Kentucky New Era
April 12, 2005
Marking a milestone
HCC celebrates 40th birthday this month
In honor of its 40th birthday, Christian County and the city of Hopkinsville
have proclaimed April "Hopkinsville Community College Month" and the
students and faculty are starting the celebration this week.
After Hopkinsville Mayor Rich Liebe and Christian County Judge-Executive Steve
Tribble sign the proclamation Wednesday morning, the college will throw a community
and employee reception on Thursday evening including hors d'oeuvres, coffee,
dessert and performances from the Western Kentucky Center for the Creative Arts.
County Historian William Turner will also give a video presentation of the
history of the college, and HCC President Bonnie Rogers plans to thank several
politicians who voted for the legislature that created the college system.
Jason Warren, a spokesman for HCC, said having these community wide events
gives people a chance to see what the college has to offer and appreciate what
is has become during the past 40 years.
"It's an opportunity to showcase our alumni and showcase the community,"
he said. "It's also an opportunity to show the community what the college
has to offer and a way to invite them on campus to take a look at 40 years of
history, and how it's built a foundation for the next 40 years."
Those interested in learning about the alumni, history and growth of HCC can
read all about it on Saturday when a special commemorative insert comes out
in the Kentucky New Era.
The celebration will continue the following Tuesday, April 19, with a community
and employee breakfast sponsored by the newspaper and featuring guest speaker
Col. Stephen F.W. Cavanah. A member of the Class of 1977 at HCC, Cavanah is
a Col. in the United States Air Force and along with a list of other distinguished
titles, he was the White House physician from 1993-1995.
Madisonville Messenger
April 14, 2005
Nursing program celebrates 40 years
Martha Crabtree knew at age 5 she wanted to be a nurse. But it took several years
before her dreams became reality.
“By the time I got out of high school, I was married and soon afterwards,
I had a family,” she said. “I still was interested in nursing and
I could not go (away) to school.
“Then, when the school came to Madisonville, I was so excited,” Crabtree
said. “I was already working as a private duty nurse’s aide, staying
with a patient at her home.”
She was accepted into the first practical nursing class in Madisonville —
and plans to be among those attending the program’s 40-year reunion today.
Mary Alice Mooney, who is organizing the reunion for Madisonville Community
College, said 275 graduates have notified her to say they plan to attend. The
program has more than 2,000 graduates.
“I get so many calls, I can’t get my work done,” said Mooney,
counselor/facilitator/recruiter for the Nurse Mobility Project.
She is a 1988 graduate of the program, going on to earn two associate’s
degrees, become a registered nurse and receive a bachelor’s degree in business
management.
Six instructors have told her they will attend, and she expects more will show
up.
The reunion begins at 5 p.m. in the Hatley Building on MCC’s health campus.
The program includes a performance by the Madisonville Community Choir, a “Uniforms
in Time” style show featuring current nursing students, and the history
of the LPN program presented by former director Clara Dorris.
Photos and memorabilia provided by alumni will also be on exhibit.
“I took clinic shoes,” Crabtree said. “I took a receipt of my
uniforms when I bought them back in ’65. I think I got three for $29.”
One woman sent a box of white bobby pins, which were used to hold on the nursing
caps, Mooney said.
“They wore these to work every day,” she said, displaying a white
cotton dress with tiny pleats in the bodice and vintage removable buttons. “Can
you imagine having to iron that?”
The reunion is for anyone who graduated from the practical nursing program
at Madisonville Health Occupational School or Madisonville Technical School,
as well as the current MCC program. Classes were first offered in a two-story
building on Center Street in Madisonville that stood where the Regional Senior
Citizens Center is now located.
Talk of a reunion started because of the memorabilia and photos the college
keeps in storage.
“We had four boxes full of nothing but old pictures,” Mooney said.
“We said, ‘What are we going to do with that?’ So we decided
to have a celebration.”
Hilda DeMoss of Mortons Gap, a member of the first class, hopes she’ll
feel well enough to attend today.
“I’m not sure, but I think I was the oldest one in the class,”
the 90-year-old said. “I had graduated high school 33 years prior to that.”
