SBCTC NEWS LINKS | Articles about – and of interest to – Washington state community and technical colleges
SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS
GED program students graduate from CBC in Pasco
Friday night, he and his 19-year-old brother, Derek Horsfall, joined 140 graduates of Columbia Basin College's General Educational Development, or GED, and high school completion programs to be honored and receive their diplomas.
Tri-City Herald, June 9, 2012
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/06/09/2174540/ged-program-students-graduate.html
HBJ's Entrepreneur of the Year: Jonathan Holbrook makes movies, markets small businesses and builds winning computers
Only a few months after winning Videomaker magazine's national award for his new high-tech, high-end DVGear professional video editing and production equipment, Jonathan Holbrook is in the news again as the first winner of The Herald Business Journal's Entrepreneur of the Year award. .. “Since I was a child, I wanted to be my own boss. I love to call my own shots,” Holbrook said. “Even family members laughed at me and didn't think I'd ever do it. In 1990, I moved up here from Texas, where I was doing warehousing work. When I came up to Everett, where my dad was living, Everett Community College had a video film program where I learned studio video production skills and did really well with it. My dream then was to become an independent filmmaker.”
The Herald Business Journal, June 2012
http://www.theheraldbusinessjournal.com/article/20120531/SCBJ01/705319847/-1/SCBJ
Drug bust generates police activity
Three men were taken into custody Thursday afternoon after a drug bust that prompted one man to run onto the Skagit Valley College campus, triggering a brief lockdown. The man ran amid a buy-and bust operation by the Skagit County Drug Task Force near the intersection of East College Way and LaVenture Road, Task Force Commander Tom Molitor said.
Skagit Valley Herald, June 8, 2012
http://www.skagit.edu/files3.asp_Q_pagenumber_E_2960
Isaac Newton and College Completion [Student Achievement Initiative]
Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and once in motion, that is when it develops momentum. It will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. … Gaining and maintaining momentum is key to student completion. Students who progress more quickly through the curriculum are considerably more likely to complete their degrees than those who do not. … The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, for instance, utilized the analysis of the transcripts of more than 87,000 first-time community and technical college students who entered the Washington system in the 2001–2 academic year to identify key points in the curriculum, referred to as momentum points or milestones, whose timely attainment was associated with student progress to degree completion.
Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/06/08/gaining-and-maintaining-momentum-key-student-completion-essay
Seabeck Conference Center gets new boardwalk, with help from Tacoma students
The 15 or so carpentry students from Bates Technical College of Tacoma blinked in the sunshine at their now-finished class project, a 350-foot-long meandering marshland boardwalk at Seabeck Conference Center. … The young carpenters were special guests Friday at a dedication of the boardwalk at the historic retreat center that rolls down from the treed hillside and stops in awe at Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains. Board members, Executive Director Chuck Kraining and others thanked the young men for their work and agreed there would have been no boardwalk without them.
Kitsap Sun, June 9, 2012
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/jun/08/seabeck-conference-center-gets-new-boardwalk/
Rare 1812 Book from Centralia College to be Auctioned June 22
A rare, oversized book titled “Pomona Britannica,” which sat in the Centralia College Library since 1964, will be auctioned off June 22 at Christie’s auction sale room in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. The book, published in London in 1812, is expected to be sold for between $80,000 and $120,000.
Centralia Chronicle, June 9, 2012 [requires subscription]
http://www.chronline.com/news/article_fc76bdfa-b1da-11e1-9dc8-001a4bcf887a.html
Seattle Central Community College student newspaper returns
The New City Collegian, an independent newspaper by Seattle Central Community College students, returned to print this week.
The Seattle Times, June 9, 2012
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018390392_collegepaper09m.html
RCC to get $100,000 for business training program
"The idea is to help community colleges help our entrepreneurs so they can launch successful companies," said Steve Vincent, Avista's regional business manager for Oregon. "When you think of community colleges, you often think of degrees and education programs. This will have education credits attached to it, but the idea is to take nontraditional students and give them certain skill sets, enabling them to launch companies." North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene and the Walla Walla Community College branch in Clarkston, Wash., also are expected to begin the program during the fall of 2013. … The network follows a pilot program created in 2007 at Spokane Community College. … Spokane Community College is developing curriculum with involvement from members of the Business Entrepreneurship Network.
The Mail Tribune [Southern Oregon], June 9, 2012
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120609/NEWS/206090320
Help needed to send homeless to college
Chalaia Smith is determined to become something more than a statistic. “There’s a stereotype with homeless youth – that we are all troublemakers, that we’ll always be homeless,” said the graduating Foss High School senior. Smith has other ideas. The 18-year-old is headed to Washington State University, with her eye on a career in veterinary medicine. To help Tacoma students like her make the transition, a new community project called Off to College collected items they will need – everything from laptop computers to laundry bags. … Smith and another Tacoma student, Brooke Bartels, spoke recently to the Tacoma School Board about their experiences as homeless students. Bartels, 18, is graduating from Mount Tahoma High and will attend Tacoma Community College. …Smith, who wound up homeless after the death of her grandmother, said she wished there had been a way for homeless high school students to get together and share their experiences.
