC instructors of those courses and the career services coordinator. Local employers will be enlisted to participate in a job fair where students can interview for positions.

  
 
HACC Theatre Presents ‘Godspell’ on Stage March 5-8, 2015
 
HACC Theatre will present Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell” on stage in the Rose Lehrman Arts Center (RLAC) Theatre in March 2015. Performances are scheduled March 5-7 at 7:30 p.m. and March 8 at 2 p.m.
 
“Godspell” was the first musical performed at HACC when the RLAC opened 40 years ago and is the first musical to be presented on the theatre’s stage in 20 years.
 
“Godspell” is a retelling of the original sensation, injected with contemporary pop-culture references and new arrangements of Schwartz’s score. Based on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, a small group helps Jesus Christ tell different parables by using a variety of games, storytelling techniques and comic timing. An eclectic blend of songs ranging in style from pop to vaudeville is employed as the story of Jesus's life dances across the stage.
 
The production is directed by Dave Olmsted, HACC scenic designer and theatre instructor, and music direction is by Genevieve Karki, adjunct instructor of music. The 2012 revised version of “Godspell” is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International, which also provided all authorized performance materials.
 
Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors for performances on March 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. and March 8 at 2:30 p.m. HACC students are invited to a “Student Night” performance on March 5 at 7:30 p.m. All seats for this performance are $5 with valid student identification.
 
For tickets, call 717-231-ROSE (7673) or visit www.hacc.edu/RLAC.
 
 
Live at Rose Lehrman Presents ‘Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey’ Starring Jasmine Guy and the Avery Sharpe Trio
 
The Live at Rose Lehrman artist series presents “Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey” on Jan. 23, 2015, at 8 p.m. in the Rose Lehrman Arts Center on HACC’s Harrisburg Campus.
 
Raisin’ Cane celebrates the legendary voices of the Harlem Renaissance through words, song, music and movement. The dramatic production features acclaimed actress Jasmine Guy sharing the words and songs of such writers as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois and composer Fats Waller. The Avery Sharpe Trio provides a musical thread, playing live jazz bass, percussion and violin music, while pictures and paintings of historic Harlem serve as a visual backdrop. An extraordinary outpouring of artistic expression, “Raisin’ Cane” provides a unique window on this critical point in American history.
 
Sponsors include Lois Lehrman Grass Foundation, HACC Foundation, Richmond Foundation, McCormick Family Foundation and The Foundation for Enhancing Communities – Rose Lehrman fund. The media sponsors are abc27, WJAZ and Urban Connection. Community support is provided by Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz.
 
Tickets are $29 and $38 depending on location, and can be purchased online at www.LiveatRoseLehrman.org. Group ticket discounts are available. For more information, call 717-231-ROSE (7673).
 
 
Local Artist Featured in Upcoming Exhibit at HACC’s Lancaster Campus
 
The works of Lou Schellenberg will be on display in “Spaces Seen: Landscape Paintings,” an exhibit that reflects her love of rural places and changing seasons, in the Art Space in the East Building of the Lancaster Campus of HACC.

The exhibit runs from Jan. 20 to March 4, 2015. A reception for the artist will be held Feb. 3, 2015, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Hours of the exhibit are Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Both the exhibit and the reception are free and open to the public. The artist’s exhibit is sponsored by the Art and Decorating Committee at HACC’s Lancaster Campus.

Schellenberg recently retired from Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where she taught painting and drawing for 20 years. She is on the board of the Mount Gretna School of Art, a Chautauqua style intensive landscape painting program, in Mount Gretna, Pennsylvania.
 
Over the many years of looking at, teaching and creating art, Schellenberg has remained committed to observation as a starting point in drawing and painting. “My work starts with observation and good amounts of walking around outside. I am intrigued by intersections of public and private space and the boundaries created between manmade structures and nature.”
 
Her work is known for landscape paintings that include architectural elements. She works “plein air” from observation and also invents compositions in the studio from studies and memory. “Initially stopped by an emotional and visual connection to a particular spot, I’ll spend hours on site making many small drawings or watercolors before starting a canvas. Rooflines and the spaces between structures become visually important in designing the tension of a flattened space,” Schellenberg said in her artist’s statement.
 
Her work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo shows in galleries, art centers and museums in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Canada, and she has won many awards including a Fellowship from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation.
 
Schellenberg attended Framingham State College in Framingham and the School of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, both in Massachusetts. She received an MFA from the University at Albany – State University of New York in Albany, New York.
 
 
‘Explorations of Order’ on Exhibit at HACC’s Gettysburg Campus
 
“Explorations of Order,” a free exhibit by Frederick, Maryland, artist Tracey Daniel, will be on display Jan. 15 to April 10, 2015, in the main art hallway of HACC’s Gettysburg Campus.
 
“Though I consider myself an all-around designer, my first love is architecture,” Daniel said in her artist’s statement. “The drive of what I do has essentially remained consistent: working toward the most pleasing graphically composed page possible. Layering, repetition and color have always been the predominant themes in my drawings to achieve this.”
 
She added, “The drawings are not planned out ahead of time (each one simply starts with a rectangle), and I don’t have a pre-conceived notion of completion. I consider much of my work unfinished and open for re-visiting, which I sometimes do, even years later, with additional layers of color, shapes, etc.”
 
Daniel has a master’s degree in history and a bachelor’s degree in Latin and history, both from the University of Minnesota, and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. In addition to working in architecture firms, Daniel has taught Latin at both the middle and high school levels.
 
For more information, contact Vanessa Larson, at vvlarson@hacc.edu or 717-339-3509.


It’s Time for YOU to Experience HACC!

New students can experience HACC and learn about HACC’s admissions process, transfer and career programs, financial aid options and more! Visit the “New Students” section of www.hacc.edu.
 
 
For further information or general inquiries, please email newsroom@hacc.edu. This is the most effective way to ensure a timely response.
 
 
About HACC

HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, offers more than 150 career and transfer associate degree, certificate and diploma programs to nearly 20,000 students at campuses in Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon and York and through online classes. In addition, HACC serves more than 29,000 students in noncredit workforce development, public safety, adult basic education and continuing education programs offered at all campuses and off-site locations in many communities in Central Pennsylvania. For more information on how HACC is uniquely YOURS, visit www.hacc.edu.
 
 
About the HACC Foundation

The HACC Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was established in 1985 to raise private and corporate revenues in support of HACC, Central Pennsylvania's Community College. In fiscal year 2013-14 alone, the HACC Foundation contributed close to $2.2 million to the College in scholarships, special programs and facilities and provided financial assistance to 1,345 students.

Contributions to the HACC Foundation are accepted in the form of unrestricted gifts to augment endowed funds, contributions to existing or new scholarship programs or award funds, support for academic and workforce programs, sponsorship of special events and cultural programs and contributions made in honor or in memory of individuals. In addition, the Foundation holds annual events, including the Frank J. Dixon Tournament for Scholarships at HACC, and various scholarship award ceremonies. The HACC Foundation is gratefully YOURS.

For more information on the HACC Foundation, visit http://www.hacc.edu/HACCFoundation/ or the College’s YouTube channel.