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Report of Regents Cultural Education Committee to The Board of Regents

Regent Roger Tilles, Chair of the Cultural Education Committee, submitted the following written report.Your Committee on Cultural Education Committee had its scheduled meeting on April 22, 2013.

In attendance were committee members: Regents Tilles, Dawson, Rosa Cea, Jackson, and Cottrell. Absent:  Regents Bendit and Brown.

In addition to CE Committee Members, in attendance were:  Chancellor Tisch, Regents Tallon, Phillips, Chapey, Norwood and Cashin as well as Commissioner King, Executive Deputy Commissioner Berlin and Deputy Commissioners Smith and Slentz.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

Chair’s Remarks: Regent Tilles welcomed everyone and opened the meeting.

Libraries and the Common Core
Deputy Commissioner Jeffrey Cannell introduced Liz Hood, Director of Educational Television/Public Broadcasting.  Ms. Hood announced the two day conference, Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core, – a conference for librarians, museum administrators and educators, public media managers, and archives professionals scheduled for August 13–14, 2013 at the Cultural Educational Center in Albany. The two-day conference is hosted by P-12 and OCE and will provide professionals from cultural institutions an introduction to the Common Core Learning Standards and how the new standards will bring changes to instructional practice.  The goal of the conference is to provide professionals from cultural institutions with guidance about how they can support teachers, students and families in this environment; and discover how participants and their institutions are vital partners in Common Core implementation.  To illustrate the benefits of the partnerships, a school librarian and eighth-grade teacher from Voorheesville Middle School addressed the committee and provided an example of how they work collaboratively to implement aspects of the Common Core Learning Standards.  The presenters were:

  • J'aime Pfeiffer, School Library System Director, Capital Region BOCES
  • Christina Menetti, Librarian, Voorheesville Middle School
  • Jacqueline Rapant, ELA teacher, Voorheesville Middle School

Statewide Summer Reading Program
Bernard Margolis, State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries presented on the Summer Reading program offered each year by the New York State Library – launching the annual statewide program at New York Libraries. This year there will be "virtual" launches which will be primarily on-line announcements based at several sites across the state. Margolis invited members of the Board of Regents to participate in launches at library locations in their districts.  He distributed a list of venues and dates of the launches and encouraged members to contact him if they wished to participate in the launch events.  The Statewide Summer Reading Program is the second most heavily used program of the State Library with nearly 1.8 million students participating.

Additional Update on NOVELny
Mr. Margolis gave a brief update on NOVELny, which had nearly 56 million searches on it last year. The CE Committee received a report about this program at the March 2013 meeting. The process of selection and procurement of the actual databases for next year (beginning July 1, 2013) is moving to completion. Margolis distributed the list of the types of databases that will be included in NOVELny this year.

Update on OCE financial status
Tom Ruller, Director of Operations for the Office of Cultural Education, presented to the committee a brief report on additional sources of revenue for OCE programs, focusing revenue raised from rentals of the CEC facility.

The committee adjourned at 12:15 pm.

Associated Agenda Item

Meeting Date: 
Monday, April 22, 2013 - 11:10am

Committee