News Links | October 15, 2015

SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS

Opinion: Climb ladder, then offer a hand to next By Jean Jean Hernandez, president of Edmonds Community College. How does a poor Latina from Texas end up as the president of the fourth-largest community college in the state of Washington? Drive, education and helping hands. My parents might not have had the opportunity to stay in school long, but they both realized the value of education. Albuquerque Journal, Oct. 15, 2015 LCC to receive education award In celebration of Manufacturing Day and the significant role of manufacturing in today’s global society, Tooling U-SME, a leader in manufacturing learning and development, is recognizing Lower Columbia College with its Tooling U-SME Platinum Education Center (TUPEC) award. The school is one of five colleges receiving this honor, which is given to institutions considered to be outstanding academic models for the advancement of the manufacturing industry. The Wahkiakum County Eagle, Oct. 15, 2015 College receives grant money for students with disabilities A ceremony was held in the new Schermer building at Grays Harbor College Friday to showcase technology purchased with money from the Alex and Suzanne Rosenkrantz Scholarship Fund Committee that will help students with visual or hearing impairments. The college was awarded a $6,000 grant and members of both the college and the Aberdeen Rotary Club were on hand Friday as the money was formally presented. The Daily World, Oct. 14, 2015 Jim Stafford sculpts animals in bronze He immediately makes you feel drawn to him by his kind smile and warm handshake, a clasp with hands that have molded and shaped many intricately detailed pieces of bronze artwork. Jim Stafford, a Chehalis-native, is a world class artist who has brought bronze to life for charity, public art and private collections. ... Working from pictures is challenging due to the lack of dimension but Stafford has done it, and very successfully so. He has created two works of art for Centralia College. ... Stafford has shared his knowledge with others. He spent some time teaching art classes at Centralia College, and taught at Wenatchee Valley College for six years where he built two foundries. Lewis Talk, Oct. 14, 2015 CPTC: Pastry Arts grad does stint in France, whips up new career Before Jennifer Phillips put her Pastry Arts Degree to use in the local industry, she took the culinary skills she acquired at Clover Park Technical College to France. After Phillips completed the Pastry Arts Program in 2013 she lived in France to train under a pastry chef and immerse herself in the culture. As an intern she learned the French way of desserts, and brought the experience back to Pierce County. The Suburban Times, Oct. 14, 2015 Bellevue College implementing new security measures | College reassessing campus safety after campus shootings elsewhere In the wake of two shootings in the past 16 months at Northwest college campuses, Bellevue College is in the process of reassessing and implementing new security measures that it hopes will help increase safety while maintaining the open, unencumbered feeling of a community college campus. Bellevue Reporter, Oct. 13, 2015 CBC donates 4,000 peppers to local food banks The Columbia Basin College Agriculture Program and about twenty volunteers just finished picking a big peck of peppers, 4,000 pounds in all. The agriculture program was growing them as part of a research project. But now that the project is finished, the question became what to do with these peppers? Rather than seeing them go to waste, CBC decided to partner with Fields of Grace to harvest the peppers on the CBC Pasco campus for local food banks. The red and green peppers will be distributed as part of Saint Vincent De Paul's weekly food distribution.     KVEW TV, Oct. 13, 2015 Big Bend fall enrollment up slightly Enrollment numbers for the 2015 fall quarter at Big Bend Community College reflected the college’s full-time equivalent enrollment has stayed fairly level since last year. Columbia Basin Herald, Oct. 13, 2015 RTC receives apprenticeship grant Renton Technical College this week was awarded a grant of $468,595 from the U.S. Department of Labor’s American Apprenticeship Initiative. The funds will support the purchase of new technology for Heat/Frost, Stationary Engineers, Pacific Maritime Institute, and Machinist programs. The award is part of a larger $4.8 million grant to fund the Partnership for Advanced Technology Apprenticeships in Manufacturing and Marine Engineering project (PATAM) led by South Seattle College. Renton Reporter, Sept. 17, 2015

TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION

Community college groups seek higher K-12 standards The American Association of Community Colleges and the Association of Community College Trustees today announced that they will partner with the group Higher Ed for Higher Standards to commit to a push for more challenging academic standards in K-12. The two primary trade groups for the two-year college sector said in a joint statement that their goal is to better help prepare students for success in college and careers. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 15, 2015 Women now lead men in college attainment For the first time in the 75 years that the U.S. Census Bureau has tracked college attainment, women are more likely than men to have a bachelor's degree. The shift has been going on for years, but women took the lead in 2014. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 14, 2015 To stop exam cheats, economists say, try assigning seats Think seating charts in the classroom are needed only in elementary school? According to a new study, randomly assigned seats are also the most immediate way to prevent cheating among college students. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 14, 2015 Controversies as chilling effect A majority of faculty members say they are concerned about attacks on scholars for their comments on social media, even though only a small percentage of faculty members use social media to discuss politics and scholarship. At the same time, faculty members say colleges need to do more to encourage civil discourse online. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 14, 2015 'Higher education and employability' The political and public policy landscape is increasingly dotted (one might say littered) with those who view the purpose of higher education as about preparing people for the workplace, from governors questioning whether their state universities are producing too many graduates in anthropology or other liberal arts disciplines to Education Department officials whose college data tool focuses heavily on economic outcomes. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 14, 2015 Ana Mari Cauce new UW president; popular on, off campus Breaking a long-standing tradition of picking outsiders to lead the University of Washington, the Board of Regents on Tuesday chose longtime UW professor and administrator Ana Mari Cauce as the university’s next president. Cauce, a 29-year employee who climbed the university’s ranks from assistant professor to interim president, joins a rare group among those tapped to head major American universities: a president selected from the inside. The Seattle Times, Oct. 13, 2015 In the classroom, common ground can transform GPAs Many people have experienced the magic of a wonderful teacher, and we all know anecdotally that these instructors can change our lives. But what if a teacher and a student don'tconnect? How does that affect the education that child receives? ... These are the sorts of questions that fascinated Hunter Gehlbach* and his colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For the experiment he had in mind, Hunter and his team created a survey for students and teachers of a ninth-grade class. The researchers then selectively shared examples from the survey results with teachers and students to show them that they had things in common. When Hunter examined the test scores of students who had been induced to see that they had things in common with their teachers, he found something astonishing: students — especially minorities — suddenly started to perform better in class. KPLU, Oct. 13, 2015 University-run boot camps offer students marketable skills — but not course credit Level, a venture that offers students courses in data analytics, has a motto of sorts. It’s written in large letters across the program’s website: “Real skills. Real experience. Two months.” The motto sounds a lot like the boot-camp style of education offered by companies like General Assembly. But Level, a product of Northeastern University, is neither a private company nor a Silicon Valley startup. It is one of the first boot-camp programs created by a traditional university, and it exists alongside Northeastern’s master’s programs in subjects such as urban informatics and information design and visualization. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 13, 2015

POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL

CFPB: Repayment of U.S.-backed student loans lags Nearly one-third of student loan borrowers with old federally guaranteed loans are either in default or behind on their payments — yet few are using income-based repayment programs, according to a new report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 15, 2015 Federal watchdog eyes accreditor The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking information from a national accreditor about the for-profit colleges it oversees, which include several controversial chains. The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools received the civil investigative demand from the CFPB in August. It is unclear whether the council, which is the largest national accreditor, is the target of an investigation, or whether the request is linked to another probe. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 15, 2015 Complaints from private student-loan borrowers rise as few enroll in income-based repayment The number of complaints from private student-loan borrowers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau increased by roughly 20 percent in the past year, from 5,300 last year to 6,400 in the past year, according to the annual report of the bureau’s ombudsman. Another key finding in this year’s report: A whopping 95 percent of borrowers with federal loans made by private lenders are not enrolled in income-driven repayment plans, an option heavily advertised by the Obama administration that allows borrowers to cap their monthly payments. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 14, 2015 Democrats nod to higher ed issues in first debate Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed briefly over their college affordability plans during the Democratic Party’s first debate Wednesday night. Echoing some of the remarks they’ve been making on the campaign trail recently, the two leading candidates emphasized differences in their plans to provide new federal funding to public higher education. Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 14, 2015 A boon to boot camps? U.S. extends aid to campus deals with nontraditional programs The U.S. Education Department is cracking open the door to federal financial aid for students enrolled in nontraditional education programs — and trying out alternatives to accreditation in the process. On Wednesday the department will announce a pilot program that will allow federal grants and loans to flow to educational-technology companies that team up with colleges and third-party "quality-assurance entities" to offer coding boot camps, MOOCs, short-term certificates, and other credentials. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 14, 2015