Archive for the 'News' Category
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This week’s RLC update
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Institutional Effectiveness - Four administrators from South Texas College in McAllen, Texas, recently spent the day meeting with key Richland staff members, benchmarking successful technological initiatives including Richland’s Registration Pager System, Who’s Next software, and intervention programs targeting students on academic suspension and financial aid probation. Oscar Lopez, Richland Dean of Admissions, Advising and Registration, and Cindy Berry, Director of Academic Advising, hosted the representatives from the Admissions, Registrars and Advising offices of STC.
Community and Economic Development - In partnership with the GISD, Garland Association for Hispanic Affairs, and Richland’s Community Outreach and Financial Aid departments, Richland’s recent Financial Aid Fair assisted 35 families in completing financial aid forms online. This event augmented the 50+ families assisted at another RLC Financial Aid Fair held last month.
Student Success - Richland student Keome Rowe earned the Congressional Award Gold Medal and will be presented with the medal by U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson on June 19 in Washington, D.C. The Congressional Award is a public/private partnership created by Congress to promote and recognize achievement, initiative, and service in America’s youth. The Congressional Award provides a unique opportunity for young people to set and achieve personally challenging goals that build character and foster community service, personal development, and citizenship.
Employee Success - Richland Art Gallery Coordinator Randall Garrett recently built a solo installation as part of NFO-XPO, an art fair in Chicago. Randall has curated, performed, and shown work in Texas, Miami, New York, Puerto Rico and Chicago, most recently performance and installation work in 2007 at artist-run spaces “Polvo” and “Motherland. ” Two Richland College adjunct art faculty members are currently exhibiting works at Dallas galleries. Simeen Ishaque’s “Babelating” has a collaborative installation with artist Diane Sikes at the 500X Gallery. “Babelating’s” mixed-media, site-specific anti-war commentary and Keith Williams’ “Ambient Scenes,” using figures, animals, objects, and landscapes to create surreal narratives, recently opened at the South Side on Lamar’s Janette Kennedy Gallery. Fred Sweet, Richland 3-D Art Coordinator, and his advanced ceramics students Nathan Portnoy and Mark Westbrook recently participated in a special weekend clay and kiln wood-firing workshop in Edom, Texas, through a collaboration between the ceramics departments of Richland, Tyler Junior College, and Montgomery College in Conroe.
Richland faculty are working in close collaboration with Richland Collegiate High School (RCHS) juniors this week to help them succeed in both their Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills testing and final week of college class review. The state of Texas requires all 11th grade students to take and pass exit-level examinations in English, mathematics, science, and social studies, during mandated testing dates throughout the state, in order to be eligible to graduate from high school. RCHS juniors and their instructors are collaboratively meeting the challenge of simultaneously succeeding in rigorous high school requirements and college-level course work.
Published by Jenni Gilmer on May 8th, 2008 tagged Arts, Award/Honors, News, Richland Collegiate High School | Comment now »
Richland College chosen for national PLUS 50 Intiative
Program Aims to Help Older Students Live Later Years with Purpose and Fulfillment
Dallas, Texas – It’s a word none of them like to hear – the dreaded “R” word – retirement. Don’t label them with the “S” word either, because they don’t see themselves as “senior” anything. As they have for decades, the 78 million baby boomers now approaching traditional retirement age want to define life after 50 on their own terms. Now, they will be getting help from America’s community colleges via a newly launched “Plus 50 Initiative.”
Richland College was selected as one of 15 colleges that will participate in the three-year initiative, which will develop and benchmark models for innovative programs reaching out to students over age 50. The project is funded with a $3.2 million dollar grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies and is led by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
“We are excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with other colleges as we all expand and enhance our programs,” says Mitzi Werther, Boomers Reboot program director. “We look forward to the challenge of discovering and fulfilling the unique needs of this diverse group.”
With life expectancies at record highs, many boomers expect to spend as many as three decades in retirement. Their imminent generational departure from the workforce is creating anxiety among employers and civic organizations, that worry about a loss of skills, leadership and institutional memory.