DeMoss didn’t have the money to go to college after high school graduation
— even after being offered two scholarships. She decided she wanted to
be a nurse, but married and raised five children before returning to school.
“I had worked at the hospital about 10-12 years before I went to LPN school,”
she said. Her job involved giving medication. She continued working at the old
Hopkins County Hospital for about 10 years after graduation.
“I worked intensive care for five years before I quit, in charge from
11 to 7,” DeMoss said.
Crabtree, who was her classmate, recalled more than 300 people applying for
that first class.
“So I was thrilled to death that I got accepted,” she said.
Crabtree went on to become a registered nurse. She was retired from 1976-82,
then started working part time after taking a refresher course. She now works
at Mahr Cancer Center as a PRN.
Through the years, the capping ceremony has been shortened, Mooney said, but
it remains just as traditional. There is also still a pinning service.
“The work has changed,” she said. “It was really hard when the
first class graduated. They had to clean beds with little brushes and bedsprings
with Q-Tips.”
That was a method of germ control, Mooney said.
Also, early students trained on each other to learn the different procedures,
she said. Now, simulators are used.
One thing that hasn’t changed is nurses’ love for the profession,
Mooney said.
“When you get involved in it, it’s a passion,” she said.
Louisville Courier-Journal
April 14, 2005
Teacher helps inmates write new chapters
After one of the early analytical readings, Danny O'Bryan offered some praise,
then paused a moment and thumped his chest with his right hand.
"But you know," he told his student, "I am more concerned with
the heart."
O'Bryan was standing before a class of six students of poetry and literature
at the Kentucky State Reformatory near La Grange. The evening's discussion --
part of a Jefferson Community College degree curriculum -- would focus on irony,
allegory and symbolism.
We had just walked through a prison yard dominated by a 12-story administration
building that rose above the spring-green Oldham County fields like a stony
threat.
Hundreds of prisoners, most identically dressed in tan clothing and white tennis
shoes, moved about the huge yard, or gathered in small groups like background
extras in a tan-and-green prison movie.
Following the trail
A small bird -- noisy, insistent and cheerful -- hung outside the classroom's
open windows, occasionally interrupting with song O'Bryan's message of self-discovery
and rejuvenation.
"Life will prevail," O'Bryan told his students, repeating the words
of a favored writer, "if you follow the trail."
O'Bryan was dressed in black boots, jeans, a black leather jacket and a shirt
littered with yellow polka dots. The talkative instructor seemingly cannot do
so without moving his hands, adding inflection to his poetry readings or loudly
thumping on his chest.
He's the man for this job, because his personal trail has included being tossed
from two high schools; being a saxophone player, singer and jazz enthusiast;
being a stand-up comic on the local burlesque circuit; being husband, writer,
blogger, newspaper critic and admirer of Beat Generation and cutting-edge, problem-riddled
writers; and being a late-blooming college student, and a teacher and student
of what that means.
'Not here to judge'
He has been at the edge, avoided falling in -- and isn't quite sure why.
"A lot of those writers were very marginal characters," he said.
"I'm not here to judge; I don't feel I'm any better than anybody in here."
He taught English and poetry in traditional venues before somebody asked him
three years ago: How would you like to try something different, such as teaching
in prison?
"I was very nervous and apprehensive when I started," O'Bryan said,
"but after I got the first papers back, I was blown away at how good they
were."
His students -- as verbal and articulate as any on the JCC Broadway campus
-- took turns reading their papers, giving interpretations of their poems' meanings
filtered through their experiences.
They read from the rich offerings of The Bedford Introduction to Literature,
some 2,256 pages of poetry, drama and plays. They walked along with Robert Frost
in "Acquainted With The Night," felt a darker kinship in its opening
line: "I have been one acquainted with the night."
New experiences
They discussed e.e. cummings, William Carlos Williams and Edgar Allen Poe, and
felt the pounding deluge of rhymes in Robert Southy's "The Cataract of
Lodore." They understood the humor and message in John Ciari's "Suburban,"
an allegorical tale concerning two suburban neighbors and one wrongly identified
dog deposit.
It was all new. For these few hours on a Tuesday, the written and spoken word
had taken them all somewhere else: six captive students in a classroom and one
energized teacher in a yellow polka-dot shirt finding self-worth, rejuvenation
and temporary escape in literature -- without the slightest hint of irony, allegory
or symbolism.
