Archive for January, 2008
This week’s RLC news update
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Community and Economic Development – Congratulations to Richland College’s innovative Emeritus Program staff, led by Program Director Mitzi Werther! The direct impact of The Dallas Morning News featured article that appeared January 3rd swamped the Emeritus phone lines with calls. It also brought a steady stream of 50+ SilverDucks interested in the Boomer Reboot job search course and health professions career programs leading to higher social purpose for post-retirement career changes. Indirectly, the article has led to keeping retirees active in the community and engaging more than 60 of them in building sustainable world community through enrollments in the six-week Bridge to Peace Emeritus course, which will explore peace among religions related to harmony in our world society. (See article attached.)
Student Success – Congratulations to 72-year-old former Richland College student Betty Oliver! With counseling assistance from Richland College Career Counselor John Harwood last summer, Betty completed the two courses she was lacking to earn her baccalaureate degree. Betty graduated from Baylor University in Waco in December!
Employee Success – Congratulations again to Richland College’s award-winning theater department! “Caroline or Change,” staged by Theatre Three and starring Richland adjunct Wendy Welch, was recently named in The Dallas Morning News Guide Live as the number one show in Dallas/Fort Worth for 2007. “Caroline or Change” is Jac Alder’s production of life in the American South during the fight for civil rights. (See article attached.)
Institutional Effectiveness – Richland College’s End of Year Report represents the “learning stage” of its Approach-Deploy-Learn-Integrate cycle of improvement. In this analysis of performance on each of Richland College’s FY2006-07 Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Richland College compares overall performance over time to 3 peer DCCCD colleges and to national best-in-class community colleges for benchmarks in specific areas. ThunderTeam (executive leadership) deploys one or more organizational actions supported by departmental actions to close gaps for any KPI falling below expectations. In FY2006-07 Richland College met or exceeded 14 of its 16 KPI targets (88%), each of which has steadily improved over the past 5 years of increasingly higher targets. Following are highlighted achievements for each of Richland College’s 4 strategic planning priorities: Community Needs — dual credit contact hour 5-year increase (from fewer than 50,000 to 290,000), on-line (from 200,000+ to 900,000+), Engineering (from 4,700+ to 15,000+), Hispanic enrollment (from 3,000 to 4,500+ students) and African-American (from 3,900 to 5,100+); Student Success — increased DCCCD market share of associate degrees (30%), certificates (24%), and core completers (34%); increasing % of Richland College transferring students over 5 years (from 44+ to 67+%); overall A,B,C grade increases (from 69 to 70%), for African-American/Hispanic (from 64+ to 66+%) and on-line for all students (from 57 to 65%); Employee Success — 5-year decrease in days lost to top 6 injuries (from 250 to 16 days) and in employees losing vacation days (22-9 employees); Institutional Effectiveness — increases in all 3 categories of class scheduling/room use productivity measures and 3-year decrease in number of criminal incidents (from 171 to 125). (See report attached.)
Richland Collegiate High School (RCHS) will host two Town Hall Meetings on January 17th and 26th to provide interested students and parents with details about the high school and application process. As seniors prepare to be the first RCHS graduating class in May, RCHS is currently accepting applications from students who will be entering the eleventh grade to start the RCHS experience in August. In addition, acceptance letters from four-year colleges and universities continue to arrive for RCHS seniors. The latest junior-status acceptances are Rebecca Ramos to Texas A&M Commerce and Courtney Snow to Angelo State University.
Published by Anitra Cotton on January 14th, 2008 tagged News, Richland Collegiate High School | Comment now »
Baby boomers go back to college: Richland College is at the forefront in programs that retrain older workers and retirees for new careers
(Dallas Morning News, The) Jan. 3–Downsized and depressed, Leigh Hoes was approaching 50 and wondering what to do with the rest of her work life.
Then one day, as she leafed through a course catalog that had arrived in the mail from Richland College in Dallas, the idea came to her.
Why not work in a pharmacy, dispensing prescriptions?
After all, she thought, a health care career had always appealed to her, the job was fairly recession-proof, and she could train for it in just one year.
Like many other baby boomers, the food technology specialist turned to a community college for help in changing careers. She enrolled in one of Richland’s health professions certificate programs.
Today, at 51, Ms. Hoes is a pharmacy technician at Parkland Memorial Hospital, filling prescriptions and waiting on customers.
“I’ve found my niche,” she said. “I see myself working in health care into my 60s and maybe 70s.”
Four in five boomers have told pollsters they intend to work past their traditional retirement age, and many want to find new jobs with a higher social purpose and more flexible hours.
Labor analysts, meanwhile, predict the U.S. economy will face shortages of 6 million workers by 2012 and 35 million workers by 2030. The hardest-hit fields will be education, health care and public service.
“The two trends present a historic opportunity for community colleges,” said Judy Goggin, a vice president for Civic Ventures, a think tank that’s helping people reinvent themselves in the second half of life.
Community colleges have typically been nimble at adapting their curriculum to new workforce demands, she said.
“The time’s right for developing programs for boomers trying to launch the next phase of their working lives and for employers faced with a brain drain over the next couple of decades,” Ms. Goggin said.
