News Links | April 14, 2020
System News | Opinion
Former WWCC chief Derek Brandes dies
Former Walla Walla Community College president Derek Brandes has died after a more than yearlong battle with lung cancer.
Brandes, 50, died Friday morning at his home, said Chad Hickox, the community college’s
acting president. His death comes a month after his resignation from the college’s
top administrative post. Brandes went to work at the college in July 2016, bringing
his experiences as a dean of career and technical education at Pasco’s Columbia Basin College and a vice president at Auburn’s Green River College. A nonsmoker, he was diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma in January 2019.
Union-Bulletin, April 11, 2020
Edmonds CC trustees approve college’s new name: Edmonds College
Edmonds Community College is moving forward with its new name – Edmonds College – beginning Monday, April 13. The decision was approved by the college’s Board of
Trustees during its Monday meeting. “As Edmonds College, we remain committed to serving
our community as an open-access institution, and that will stay central to our mission.
We are also moving forward and continuing to innovate even during this time of turmoil
in our local and global community,” said Edmonds College President Dr. Amit B. Singh.
“Our new name reflects our comprehensive offerings — from pre-college to an increasing
number of four-year bachelor of applied science degrees.”
My Edmonds News, April 13, 2020
Low-income students count on finding jobs. But the pandemic has halted their job training.
... Students training for jobs in career and technical fields like construction, auto
repair, welding, and hospitality have also largely been sidelined. Even in fields
deemed essential by their states, supervisors may be too busy to continue training
students. Jeffrey Benedict is scheduled to graduate in June from a two-year program
in automotive technology at Columbia Basin College, in Pasco, Wash. When Gov. Jay Inslee issued a stay-at-home order last month, the
college’s labs — where students learn how to refill air-conditioning compressors,
check car batteries, and flush transmissions — closed along with most of the state’s
businesses.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 13, 2020
Peninsula College getting more funds to help with student expenses
More than $6 billion in emergency funds to help students impacted by coronavirus will
be distributed as early as this week to colleges and universities, including Peninsula College here in Port Angeles. That’s according to Department of Education Secretary Betsy
DeVos. The CARES Act gives individual schools broad discretion on how to award this
emergency assistance to students. Peninsula College will receive a little over $580,000
that could be allocated to students for expenses such as room and board, tuition,
childcare, health care, food, and technology.
My Clallam County, April 13, 2020
Community rallies to restock Big Bend Community College food pantry
Members of the community congealed to deliver much needed aid to the Viking Food Pantry
at Big Bend Community College during the coronavirus crisis. BBCC’s Viking Food Pantry serves as a clearinghouse
for students, faculty and staff in need of essential supplies. The pantry is stocked
with toiletries, freezer foods, produce and non-perishable items. Viking Food Pantry’s
Carmen Ramirez says both monetary and physical item donations have increased exponentially
since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
iFiber One, April 10, 2020
Trends | Horizons | Education
Community college sues VA over flight school bill
Central Oregon Community College has sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,
claiming the agency wrongly billed it $3.2 million for overpaid tuition, books and
housing for students who were veterans of the U.S. military and were enrolled in an
aviation program at the college, The Oregonian reported. The community college said
the VA has ignored repeated attempts to challenge the bill.
Inside Higher Ed, April 14, 2020
Still in limbo
College students who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children may or may not
be eligible to receive federal aid from their institutions through the latest coronavirus
response bill, the CARES Act. The stimulus, most well-known for its provision to give
$1,200 to individual taxpayers, sets aside $14 billion for higher education. More
than $6 billion of that money must go to students to defray any expenses they've suffered
as a result of the disruption of campus operations due to the coronavirus, such as
costs for childcare, technology or health care. Guidance from the U.S. Department
of Education gives wide latitude to colleges, allowing them to decide how to disperse
the aid and to which students.
Inside Higher Ed, April 14, 2020
Community college stakeholders implement supports to guide students to graduation
...“Community colleges are generally designed to do what society asked them to do
in the 60s and 70s — get students in the door into college courses cheaply,” says
Dr. Davis Jenkins, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center
at Teachers College, Columbia University. “They’re not well designed to help students
explore their interests … and develop a plan that will enable them to either enter
the labor market directly to a good job with prospects for further education or transfer
[to a four-year institution] with junior standing in a major.”
Diverse Education, April 13, 2020
How colleges can support students with disabilities during remote learning
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities across the country have rushed
to move courses online, potentially overlooking the needs of students with intellectual,
physical, emotional and behavioral disabilities. Dr. Jessica Hunt, associate professor
of mathematics education and special education in the College of Education at North
Carolina State University (NC State), said “one size definitely does not fit all”
when it comes to students with disabilities.
Diverse Education, April 13, 2020
The asterisk semester
Many colleges and universities, after looking at the havoc the coronavirus pandemic
has wreaked on student lives, have decided to offer a more forgiving grade structure.
Binary grading schemes like pass/fail or satisfactory/unsatisfactory have been put
in place at many institutions, sometimes after much back-and-forth. ... For community
college students hoping to transfer, the situation depends on the state.
Inside Higher Ed, April 13, 2020
Sharing ideas on expanding student research experiences
It didn’t take long for participants of a summit last fall focused on developing more
research opportunities for community college students to start mulling how they could
not only keep the momentum going, but to grow it. Jared Ashcroft, a chemistry professor
at Pasadena City College in California, organized a series of bimonthly online meetings
with summit participants and others interested in undergraduates research experiences
(UREs) to share information about effective URE practices. He said he hopes to develop
a community of practice around UREs.
Community College Daily, April 13, 2020
Using stimulus funds to improve credit transfer
A new paper calls for the next federal stimulus to fund programs aimed at industry-valued
skills, effectively creating a parallel higher education system with seamless credit
transfer, the ability to pay for student learning outcomes and a competency-based
system untethered from the credit hour.
Inside Higher Ed, April 10, 2020
Dual enrollment works. But who is it working for?
Study after study shows the benefits of dual enrollment, or partnerships that allow
students to take college courses while in high school. Dual enrollment allows students
to get ahead and ease into college with a familiar, supportive framework. But the
experts who analyze these programs are still asking themselves how to design these
opportunities to serve the students who need them most.
Diverse Education, April 9, 2020
Politics | Local, State, National
Emergency money for students arriving soon
The Education Department is beginning to disperse the $14 billion set aside for higher
education in the stimulus package passed by Congress two weeks ago, beginning with
$6 billion in funds for institutions to give students through emergency grants. In
addition, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told reporters the department is working
on releasing billions more in stimulus funds to help defray the costs to institutions
of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Inside Higher Ed, April 10, 2020
Biden's new student loan cancellation plan
Joe Biden on Thursday announced a plan to cancel student loan debt for low- and middle-income
borrowers who attended a public college or private historically black institution.
The former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee's proposal, announced
in a Medium post, moves him somewhat closer to the debt cancellation plan from Senator
Bernie Sanders, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this week and had
said he would seek to cancel all student debt as president.
Inside Higher Ed, April 10, 2020