Paducah Sun
April 14, 2005
Psychology professor Pruitt voted 2005 teacher of the year
Assistant psychology professor Doug Pruitt didn't have much time to enjoy a
reception honoring him as the 2005 West Kentucky Community and Technical College
Teacher of the Year on Wednesday. He had a class to teach.
"To me, this is the biggest honor I could imagine," said Pruitt,
a Newport Beach, Calif., native who joined the college faculty in 2001. "Teaching
is my life. The students are my life. Knowing that they enjoy my class and that
they're getting something out of it means so much to me. This is the joy of
my life."
The student body elected Pruitt from among 14 instructors nominated by the
Student Senate.
The other nominees were Haydon "Corky" Bloodworth, associate professor
of air conditioning technology; Patty Buchanan, clinical coordinator of radiography;
Mary Carrico, nursing instructor; Carla Draffen, professor of information technology;
Kevin Gericke, assistant professor of economics and statistics; Pat Holler,
associate professor of developmental education; Kay Jetton, associate professor
of barbering; Tammy Owen, nursing instructor; Sam Suryanarayana, professor of
chemistry; Jason Taylor, assistant professor of mathematics; Ruth Thompson,
professor of respiratory care technology; Carey Wadlington, math instructor;
and Gerald Watkins, associate professor of political science.
Pruitt earned his doctorate in psychology and behavioral neuroscience from
Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He taught at California State University,
Bowling Green State and the University of Toledo before being hired at WKCTC.
He serves as the faculty council representative for the Humanities, Fine Arts
and Social Science Division.
Pruitt said he tries to focus on teaching analytical thinking skills instead
of curriculum. If students can build basic skills and learn how to absorb information,
they will be able to handle any subject, he said.
"He's the sort of teacher that you don't want to miss any of his classes,"
said Student Government Vice President William Murphy, who has taken three of
Pruitt's courses.
"It doesn't matter how tired you are. ... You get up and get to his class
because he makes it interesting."
Floyd County Times
April 13, 2005
Honors’ Night at BSCTC
The Mayo Auditorium was the sight of the 2005 Big Sandy Community and Technical
College Honors’ Night celebration. Students, accompanied by family and
friends, gathered for 2004-2005 Outstanding Achievement Honors.
President’s List honorees were recognized for academic excellence for
full time students who have earned an overall semester grade point average of
4.0. Dean’s List honorees were recognized for academic excellence for full
time students who have earned an overall semester grade-point average of 3.5
or higher in courses numbered 100 or above. Members of Who’s Who in American
and Junior Colleges were honored. Each fall, Big Sandy Community and Technical
College (BSCTC) submits a list of academically outstanding students for recognition
by Who’s Who in American and Junior Colleges, which recognizes the academic
excellence of sophomore-status students. Students belonging to Phi Theta Kappa
received recognition. Phi Theta Kappa is an honor society of two-year community
and junior colleges. Phi Theta Kappa members must have completed 12 credit hours,
be currently enrolled and have achieved a 3.5 grade point average. National
Technical Honor Society members were also honored. Students who are members
of this group have exhibited outstanding achievement in a technical field.
The speaker for the evening was Lula Bowling, Director of the Morehead State
University at Prestonsburg. In an inspirational speech entitled, “To be
or not to be…” she challenged the students to be the best they could
be, to not settle for less than they can achieve and to strive for excellence
always.
Dr. George D. Edwards, President of Big Sandy Community and Technical College
along with Dr. Nancy Johnson, BSCTC Provost, congratulated the students and
presented each honoree with certificates of achievement and excellence.
Vocalist, Louanna Calhoun, a member of the BSCTC student body and the Big Sandy
Singers, provided entertainment. Ms. Calhoun sang a powerful rendition of “I
Hope You Dance.”
A reception followed the ceremony in the auditorium lobby.
Hazard Herald
April 13, 2005
Feed your hungry body and mind
Hazard Community and Technical College celebrates National Poetry Month annually
with events like "Evening With Poets" and the Spring Writers Workshop.
