Thursday, December 11, 2014

News Links | December 11, 2014

SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS

Highline College's Center of Excellence celebrates 10-year anniversary
Highline College's Center of Excellence for Global Trade and Supply Chain Management, along with Washington state's nine other Centers of Excellence, is celebrating 10 years of innovation and development of a skilled workforce. ... he nine additional centers serving Washington's community and technical college system are: Agriculture, hosted at Walla Walla Community College, Allied Health at Yakima Valley Community College, Aerospace and Advanced Manufacturing at Everett Community College, Clean Energy at Centralia College, Construction at Renton Technical College, Education at Green River Community College, Homeland Security Emergency Management at Pierce College, Information and Computing Technology at Bellevue College, and Marine Manufacturing and Technology at Skagit Valley College. ... The Centers of Excellence were established by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, were codified by the state legislature in 2009. The centers lead and support the development of rigorous skills standards to meet industry training needs, collaborate on grant projects to support workforce training, and are involved with national boards and organizations. They ensure that leading edge thinking, best practices and technologies are introduced into the community and technical college system.
Auburn Reporter, Dec. 10, 2014

Bellevue College names new dean
Bellevue College has a new dean. Late last month Jean D'Arc Campbell was appointed to a newly created position at the college, dean of international education and global initiatives. In his new role, Campbell will serve as the head of all international initiatives on the campus with the goal of expanding the college's global recruitment to further diversify its student population, according to Ata Karim, vice president of student affairs.
Issaquah Reporter, Dec. 10, 2014

Pierce College newspaper staffers attend journalism conference
Staffers from Pierce College Post and Pioneer newspapers recently traveled to Philadelphia for a convention that brought together heavy hitters from the journalism world to share tips and tricks of the trade with students from around the country. The 93rd annual National College Media Convention, presented by the Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Association, featured more than 325 sessions including problem-solving breakout workshops and opportunities to be critiqued by the pros.
The Suburban Times, Dec. 10, 2014

CPTC: Building to sustain
Sustainable Building Science is more than green building. It’s about taking action that meets the needs of people, profit and the planet while sustaining natural resources for the future. The program at Clover Park Technical College teaches students not only how to build the structures we live and work in, but also to consider the economic, environmental and social impacts of doing so.
The Suburban Times, Dec. 10, 2014

TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION

Clearinghouse says enrollment is down again
College enrollment has declined by more than 1 percent for three consecutive years, according to newly released data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The drop of 1.3 percent is slower than that of the previous two years, according to the report, but still reflects a loss of almost 265,000 students. Most of the decline is among adult students, many of whom have joined the workforce as the economy rebounds.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 11, 2014

How ‘The Colbert Report’ has given a ‘bump’ to academic guests
While in character as a pompous and self-aggrandizing TV host, Stephen Colbert has invited a steady stream of academics to his show, The Colbert Report, to scold and ridicule them. He called Leon Botstein, an author, symphony conductor, and longtime college president, "an intellectual" and a "smarty pants." He grilled Stephen Prothero, a religious-studies professor, on "what’s the best religion." And he criticized Jason Bond, a biology professor, for naming a spider after Neil Young and not Stephen Colbert. ... In fact, the show has become an improbable symbol of achievement for no small number of academics, some of whom have seen a rise in book sales and influence that the host himself calls "the Colbert bump."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 10, 2014

Don’t let STEM jobs in state go unfilled
Washington state is actually doing pretty well in producing family-wage jobs in technology fields. The Boston Consulting Group, in its recent report, “Opportunity For All: Investing in Washington State's STEM Education Pipeline,” finds that the state has one of the highest proportions of science, technology, engineering and math jobs in the nation, half of which are in computer science. The difficulty, it says, comes in filling those jobs. Under current trends, only 9 of 100 children born in the state will end up in STEM-related jobs in the state, jobs that BCG estimates number around 25,000 now and which could double by 2017. Jobs not won by state residents are instead filled by out-of-state workers, or — worse yet — the jobs themselves could be sent out of state.
Everett Herald, Dec. 10, 2014

Students praise male professors
College students' assessments of their instructors' teaching ability is linked to whether they think those instructors are male or female, according to new research from North Carolina State University. In the study, students in an online course gave better evaluations to the instructors they thought were male, even though the two instructors
 — one male and one female — had switched their identities. The research is based on a small pilot study of one class.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 10, 2014

Many colleges fail to report deals with student-aid contractors
A "significant number" of colleges aren’t notifying the Education Department when they contract with outside servicers to administer federal student aid, a lapse that’s made it difficult for regulators to determine whether the contractors are following federal laws, the agency says. Colleges pay third-party servicers millions of dollars each year to process student-aid applications, perform needs analyses, and disburse aid, among other functions. The institutions are required to notify the department when they enter into a servicing contract or modify or cancel one. It’s unclear why many colleges aren’t complying with the rules, especially because doing so is in their best interest. If the department knows that a college is working with a servicer, it can hold the company jointly liable for any violations it commits.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 10, 2014

Why getting into (and finishing) college can be harder for poorer students
When it comes to who gets into and graduates from college, you probably shouldn’t outright disregard grades and SAT scores — but a student’s financial situation can be a troublingly valuable indicator of their chances. While more than 80 percent of high-income students enrolled in college in 2012, only about half of low-income students did the same, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And among those that did make it on campus, more than half of the wealthier students graduated, dwarfing the nine percent of low-income ones who managed to do the same, economists Martha Bailey and Susan Dynarski of the University of Michigan found.
The Atlantic, Dec. 10, 2014

POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL


Guest: Funding I-1351 could rob from other levels of education funding
As the executive director of the Technology Alliance — a nonpartisan coalition of leaders from Washington’s tech and research organizations — I hear on a daily basis that a quality state education system is key to maintaining and improving our innovation economy. Class size is part of that equation. But as we face tough budgetary decisions in the upcoming session, state legislators know that reduced class sizes cannot be our sole priority. Should it cause us to fall further behind in higher-education and quality prekindergarten funding, the initiative will do more harm than good for the state.
The Seattle Times, Dec. 10, 2014

Lawmakers urge Education Dept. to forgive debt of Corinthian students
A group of Democratic U.S. senators wants the Education Department to discharge the federal loans of students who have legal claims against Corinthian Colleges, a defunct for-profit education provider. The students include those covered under lawsuits brought by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and California.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 10, 2014

What about the police?
Colleges' mishandling of sexual assault may continue to occupy the national spotlight, but the criminal justice system has done a worse job supporting and addressing the needs of victims, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said during a U.S. Senate hearing here Tuesday. The hearing, held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, focused on finding ways to inspire campus sexual assault survivors to have more confidence in law enforcement so that they don’t, as McCaskill said, “take the default position that they’d be better off just pursuing the Title IX option.”
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 10, 2014

Budget deal unveiled
Congressional leaders agreed Tuesday on a spending bill that would avoid a government shutdown and provide modest increases to student aid programs and scientific research. The compromise deal, which would fund most of the federal government until next October, would also restore a pathway to student aid for students who do not have a high school diploma or its equivalent, like a GED.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 10, 2014