New Scholarship Honors Former Governor

The Virginia Foundation for Community College Education has named the first-ever recipients of a new, statewide scholarship:  The Gerald L. Baliles Commonwealth Legacy Scholarship.

Established in 2007 through private donations, the scholarships honor former Governor Baliles’ career in public service and his contributions to higher education in Virginia.

Terry Oakes, of Collinsville, and Vicky Thomas, of Bassett, are the two recipients of the scholarships this year. The two non-traditional students have both wanted to pursue a new career in nursing, but have lacked the resources to do so.

The two students, who will each receive $2,500, have something else in common: they both attend Patrick Henry Community College.

Read the news release for more information on these scholarship winners.

Community Colleges respond to gas prices

Across the Commonwealth, Virginia’s Community Colleges are looking at new options for making classes flexible and accessible to students, even in the face of increasing gas prices.

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College is launching “Fuel Smart Fridays,” allowing students the ability to bunch all of their classes together on Friday to save commuting costs.  And local media are taking notice — a number of local TV stations as well as the Richmond Times Dispatch have covered the Reynolds plan.

Further south, the Martinsville Bulletin applauded earlier this week Patrick Henry Community College’s plans to offer more “block” schedules on its Sunday editorial page:

Hat’s off to: Patrick Henry Community College for making changes in its fall class schedules so students can make less trips to campus, and save gas, if they choose. Since PHCC has no students living on campus, it recognizes that commuting costs likely are an issue for many — if not all — of its nearly 1,300 students.

Local TV stations are also covering their efforts – see the video clip from Roanoke’s WSLS.

Earlier this month, Virginia Highlands was among the first community colleges nationwide to receive coverage for the same concept – see the Bristol Herald Courier – moving from three-times-a-week classes to twice-a-week, reserving Friday for classes that just meet once each week.

Community colleges have always been flexible in meeting the needs of their communities.  They can act fast to respond to local needs, including new programs to meet workforce needs.  It’s nice that they are getting noticed for it.

– Posted by Susan Hayden

USA Today: Community Colleges reach “Turning Point”

An article in USA Today takes a look at the growing importance community colleges are taking in America:

Community colleges train 80% of the country’s police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians and more than half of its new nurses and health care workers. They are the go-to destinations for displaced workers and immigrants seeking language and cultural skills. Community colleges are where people most often go when they need to brush up on math or English before pursuing a college degree. And they have become increasingly attractive to families who can’t afford to send their kids to a four-year school.

The article goes on to discuss how community colleges are doing more with less:

In 2000-2001, the latest year for which Education Department data are available, the nation spent $140 billion on four-year public universities and just under $30 billion for public two-year colleges. That ratio has remained relatively stable over the years.

Yet for the last decade, enrollments have been increasing faster at two-year schools than four-year schools. Today, community colleges enroll 6.5 million degree-seeking students, or nearly half (47%) of all college undergraduates. And no one documents the expanding demand nationwide for non-credit courses such as English as a Second Language and workforce training. An estimated 5 million students are enrolled in those kinds of programs, says the American Association of Community Colleges, a Washington non-profit that gets data from its 1,200 member schools.

The article even goes on to profile a Virginia Community College student:

Troy Cox, 39

Blue Ridge Community College, Weyers Cave, Va.

Transferring to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.

Cox attended the University of Oklahoma after high school, but dropped out after a year due to drug abuse. “I got clean and sober in 2005, only to discover I had Crohn’s disease. After being hospitalized for a few days, life continued on. Since I had always wanted to go back to college, I did. The professors at Blue Ridge provided the necessary tools and great teaching for me to now be graduating with a 4.0. (I’m studying psychology so that) I can help people like me solve the riddles that make our lives. I also hope to one day teach at this level. These professors all do outstanding jobs and are the epitome of what teaching is all about.”

So, have community colleges reached a turning point in our nation?

Posted by Jeff Kraus

A reality check for state funding

In a report prepared by Magnum Economic Consulting, LLC, data reveals that there is a significant slowdown in the growth of the U.S. workforce, and as much as 75% of the U.S. workforce currently requires retraining just to keep pace.

Virginia’s Community Colleges are the primary provider of workforce-related noncredit education.  In fiscal year 2007, the VCCS offered over 3,300 individual workforce related noncredit courses, customized training programs to over 1,300 employers and served 3,000 employers through noncredit open enrollment classes.