Today’s baby boomers see their lives after 50 as a melding of education, employment and leisure, with four out of five people over 50 saying they plan to work at least part time in retirement, according to Civic Ventures, a California-based think tank that focuses on engaging baby boomers. Yet 62 percent of the boomer generation wishes they were better prepared for retirement, according to a 2006 MetLife study.
Community colleges are ideally suited to help baby boomers determine how to make their bonus years productive and fulfilling. These institutions have long catered to the needs of non-traditional students, with 16 percent of their student population over age 40 and their average student age capping well above traditional four-year colleges at 29 years.
Five million of the 11.5 million community college students today are not pursuing traditional for-credit degree programs. Instead, they are opting for certificates, training classes, and exploratory programs, thanks to the community colleges that offer easy access, flexible scheduling and shorter-term learning experiences.
For the baby boomer who is working and approaching retirement from the workplace, a community college course in goal-setting and planning may be just the ticket. Others may find classes in literature, philosophy, cooking or another topic, to be a welcome renaissance for interests that were tabled while raising children and working full time. A class on starting a business can satisfy that entrepreneurial urge and help a plus 50 student map out how to keep income flowing even after traditional retirement.
Richland College will be one of 10 Demonstration colleges that will launch new programs for students who are “plus 50,” with the help of seed grants. They’ll be aided with valuable expertise from five Mentor colleges that already have established programs for students over the age of 50.
Demonstration colleges receiving grants are: Chaffey Community College (Cucamonga, Calif.), Clover Park Technical College (Lakewood, Wash.), Joliet Junior College (Joliet, Ill.), Luzerne County Community College (Nanticoke, Pa.), Northern Virginia Community College (near Washington, D.C.), Santa Fe Community College (Gainesville, Fla.), St. Louis Community College (St. Louis, Mo.), Wake Technical Community College, (Raleigh, N.C.) and Western Dakota Technical Institute (Rapid City, S. D.) and Richland.
Mentor colleges receiving grants are: Cape Cod Community College (West Barnstable, Mass.), Central Florida Community College (Ocala, Fla.), Century College (White Bear Lake, Minn.), Clark College (Vancouver, Wash.) and Community College of Spokane (Wash.)
Published by Anitra Cotton on May 6th, 2008 tagged News | 1 Comment »
Richland College to host “Stop the Presses,” a documentary screening on Monday
WHAT: “Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril,” documentary film screening followed by Q&A with filmmakers
WHO: Filmmakers, Mark Birnbaum and Manny Mendoza
WHEN: 2-4 p.m., April 28
WHERE: Sabine Hall - Room S-103
HOSTED BY: Richland College Broadcasting Club and KDUX Web Radio
WEBSITE: www.stopthepressesdoc.com
DALLAS - What will become of the American newspaper? The ready availability of news around the clock, particularly on the Internet, is combining with Wall Street’s demand for growing profits to threaten this important American institution. What’s at stake is the role of the journalism in a free society? Many American newspapers have seen advertising revenues plummet, printing costs rise, readership decline and shareholders increasingly unsatisfied with their financial returns. Newspaper management reacted with cuts: involuntary layoffs and voluntary buyouts. Papers are not only deciding how large a staff they can now afford but also how to deploy it in a shifting world of 24-hour cable news, Web sites aimed at every niche and TV-enabled telephones.
Journalist, Manny Mendoza has 30 years experience with newspapers across the country, including 14 years experience as an arts and entertainment critic with The Dallas Morning News. He currently works as a television columnist with ReZoom.com and is co-producing and promoting the documentary film “Stop the Presses.”
Filmmaker, Mark Birnbaum has created documentaries that have probed, celebrated and exposed people to places and personalities all over the globe. His films cover topics ranging from politics and religion to sailboat racing and salsa dancing. Birnbaum has received numerous gold medal film festival awards and is the recipient of the prestigious George Foster Peabody Broadcasting Award.
For additional information, please contact Meg Fullwood at 972-761-6859 (Mon/Wed) or by e-mail at mfullwood@dcccd.edu.