And now, Phi Theta Kappa has enlisted the help of these events to battle the
twin threats of hunger and illiteracy.
“It’s really simple,” explains Phi Theta Kappa’s Naomi
Duff, “we’ll have a table set up at some of the college’s events
that celebrate National Poetry Month. And all we ask is for people to make donations
of canned foods or books. It’s not admission; it’s a donation to help
some vital causes.”
Project Graduation: Feed a Body, Feed a Mind is a national project designed
to combat illiteracy and hunger across the country. It began in 1998 in New
Jersey and has since become an international cause for PTK, a national honor
society.
“Statistically, those of us in Kentucky are not doing very well,”
Duff continues, “we rank 39th in the percentage of children who live in
poverty and 36% of our fourth graders read below basic level. A connection between
poverty and illiteracy is pretty obvious. Why is it hard to read when you’re
poor? You’re hungry, that’s why. Hopefully we can combat both this
month.”
The college celebrates National Poetry Month in a number of ways. On April
21, they host their annual Evening with Poets, a poetry reading that celebrates
the publication of their literary magazine, Kudzu. The special guest poet this
year is Frank X Walker. And, on the April 22, they host the 9th annual Spring
Writers Conference, a series of workshop sessions led by Walker, Scott Sanders,
and Gurney Norman. The events are free but coordinators are asking for donations
of food and books.
“Every little bit helps,” Duff explains, “a can of beans and
a copy of 'The Pokey Little Puppy' can go a long way towards changing someone’s
life.”
For information about the Spring Writers Conference, Evening with Poets, or
Project Graduation, call Scott Lucero at 606 487 3200 or email him at Scott.Lucero@kctcs.edu.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
April 14, 2005
$7-Million Project Aims to Send Bright but Needy Community-College Students
to Selective Universities
Three foundations announced on Wednesday a $7-million effort to help needy
but talented students at community colleges gain admission to selective universities
around the country.
The initiative follows recent attempts by several elite universities to attract
more low-income students by offering attractive financial-aid packages. Many
such students attend community colleges.
The foundations -- the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the Lumina Foundation for
Education, and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation -- kicked off the effort
by announcing a study that will investigate how many such students enroll at
selective four-year universities each year, how those students perform once
they enroll, and what steps the universities take to ensure that they succeed.
The foundations gave the New England Resource Center, at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston, a $516,000 grant to conduct the study. The New England
center will work with the Center for Urban Education and the Tomás Rivera
Policy Institute, both at the University of Southern California.
"The best community-college students from low-income backgrounds have
all the talent and drive required to succeed at great universities," Matthew
J. Quinn, executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, said in a written
statement. "This project will help the most selective colleges and universities
do a better job of recruiting and enrolling an outstanding and economically
diverse group of students."
Among the project's goals for early 2006 is a plan to award $1-million grants
to each of five selective institutions so each could establish programs that
would recruit low-income community-college students.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is a private, independent foundation in Landsdowne,
Va. The Lumina Foundation for Education is also a private, independent foundation,
located in Indianapolis. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation is a public charity
in Quincy, Mass.
Community College Week
April 14, 2005
Community Colleges Worry For-Profits May Slice Away Funding
To Alice Letteney, the community college she oversees 30 miles south of Albuquerque,
N.M., has little in common with the big chains of profit-making schools whose
radio and TV ads blanket the airwaves over much of the country.
As Letteney sees it, her mission is providing essential skills to students
in Valencia County, where per capita income is two-thirds the national average.
The for-profits’ mission, on the other hand, is earning money for shareholders.
Which is why Letteney and many community college leaders gathering in Boston
for their annual convention this weekend are incensed over a proposal in Congress
to create a "single definition" — in the federal government’s
eyes — of higher education institutions.
The change would allow many for-profit education companies to compete for potentially
hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants currently reserved for nonprofit
schools.
"Do you really think that the American taxpayer wants to siphon these funds
to the for-profit institutions?" Letteney asked. "As a taxpayer, I
would say no."
Supporters say the change would benefit students. They say the for-profit schools
that more and more students are attending should enjoy an even playing field
when it comes to federal support.