Virginia’s Community Colleges also met 100% of the demand for medical assistants through occupational-specific training.  Additionally, the data reveal that the benefits to Virginia’s economy are nearly nine times as great as the costs required to generate those benefits.

Unfortunately, state funding for noncredit education has not kept up with the level of noncredit training that VCCS provides. 

State funding focuses nearly exclusively on the traditional college experience.  The state’s intention for funding noncredit education is to conform to a 30/70 split, where 30% of the funding is provided by the state and 70% of the funding is provided by the business requesting the training. 

The reality of the situation is that business and industry actually pay more than 90% of the training costs. 

Click here for the full report.

Posted by Heather Millar

New State Troopers are community college grads

The Virginia State Police took a look at their most recent class of new State Troopers and found that a number of them were graduates of Virginia’s Community Colleges.

Nine new State Troopers, to be exact, with associate’s degrees from Southwest Virginia Community College, Mountain Empire Community College, John Tyler Community College, Tidewater Community College, Lord Fairfax Community College, Southside Virginia Community College and Dabney S. Lancaster Community College.

It’s no surprise, really. The American Association of Community Colleges reports that jobs requiring an associate’s degree are some of the fastest growing occupations in the nation and crucial to our society. Police officers, nurses, firefighters, emergency technicians and other first responders are all educated primarily by community colleges.

Virginia’s Community Colleges can be proud of their alumns that are now Virginia’s first responders.

VCCS receives $1.9 million grant for workforce training

The $1.9 million grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor, will be used to fund a comprehensive three-year skills training project for displaced workers. Through classroom and technical training at Northern Virginia Community College, more than 250 students will learn the skills necessary to start their own businesses.

Learn more about this exciting opportunity at the VCCS by reading a recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch!

Posted by Lauren Von Herbulis

Chancellor making headlines as he bikes across Virginia

It’s the final week for Virginia Community College Chancellor Glenn DuBois’s bike ride to benefit the Great Expectations project for foster care youth. He’s stopping at Southside Virginia Community College today; Paul D. Camp’s Franklin Campus on Wednesday; and he finishes up at Tidewater Community College on Friday.

As he visits college communities across the Commonwealth (see schedule on Great Expectations page), he’s making headlines — highlighting both his biking prowess and the Great Expectations project.

Here are just a few:

Official boards bicycle for foster children - Danville Register & Bee – July 5
Chancellor urges push for GEDs - Martinsville Bulletin – July 3
Chancellor pedals across Virginia to help foster children – July 3
College chancellor taking long ride for foster children - Northern Virginia Daily – June 28
Cyclist’s journey less about miles, more about education – Times Dispatch – June 25

More than 30 photos from stops on his tour are posted on FLickr - with more to come. Check them out!

Posted by Susan Hayden

Video Podcast: Award winning Students in Free Enterprise two-time national champions

Blue Ridge’s SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) team has done it again!  They are the champions in a nationwide SIFE competition.  We’ve produced a video podcast to highlight their achievements.
To download the file to your hard drive, click here.
Or, you can view it online in the player below.

done

VA’s High School Graduation Numbers Stagnate

An editorial in today’s Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star laments the challenge of Virginia’s unchanging high school graduation rates:

SEVENTY-THREE percent of Virginia high-school students are graduating on time. That’s a bit above the national average of 70.6 percent, but ranks 27th among the 50 states. There is plenty of room for improvement.

As the editorial goes on to say, the problem with failing to graduate from high school – and more importantly, to complete a post secondary education – is that you feel it’s effects for the rest of your life:

Meanwhile, a study by the Alliance for Excellent Education finds that while the current U.S. average annual income for someone with a bachelor’s degree is $52,671, that figure is cut in half, at $26,933, for a high-school graduate, and by two-thirds for a high-school dropout, who is pulling down $17,299.

That’s tough to swallow, especially with the price of gasoline reaching a national average of $4.11, and the cost of food going up:

the average retail price of a 5-lb. (2.3 kg) bag of flour has jumped 34% from last July, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. The costs of other staples like eggs and cheddar cheese have also gone way up.

And one can’t help but wonder:  Why isn’t this THE conversation occurring in our communities?

Posted by Jeff Kraus