August 2026
Ah...August in Illinois. When your expectations for the school year are high...and the humidity is higher.
Highlights
Next Stop, Normal
The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round...taking students from Pontiac to Normal and back again. That’s right - there's now Connect Transit service between the Pontiac and Normal Heartland locations, and it’s free for students with their Heartland IDs! Free WiFi is also available on board. It’s the perfect setup for scrolling through TikTok studying.
Lending Our Leaders
We have a lot of expertise at Heartland, and other folks are taking notice! Several of our staff have been selected to serve in leadership positions with their respective professional organizations.
Khrystyna Sanborn has been elected to the Illinois Adult and Continuing Education Educators Association (IACEA) Board of Directors. The organization works to improve adult education standards in the State of Illinois. Dr. Julia Ossler has been appointed to serve on the Science Scope Editorial Review Board for a 2-year term. The journal is designed for grades 6–8 teachers, teacher educators, and state supervisors, providing innovative, classroom-tested science activities and strategies based on current research. Congrats to both!
Working Towards WCAG 2.1
How accessible is the content you create and manage on behalf of the college? That’s a question on everyone’s mind as we work towards Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Under a law affecting public educational institutions, Heartland needs to meet the WCAG 2.1 guidelines by April 27, and the process at HCC has already begun. What this means is that all public facing digital content must meet certain requirements. There are tools on the employee portal to assist you. Accessibility champions have also been identified across campus. If you don’t know who your champion is, check with your supervisor.
Nice Return
It’s not even awards season, and yet we’re still winning. Education company EAB has selected Heartland for the 2026 Return on Education Award. HCC is being honored for “driving significant and measurable ROI” to help students persist, graduate, and thrive. Particular accomplishments of note include “increases in first-term success, developmental education outcomes, and first-year math and English college-level attainment.” Kudos to us!
New Heartland.edu is Coming!
We are in the final stretch of our website redesign project! As we continue to prepare for the launch, there are several things that we’ve asked of departments. Please take a look at the following important dates and deadlines:
- August 27 and September 29 - Training for the new Events Calendar. Email megan.rolfs@heartland.edu if you need to have access to the calendar and attend the training. Please note that all events will now be added via this new calendar instead of 25Live.
- August 28 - Full day of photo drop-in hours. Stop by to get your headshot if you haven’t already.
- September 1 - Last day to email the web team with any edits to your content. Email lance.savage@heartland.edu and Natalia.sobery@heartland.edu with your requests. There will be no other pre-launch changes to images or layouts beyond this date.
- September 21 - All content should be final. By this time, departments need to have reviewed their content on a desktop and on mobile for accuracy.
- September 23 - Website launch begins that evening.
- September 25 - The website is live!
- September 26 - We’re just going to guess the web team will be on vacation.
Thanks to everyone who has been involved in this project and a special shoutout to Lance Savage and Natalia Sobery for spending their summer building hundreds of new webpages!
Hawk Hub Comes to Heartland
Same great service – now available in the evening! The Hawk Hub pilot program will provide evening students with a centralized, concierge-style support center offering immediate assistance, virtual access to daytime service experts, and streamlined connections to key campus resources. Hawk Hub will be available Monday-Thursday, 4:30- 6:00 pm. The addition of Hawk Hub will help us to better serve our students, no matter what time they take classes.
Tell Your Students About Potential Free Money!
There's still time for students to apply for scholarships! Each year the Foundation gives out close to half a million dollars in scholarships thanks to generous donors. But sometimes our students don’t realize that this benefit is available to them. Scholarship applications were down slightly for the priority deadline in March, so that means there are more scholarships available this year for the September 1 deadline. If you interact with students, please encourage them to apply for Foundation scholarships and get a chance at some free money.
Still to come...
Week of Welcome Involvement Fair
- August 25 & 26
- 11 am - 1 pm
- Quad
- August 27
- 4:30 pm
- WDC Student Center, ICB, ICN, AMC, SCB
College Closed for Labor Day
- September 7
Fall Kickoff
- September 25
- 9 am - 1 pm
- Details to come
Random Knowledge to Make You Just a Little Smarter
Sleeping through the summer is called estivation. I guess it’s time to un-estivate? De-estivate? Whatever it is, it probably involves setting an alarm again.
Recommended Reading from Hawkfeed
This month we're doing a little something different for our book recommendation. We're recommending a few books that have been popular with your colleagues this summer. Below are some of the most read books during Heartland's Summer Reading Challenge. Technically summer is not over yet, so feel free to pick up one of these reads!
- You Deserve To Know by Auggie Blum Thompson
- Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
- Whistler by Ann Patchett
- The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden
Let's Get Social
That's all for now. In the meantime, check out our Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn for the latest happenings. Spread the love and share our stuff on your own pages.