"My job as a public policy-maker is to provide access, and that access
comes from a lot of different sources," Rep. John Boehner, the Ohio Republican
who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, told a group
of community college leaders at a meeting in Washington in February where he
was peppered with hostile questions about the proposal.
Since 1972, students have been free to use federal student aid funds like loans
and Pell Grants at for-profit schools that meet certain requirements.
But for-profits have not had access to a wide variety of other government programs
such as National Science Foundation and Homeland Security grants, and some programs
targeting disadvantaged students.
Now, language in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act — expected
to be taken up by Congress this year after much delay — would lump the
schools together to compete for those grants, though for-profits would still
face stricter limits on how they could spend any money they were awarded.
The bill would also eliminate the "90/10" rule requiring for-profits
to generate at least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than federal
financial aid.
Supporters call the proposal a recognition that for-profits are doing more
of higher education’s heavy lifting. According to the Career College Association,
they now constitute 38 percent of the 2,500 higher-education institutions where
students can spend federal aid, and enroll 1.8 million of 23 million U.S. college
students.
And they are growing rapidly — unlike cash-strapped community colleges
struggling to accommodate increasing demand. For-profits claim that their model,
sculpted in marketplace competition, works (65 percent earn a degree or certificate
within six years, compared with 25 percent beginning at public two-year institutions,
according to CCA). They also claim to serve a higher percentage of minority
and low-income students.
"If our institutions are doing a better job, particularly working with
at-risk students, why should our students be denied the benefits of these competitive
grant programs?" said Nancy Broff, the CCA’s general counsel.
Community colleges say they are at a competitive disadvantage. They point to
the huge marketing and lobbying budgets of the for-profits (Boehner received
more than $102,000 from for-profit colleges in 2003-2004, according to a database
compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education).
And, they say, if for-profit colleges want to expand their programs, they should
turn not to taxpayers but to their shareholders. The parent company of the University
of Phoenix alone earned $278 million last year.
"We are the institutions that serve the disadvantaged, the first generation
immigrants, the minorities, the refugees, and we really need those funds,"
said Priscilla Bell, president of Highline Community College in Des Moines,
Wash., and a board member of the American Association of Community Colleges,
the group meeting here. "I frankly don’t want to see those funds diluted
by expanding the field to for-profit institutions."
One thing both sides agree on: The change would represent a turning point in
higher-education policy.
"Symbolically, it’s a recognition that we’re not the stepchild
any more, that we are an equal participant in the overall higher education universe
in this country," the CCA’s Broff said.
Community College Week
April 11, 2005
Senate Budget Offers Higher Ed. a Boost
The Senate, passing a 2006 budget resolution that rejects cuts called for by
the Bush administration, has shown some sympathy for higher-education funding.
The full Senate approved several amendments not included in the Senate Budget
Committee’s resolution. One amendment simply adds $500 million to the Department
of Education’s budget, which the Senate Appropriations Committee can divide
any way it wants.
The resolution also includes an amendment sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy,
D-Mass., which would restore cuts the administration has proposed for vocational
and adult education and the GEAR UP and TRIO programs. President Bush had proposed
zeroing out vocational education and slashing adult education by about $200
million to $560 million. He wants to cut TRIO by more than half, from $836.5
million to $369.4 million, and has proposed killing GEAR UP.
Kennedy’s amendment wo-uld also boost the maximum Pell Grant scholarship
to $4,500 immediately (the committee resolution would have increased it only
to $4,150). Bush’s budget calls for an incremental $100 increase from $4,050.
Finally, the resolution would increase math and science teacher student-loan
forgiveness to $23,000 per teacher. Bush has proposed a $17,500 hike. Kennedy
said the amendment would yield between 50,000 and 60,000 more math teachers
every year.
“We have seen what has happened to the United States in the areas of math
and science. In 1975, we were third in the world in terms of math and science
and engineering degrees. By the year 2000, we were 15th in the world, and we
are going down,” Kennedy said. “This amendment provides a stopgap
to that and the opportunity to make significant gains.”
The Senate rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, which
would have restored funding specifically for the Perkins Vocational Education
Program.
The resolution also includes provisions included by the committee that would
allow up to $4.5 billion for possible increases in Higher Education Act funding
and additional Pell Grant funding.
|
