ADA, The Americans with Disabilities Act, celebrates 20 years this July

The ADA National Network invites everyone to join the nationwide effort to collect 2010 "Proclamations of Recommitment" for the ADA vision and spirit — full inclusion of people with disabilities in American life:
http://adaanniversary.org/

Ready Or Not? Recent Innovations In Higher Education

READY...
Ivy Tech Community College will be offering a new one year associate degree program for high performing students from low income families.  They hope to improve graduation rates by providing a more cost effective approach to higher education for highly motivated students with strong G.P.A.s.  Four year schools are similarly offering three year degree programs with the same idea in mind.
http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-and-education-news/articles/new-degree-programs-at-community-colleges-10050601

OR NOT...
National Public Radio (NPR) reported a story from York College, Pennsylvania about the underpreparedness of recent college graduates. The school is developing new curriculum to help students be ready with the interpersonal skills and social behaviors expected in employment settings.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127230009&ft=1&f=1001

Center for Global Advancement Of Community Colleges (CGACC), A New Organization To Promote Community Colleges And International Education

The Center for Global Advancement of Community Colleges (CGACC) is dedicated to increasing global knowledge and understanding of U.S. community colleges, bridging cultures through awareness, serving as a resource, advancing institutional internationalization efforts, and partnering with national and international entities to expand and enhance educational opportunities.
http://cgacc.org/

Community Colleges Pledge To Keep Access And Opportunity While Improving Completion Rates, Despite Budget Cuts

Government and foundation leaders push agenda to improve completion rates, but budget cuts are eroding the very programs the experts say are vital.  The American Association of Community Colleges and other leading education and policy organizations signed what they deemed “a call to action” – a commitment to improve student completion rates by 50 percent over the next decade.  Read about it in an article from Inside HigherEd:   http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/17/completion

Problem Classroom Situations--Suggested Strategies, Responses

Today, the last day of the 2010 Spring Term at Brookdale Community College, the Teaching and Learning Center hosted its TLC Roundtable with a discussion of current classroom issues. The special guests were Robert Quinones, Director of Student Life and Activities and Christopher Jeune, Student Judicial Affairs.  The following articles were shared during this session:

"Reducing Incivility in the University/College Classroom" by Patrick J. Morrissette, Brandon University, in The International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning
http://www.ucalgary.ca/iejll/morrissette

"Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom" by Lee Warren, Derok Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html

Higher Education in New Jersey and the State Budget Crisis

New Jersey college administrators fear devasting effects as a result of State funding cuts.
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/pdf/state/nj-college-presidents-call-christies-higher-education-cuts-devastating.pdf

College Career Service Centers Assist Students Dealing With Gloomy Job Prospects

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education points to Career Service Centers as one way for colleges to help recent graduates navigate a difficult job market.
http://chronicle.com/article/Career-Service-Centers-Strive/65332/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

How Teens Communicate--A Look At Our Future Students

The Pew Research Center has just released a new report on teens and cell phones.  The mobile phone has become the favored communication hub for the majority of American teens.  Fully two-thirds of teen texters say they are more likely to use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them to them by cell phone.  For many teens, using the cell phone for voice communication is the primary mode of conversing with parents.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1572/teens-cell-phones-text-messages

Helping Students Complete Their Programs Of Study

At the American Association of Community Colleges conference, six national associations focused on community colleges are planning a joint statement  pledging a "unified effort" to increase completion rates.  Read the article about this movement from Inside HigherEd:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/19/completion

U.S News and World Report's Latest Issue On Higher Education

The May 2010 issue of U. S. News & World Report has articles about student loans, careers for tomorrow and their school rankings. To see their report about online education with links to other sections:  http://www.usnews.com/sections/education/online-education/index.html

Helping Students Become "Career Ready"

As reported in Inside HigherEd, a new paper just released by the Association for Career and Technical Education describes the three essential areas of preparedness needed for today's college graduates.  Academic skills, employability skills and technical skills, which all work together for success in the workplace. 
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/14/definition
and
http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/Publications_and_Online_Media/files/Career_Readiness_Paper.pdf

Students Who Are Iraq/Afghanistan War Veterans, What Do We Need To Know?