One community college that educators say is emerging as a national model for catering to boomer students is Richland, which is part of the Dallas County Community College District.
“Richland was among the first to reach out to retirees and is now in the vanguard of schools helping students in midlife,” said Norma Kent, an executive with the American Association of Community Colleges.
The college’s Emeritus program for retirees began in 1989 with 150 seniors and has since grown to more than 4,000 enrollments in daytime classes that teach everything from computer skills to genealogy.
Now the school will launch its Boomer Reboot program in January, with evening classes that will teach boomers how to look for a job, plan for retirement, care for aging parents and manage their own stress.
The new classes are in addition to Richland’s current health professions and teacher certification programs, which each year attract dozens of midlife students wanting to switch careers.
“We realize that boomers aren’t the same as their parents, so we’ve built a curriculum around their biggest concerns,” said Mitzi Werther, director of the college’s Emeritus and Boomer Reboot programs.
Richland will offer 17 courses specifically for boomers in this first year.
Career counselor Jill Waterbury, for example, will tell boomers returning to the job market how to write a resume that emphasizes their experience rather than age and how they should field interview questions.
“On resumes, I recommend going back only 15 years,” she said. “That’s not a deception — it’s a way to get you in the door.”
Retirement planning
The new retirement-planning course has been tailor-made for boomers who say they haven’t saved enough, Ms. Werther said. Almost half of that generation worry they will outlive their money.
Certified financial planner Dave Bell will lead students through a do-it-yourself exercise designed to analyze their personal finances and answer whether they’ll be able to enjoy retirement.
“At the end of the six sessions, you’ll know enough to do your own financial planning,” he said.
Geriatric care manager Kay Paggi will coach boomers on how to juggle their jobs with their caregiving. One in six workers cares for an older relative. Stressed out, one in five caregivers quits working or looks for a less-demanding job.
“Parents often live out of state, so the caregiving may turn out to be long distance,” she said. “We’ll sort through the logistics.”
Rebooting
The Boomer Reboot courses start Jan. 22 and cost from $12 to $40. The yearlong certification programs run about $3,000.
About 1,400 of Richland’s 15,000 students are between 40 and 60, and college officials say they hope that number will increase as the school offers more boomer-oriented courses and steps up its marketing.
Published by admin on January 3rd, 2008 tagged News | 1 Comment »
This week’s RLC news update
Community and Economic Development - Community partners with Richland College’s youth services programs in workforce training recently attended the Helping America’s Youth Regional Conference sponsored by The White House at Dallas Baptist University. A coalition team from Richland College’s ROCK ON youth offender program, funded by the Department of Labor, was invited to attend. The team included Richland Dean of Resource Development Shellie Heard, President Steve Mittelstet, DISD Gang Prevention Specialist Jose Montoya, and Director of the Dallas County Juvenile Department’s Juvenile Services Michael Griffiths. The First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, delivered the general plenary session address on Helping America’s Youth, her national initiative to help America’s young people in three key areas of family, school and community.
Student Success - Congratulations to student athletes from Richland College’s 2007 men’s and women’s soccer teams who have been named to a number of post-season awards! Freshman Korey Hearn was named to the First Team of the National Soccer Association of America Women All-Americans (NSAAW), and freshman Dominique Harrison was named to the NSAAW Second Team. They both joined freshman Michelle McDonald in being named to the All South/Central Region Women’s Soccer Team and the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Women All-Americans. Freshman Carlos Videla was named to the First Team of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Men All-Americans and joined freshman David Freeland on the All-Northeast Region First Team, with sophomore Jorge Morales and freshman Hugo Ruelas taking Second Team honors. David Freeland was also named to the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Men All-Americans honors.
Employee Success - South/Central Regional Coach of the Year–Richland College women’s soccer coach Rex Rayfield and Northeast Region Coach of the Year–Richland College men’s soccer coach Sean Worley are both candidates for the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Division III National Coach of the Year Award. The announcement will be made at the NSCAA awards ceremony in January.
Institutional Effectiveness - Five St. Louis Community College representatives recently visited Richland College’s International Education department to learn about international program development and processes and challenges of international joint online course offerings, which Richland College has conducted for almost two years with Saratov, Russia, and Parnu, Estonia. A team from South Texas College, consisting of the chief academic officer, chief information officer, curriculum and accreditation officer and professional development coordinator, also visited Richland College November 27-28 to learn about their approaches to strategic planning, program review, learning outcomes assessment, and professional development.
Richland Collegiate High School - Congratulations to the growing list of RCHS seniors who are receiving university admissions acceptance letters and scholarships! Based on her outstanding record of academic achievement, RCHS senior Erin Aldrich recently received an admissions acceptance letter from Baylor University, including notification that she has been awarded a $28,000 scholarship and the opportunity to participate in the Carr P. Collins Scholars Program. Also, fellow RCHS senior Catherine Dennis has received an Academic Distinction Scholarship, which provides complete financial coverage of tuition and fees and a partial on-campus housing stipend to attend The University of Texas at Dallas.