The News Tribune, June 10, 2012
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/06/10/2176271/help-needed-to-send-homeless-to.html
TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION
How Much Disclosure?
Rising concern about student debt has reignited debates about standardizing financial aid award letters.
Inside Higher Ed, June 6, 2012
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/06/how-standardized-should-financial-aid-award-letters-be
Millennials: They aren’t so tech savvy after all
Even as millennials (those born and raised around the turn of the century) enter college with far more exposure to computer and mobile technology than their parents ever did, professors are increasingly finding that their students' comfort zone is often limited to social media and Internet apps that don’t do much in the way of productivity. … In U.S. high schools, students usually get some exposure to word processing and presentation applications, but spreadsheet skills often go untaught. And Web skills - including basic HTML coding techniques - are even more rare. … Today’s students face a job market that increasingly clamors for real technology skills, not just the ability to post party pictures on Facebook.
RWW, June 7, 2012
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/millennials-arent-so-tech-savvy-after-all.php
Not Just Degrees
Certificates are the fastest-growing college credential, with a big wage payoff. But earnings mostly go to men, and the certificate remains largely misunderstood in "completion agenda."
Inside Higher Ed, June 6, 2012
The Next Big Thing, Almost
Competency-based education is all the rage, except that no college has yet to go all-in. Panel discusses why, with Education Department official promising that feds won't stand in the way.
Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012
Who Pays for Student Aid?
Iowa proposal to eliminate use of tuition dollars for financial aid raises questions about who should shoulder the burden of financial aid and who decides how aid gets doled out.
Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/08/iowa-proposes-end-use-tuition-revenue-financial-aid
Colleges Urged to Embrace Entrepreneurial Reforms
Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/06/08/colleges-urged-embrace-entrepreneurial-reforms
Workers Lost Ground During Recession As Bosses Gained
Bloomberg News, June 8, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-08/workers-lost-ground-during-recession-as-bosses-gained.html
Commentary: The Real Education Crisis Is Just Over That Cliff
With an economy dependent on postsecondary education, we're on the wrong road.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 10, 2012
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Real-Education-Crisis-Is/132167/
Companies Shape Curricula in New University Partnerships
Faced with a wave of retiring engineers and scientists and the need for precise expertise, U.S. companies --including GE, Boeing, United Technologies Corp. and Microsoft Corp. -- are reaching into colleges to make contact with students far earlier than they ever have. Their involvement extends to advising and shaping curricula so graduates can plug into jobs faster with less training time and cost. Universities “need to provide our students with hands-on, real-world practical application from day one,” said Rick Stephens, senior vice president of human resources and administration at Boeing in Chicago. “So when they show up at the first job, not only can they find information, not only can they develop it, they can actually do real work.” Many schools “are getting that message.” … American companies are standing up to help with money, advice and positions for job-seeking graduates. In return, they want schools to take a more active role in training and skill formation. “We do see employers who are interested in having students who can come in and be productive right away,” said Ralph Mobley, director of career services at Georgia Tech. “Small to mid-sized companies, and even some larger ones, don’t have budgets for training like maybe they once did. They are looking to save some of that cost.”
Bloomberg, June 10, 2012
Program teaches vets how to survive the classroom
Most American troops have left Iraq, and many have left Afghanistan. Now more than half a million of them have left the service — and they're going to college. Some vets say the transition is like landing on another planet, but they aren't the only ones struggling: The college staffs are, too.
NPR, June 11, 2012
http://www.npr.org/2012/06/11/154432456/program-teaches-vets-how-to-survive-the-classroom
We All Need a Vacation
Just because you need to work during the summer doesn't mean you also don't need down time, writes Nate Kreuter.
Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2012
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/06/11/essay-need-academics-take-vacations
'You're Not Special'
A teacher's high school commencement speech has many talking about the message pre-frosh need to hear.
Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2012
POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL
Editorial/Higher Education: Start fixing how it's funded
Washington's support for higher education was already declining compared with peer states before the recession ravaged state revenues. Because higher education isn't protected by the state Constitution or federal funding rules, it became a big target for cuts by the Legislature. Lawmakers have slashed higher ed by about half in the past four years, leaving tuition increases the only way to maintain any semblance of quality instruction on state campuses. This trendline must be reversed, or we're going to sink our own economic future.
The Herald, June 10, 2012
http://heraldnet.com/article/20120610/OPINION01/706109967/-1/OPINION#Start-fixing-how-its-funded
OPINION: Saving state universities requires a key ingredient
The debate over the state’s education funding dilemma took a hopeful and perhaps decisive turn last week when the University of Washington Board of Regents weighed in on the need for revenue reform. In passing the “Declaration of Concern for the Sustainability of Washington Public Higher Education,” the regents made it clear that nothing short of fundamental changes in the state’s financing system will suffice. According to their statement, this will require “reform of the state’s financial and revenue structures so as to provide a viable, dedicated stream of support for access to an affordable, quality public higher education for Washington’s residents.”
CrossCut, June 11, 2012
http://crosscut.com/2012/06/11/higher-ed/109122/washingtons-lagging-higher-education-tax-revenues-/
Compiled by the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges
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