Tuesday, December 9, 2014

News Links | December 9, 2014

SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS

Higher ed: not everyone wants to leave the nest
Nereyda Barajas wanted to leave her hometown of Sunnyside to pursue a college education. But she also couldn’t bear the thought of leaving home. ... Looking back, she said it may not have been so easy to leave. She attended a summer seminar at Yakima Valley Community College that required staying at the YVCC dorms during parts of the week. While Yakima and Sunnyside are less than an hour apart, Barajas was feeling homesick.
Yakima Herald, Dec. 9, 2014

Opinion: WCC explores advancing women in STEM classes
By Heidi Ypma, math professor at Whatcom Community College. At Whatcom Community College, we’re working to bridge that gap to create career opportunities for women and to strengthen America’s talent pool in these critically important fields. This type of instructional innovation is one of Whatcom’s strengths. Today, a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degree equals career opportunity. STEM education is critical if America expects to compete in the global economy. If women aren’t in STEM labs and classrooms, we underutilize a source of human capital for this important work and lose potential leaders in the field.
The Bellingham Herald, Dec. 8, 2014

Guest: Honor community-college teachers by naming college buildings
By Maureen Murphy Nutting, North Seattle College retired history faculty member. Does it matter what our college buildings are named? Should it matter? Most of the faculty and staff at North Seattle College think so. We think that it is high time to begin naming some buildings after outstanding former faculty. There could be no better person to start with than Lynda Wilkinson, a teacher who died last February, just as construction of a new campus building neared completion. Wilkinson was one of North Seattle College’s most extraordinary and beloved teachers. She taught electronics there for 30 years, mentoring thousands of students as well as faculty and staff. She helped many find new directions, good jobs, and self-confidence. She gave her time and talents selflessly. Her working days generally stretched to 16 hours, her door was always open, and her approach was direct, sensible, supportive and compassionate.
The Seattle Times, Dec. 8, 2014

Youth Development program graduates get skill sets for success
The sky was overcast, another gray Northwest December day. The classroom at Everett Community College's Jackson Conference Center was brightly lit and full of applause, smiling faces and teens ready to conquer the world. They were clapping for their accomplishments and their ambitions. The 25 students had just finished an eight-week course in the soft skills needed for success in the American workplace. They had spent most of the past eight Saturdays learning about financial literacy, how to make an elevator pitch, public speaking and other skills often left out of standard school curriculums.
Everett Herald, Dec. 8, 2014

Opinion: There's a hunger in higher ed
By Brandon Lueken, program coordinator, student programs at Bellevue College. The students at Bellevue College, like all community colleges, have seen their expenses rise over the past 10 years. Quarterly tuition and fees at a community college with a standard 15 credit load costs $4,000 a year, per the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. ... The lowest cost educational option available to students, the reliable community college system, may soon outpace student’s ability to pay.
Bellevue Reporter, Dec. 5, 2014

CPTC: Spreading holiday cheer on campus
Clover Park Technical College brought holiday cheer to campus Dec. 4 to help ease the financial and mental stress that often occurs during the holiday season. The Holiday House Program is an annual college-wide giving event put on by volunteers and supported by CPTC’s Foundation. This year the program supported 58 eligible student families, including 88 children, with presents and gift cards for the holidays. An additional 16 families received food items.
The Suburban Times, Dec. 5, 2014

College students and inmates team up for formal debate
College students got a chance to interact with hardened inmates at the Pen today. Those inmates included a man locked up for crimes you may remember right here in the Tri-Cities. KEPR learned how he's trying to turn his life around, through events like these. ... Kevin [Kafiyev] says he didn't realize he had such a support system. But now that he knows he does, it has inspired him to want to go to college. He has hopes of going to Udub when he's out. The debate program with local college students from Whitman and Walla Walla Community College is helping Kevin reach his goals.
KEPR TV, Dec. 4, 2014

EdCC leader elected to national executive board
Edmonds Community College Board of Trustee Chair Emily Yim was elected to the Association of Community College Trustees Executive Committee.
Edmonds Beacon, Dec. 4, 2014

Providing for one of their own
Staff and students at Centralia College came together in honor of one of their own on Tuesday, hosting a bone marrow drive for Edward Riley, the social media coordinator for the college. Riley was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes, otherwise known as MDS, an aggressive form of cancer that affects the bone marrow and blood. The disease is similar to leukemia. In all, 28 people signed up to join the bone marrow registry, a number Tanya Nobles, a donor recruitment representative for Puget Sound Blood Center, said was a good number.
The Centralia Chronicle, Dec. 4, 2014

Battle Ground program puts students on health careers path
"Is this blurry?" asked Anna Gurnik, 15, pointing to the eye chart while Matthew Matey, 6, who wears glasses, squinted at the chart and nodded. "Let's try the row above then," she said. Gurnik has a solid start toward her career goal of becoming a dental hygienist. She is enrolled in the Battle Ground district's health science careers program, which allows students to take a concentration of health science classes, get hands-on experience in health care and earn Clark College credit at no cost.
The Columbian, Dec. 4, 2014

TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION

Einstein for everyone
The Einstein Papers Project, the decades-long effort to compile and preserve the scientist’s professional work and personal writings, is today opening to the public as a free searchable database containing thousands of documents. The launch of the Digital Einstein Papers includes more than 5,000 documents that span the first 44 years of Albert Einstein’s life.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 5, 2014

How black students tend to learn science
Transforming a lecture into a more active experience is one possible way of fixing STEM's diversity dilemma.
The Atlantic, Dec. 4, 2014

POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL


Pell Grants for juvenile offenders
As part of an effort to improve the quality of education for young offenders, the Obama administration on Monday unveiled new guidance that allows students confined to juvenile correctional facilities to receive Pell Grants. The guidance clarifies that the prohibition on prisoners getting Pell Grants that Congress enacted two decades ago does not apply to offenders detained in juvenile facilities.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 9, 2014

Quiet players, deep pockets
Student loan guarantee agencies faced an uncertain future in 2010, when the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress eliminated government-backed private lending. With the federal government issuing only direct loans, the guarantee business of insuring bank loans was destined to dry up. As a result, the more than 30 guarantee agencies have been trying to diversify in recent years.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 9, 2014

Best of a bad situation?
The U.S. Department of Education last week defended the deal it helped broker for Corinthian Colleges, a disintegrating for-profit chain, to sell 56 of its campuses to a nonprofit student loan guarantee agency, ECMC. If approved, the proposed $24 million purchase “fends off disastrous consequences,” the department said in a written statement. It averts “disruption and displacement” for roughly 40,000 students, and strengthens their “education prospects.”
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 9, 2014

Good cop, bad cop from White House
The second White House college summit held Thursday was bigger and focused on a broader range of institutions than the inaugural January event. And it also, in part, more vividly illustrated what seems to be an ongoing tension of the Obama administration's higher agenda: how to promote the value and importance of colleges while also seeking to hold institutions more accountable, especially for their tuition prices.
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 5, 2014

The talk — and pledges — at the White House Summit on college opportunity
Hundreds of college leaders are now heading home, still giddy from Thursday’s White House Summit on College Opportunity. Now comes the hard part: Making good on their varied promises to enroll more low-income students and help them graduate.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 4, 2014