The Academic Senate showed their interest in starting new programs to help students succeed during their meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Pete Marcoux, who is vice president of Academic Technology, explained how a program called Google for Education can help students and faculty on campus.

“Being a part of Google for Education, it allows us to access features that wouldn’t be accessible by others not in the program,” Marcoux said during the meeting. “There are a lot of tools that are accessible if we are a part of this Google for Education.”

One of those tools introduced through Google for Education was OneDrive, a Microsoft cloud storage service that lets you store your personal files in one place, share them with others, and get to them from any device connected to the Internet.

The possible use of this program seemed to excite students.

“I think using OneDrive would definitely help the school,” Michael Donatucci, 21, psychology major, said. “It would help students be more organized.”

The action to recommend to enroll in Google for Education was approved by the Senate.

Another program discussed to help students was the Online Education Initiative (OEI), which was approved to apply to the Consortium. Vice President of Educational Policies Chris Gold explained what the OEI is trying to accomplish.

“The whole point of the Online Initiative is what it really should be about, students,” Gold said during the meeting. “It’s about helping students complete their educational goals. We want to give them access to the courses they need.”

Gold continued to say that the OEI was “looking to improve online courses” through online course websites such as Canvas and Colleague.

The Senate is looking at spring 2019 as a possible start for the course exchange program introduced in the OEI.

Following the OEI presentation there was a call for elections, where the only members nominated were the existing president and secretary for their respected positions. Nominations will continue to take place into the next senate meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21.

Another topic of interest discussed in the meeting was the explanation of the new ECC website redesign, presented by Publications Supervisor Heather Parnock.

“The No. 1 goal for the website redesign was to make it mobile friendly,” Parnock said during the meeting. “The old website did not re-size based on your device you were using, so making the website mobile friendly was our main priority.”

The new website redesign also focused on making everything on the website easier to access, with there being more specified drop tabs for current and perspective students.

The next Academic Senate meeting will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 21, in the Distance Education Building at 12:30 p.m.