For some time, the January 2010 opening of our new Victor Campus Center seemed to be far in the future.  Now it’s just a couple of weeks away and there is a great deal of excitement surrounding the grand opening on January 19th.  If you haven’t had the chance to see the new Center (located on Rt. 251 just south of the thruway), here’s a link to some wonderful pictures:

http://difelice.net/Finger%20Lakes%20Community%20College%20Photos.html

Watch for lots of events this month in Victor as we “show off” our new Center to the community.

This is a busy time for everyone as the end of the semester draws near just when the holiday frenzy hits.  Still, it’s an exciting time for FLCC as we look ahead to some big changes on the horizon.

In January, we will officially open our new Victor Campus Center.  The Center is located on Route 251 and is just a few minutes from the village of Victor or the thruway.  With Victor emerging as a high-tech corridor within Ontario County, our new campus center will fit right in.  We know many folks will want to take advantage of the convenient location to take a few courses, and we anticipate that we will have quite a few students studying full-time at Victor, as well.  Not only will we be offering programming in liberal arts and sciences and business, but also in computer studies, architectural technology, engineering science and mechanical technology.  Our academic offerings will continue to grow as we identify new educational needs in the Victor area.

Another exciting element of the new Victor Campus Center is that it will be serving as a Regional Learning Center.  We are partnering with four year colleges and universities, who will be offering the opportunity for students to complete bachelor’s or master’s degrees at our Victor Center.  There has been tremendous interest in the Regional Learning Center, and this spring Keuka College and Paul Smith’s College will both be launching offerings right out of the gate.  We anticipate that many other partners will be joining us in the coming months.

Watch for our ribbon cutting on January 19th!

For many years, FLCC’s college address was 4355 Lakeshore Drive.  Last spring the Ontario County 911 center determined that it was necessary to name the two roads on our campus, to allow for more precise emergency response. Over the summer, we were very pleased to announce that the road from the main entrance on Lakeshore Drive past the CMAC would be named in honor of a man who gave a great deal to our community, and the college’s address changed to 3325 Marvin Sands Drive.  However, the other campus road remained “nameless” so we decided to tap into the creative minds of the members of our college community to identify just the right name for our second campus road. 

In September, we launched a contest called, “Take Me Home, Country Road” to come up with a name for the second road.  The unnamed road runs from just beyond the child care center, past College Suites, next to the red conservation barn and the Woodsmen’s Team practice lot, past where the new Student Center will be located, beyond the greenhouse and up to the college’s athletic fields.  Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the college were all invited to submit potential road names.  We received 77 contest entries and it was wonderful to see the creativity and FLCC spirit that was reflected in the submissions.  I was glad that I didn’t have to make the decision!  The potential road names tended to run in several categories:

• Aspirational Names  These names were clearly intended to encourage our students to reach new heights.  Potential names in this category included:  Achievement Avenue, Destiny Drive, Discovery Way, Inspiration Way, Learning Lane, Pathway to Success, Opportunity Drive, Potential Parkway, Road to Success, and Transform Road.
• Historical Names  Entries in this category honored the college’s past.  These included:  CCFL Legacy Drive, Dewey Drive, Founders Way, Pioneer Path and Storefront Days Drive.
• Conservation-related Names  Since the road runs past the Conservation Red Barn and the Woodsmen’s Team practice lot, a number of names focused on this important part of the college’s heritage…  these included names like:  Evergreen Drive, Marty Dodge Drive,  Nature Trail, Red Barn Road and Woodside Drive.
• Athletic Names  The road leads to the college’s athletic fields, so many entries fit into the category of sports-related themes, such as:  Competitor Road, Finger Lakes Champion Road, Finger Lakes Fitness Road and Sportsman Road.
• Interesting Options  A number of entries required pronunciation keys:  Akanehtaiko Avenue (’Green Road’ in the Seneca tribe language); CC-FLCC Circle (’pronounced See-Flick); and Skennon: Kowa (means ‘The Great Peace Be With You’ in Iroquois)
• Deep Options  Some of the road name options were clearly intended to make us think:  Nonlinear Road, Recursive Road, Arc of Destiny, Emergent Way.

Our “Take Me Home, Country Road” contest also inspired one entrant to reference another song title with the suggestion of: The Long and Winding Road.  All in all, our road naming contest was great fun!  The selection committee has completed its work and the chosen road name has been forwarded to the 911 Center to ensure that it is not already in use somewhere in Ontario County.  Look for an announcement soon!

It’s been a while since I’ve added to this blog, but now that the new semester is at hand it’s time for me to get back into my normal routine.  Summer is always a time to breathe just a little more slowly, and that’s wonderful for a while.  Still, there’s something about the day after Labor Day that brings all of us - even people who are not students or working in the education field - back to the familiar “first day of school” feeling.  There’s definitely a certain energy and enthusiasm in the air at the beginning of September each year.  I like to think of it as the week of the fresh start. 

My husband and I recently moved to a new neighborhood, and yesterday the folks across the street stopped over to say hello.  They have three children and while the two older boys are veterans of the first day of school, their five year old daughter,  Campbell, is headed off to kindergarten this week.  She was clearly very excited about the idea of stepping onto the school bus for the first time.  The first day of school clothes, new school supplies, family pictures at the bus stop and the prospect of meeting new friends all add up to a pretty special day.  The amazing thing is that the excitement of the first day of school happens over and over, year after year.  Even though Campbell’s brothers have been through it all before, it’s still that opportunity for a fresh start that makes it tough to get much sleep the night before the first day of school.

A number of years ago, when I was a faculty member at another community college, I took a sabbatical leave in the fall semester to concentrate on a book I was writing.  The project went along well, but that fall was a very tough one for me.  I found myself with a genuine feeling of loss that I couldn’t understand.  One day in early October I stopped by my old office to pick up some mail and I ran into a colleague from the English Department.  He took one look at me and diagnosed my problem immediately.  He said, “Aren’t you on sabbatical this fall?  It looks like you’re struggling with it a bit.”  I admitted that I couldn’t quite put my finger on the problem, but something was definitely wrong.  He reminded me that every fall since I was five years old, I had geared up and gone to school - that was the loss I was feeling.  He was right.  I realized that from kindergarten through senior high school to college to my first job teaching in a middle school to many years teaching at the community college, every fall I went to school.  As soon as he helped me understand what was going on, I was fine.  After all, there would be another year of “the first day of school” the following fall.  Ever since that experience, though, I’ve had a heightened awareness of the importance of those first days of school, and an appreciation of how special they are to us.

There will be a familiar feeling of excitement in the air at FLCC this week.  It’s not just our students who are eager for the fresh start of a new academic year - our faculty, staff and administrators have a spring in their steps, too.  So, a warm welcome to our FLCC students!  Make the most of the semester ahead!