The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the psychological life of our students who are recent combat veterans.  As the article reminds us, "We in the teaching profession, on campuses where the military/civilian gap still yawns far too wide, have an obligation to help our students understand what soldiers go through and what our responsibility as citizens is to those whom we send to war. We owe soldiers not just public respect, but private respect. One way to give that respect is by understanding, empathically, the moral weight of war that they carry."
http://chronicle.com/article/Soldiers-Moral-Wounds/64987/#top

The Business Of Higher Education--New In The Bankier Library

A new three volume reference set entitled, The Business of Higher Education, is available for use in the Bankier Library.  Arranged by topical areas, there are articles relating to: leadership and culture, management and fiscal strategies, and marketing and consumer interests.  The link to the catalog record in the online catalog is: http://library.brookdalecc.edu/record=b1122471~S0

The Comprehensive College Baccalaureate Association

The Comprehensive College Baccalaureate Association, (formerly the Community College Baccalaureate Association) strives to promote better access to the baccalaureate degree on community college campuses, and to serve as a resource for information on various models for accomplishing this purpose.  Their newsletter is available via email delivery.
http://www.accbd.org/

Struggle To Save N.J. Stars Makes National Headlines

The Chronicle of Higher Education has the following story about N.J. Stars:
http://chronicle.com/article/New-Jersey-Community-Colleges/64971/

Important Roles For Community Colleges During The Economic Recovery

"Community Colleges as Economic Saviors" is a recent article from universitybusiness.com describing how community colleges have developed programs to help students, businesses and local communities rebound from tough economic times.
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pmg/ub0310/index.php?startid=34#/36

Community Colleges Need To Assert Themselves In Washington

The following story was reported by NPR about how community colleges have fared with the recent legislation enacted by Congress.  They're in a "Catch 22" situation when it comes to federal legislaltion.  "They don't have a voice because they don't have resources, and they don't have resources because they don't have a voice," states Sara Goldrick-Rab, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125225059

Our Reality--Many Students, Less Money

Inside HigherEd reports on a new survey of 128 community college district chancellors and campus presidents, conducted by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Campus Computing Project.  It found that two-year institutions are caught in a vise of growing student demands for enrollment and continuing financial strain due to diminished state funds.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/30/survey

Report About New Students And Success Just Released

Survey of Entering Student Engagement, or SENSE, provides six benchmarks for community colleges that are trying to improve students' habits during the critical first three weeks of class.
http://www.ccsse.org/sense/resources/publications/SENSE_Benchmarking_and_Benchmarks_3-29-10.pdf

State Budget's Dramatic Cuts-- N.J. Stars Program Eliminated For New Students Next Year

Here, from the 2011 Budget In Brief, is the bad news for New Jersey community colleges and their students:

Community Colleges
Operating support for county colleges is reduced by $14.3 million. This level will support the amounts required to maintain New Jersey’s eligibility for federal stimulus funding for higher education. Community colleges will continue to receive funds from the Supplemental Workforce Fund for Basic Skills to offset the cost of remedial courses provided by the institutions.

Tuition Assistance
State assistance is provided to college students through a myriad of aid and scholarship programs. The
largest of these, the Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program, is a need-based entitlement program that supports
tuition costs for needy New Jersey students who attend New Jersey colleges and universities. For fiscal 2011, anticipated growth in the program will not be funded. Similarly, the Proposed Budget does not fund anticipated growth in the Part-Time Tuition Aid Grant program. In addition, the TAG awards for first-time recipients at Independent Institutions will be reduced to the comparable State college award level.  A slight reduction of 8.7% is proposed for the Educational Opportunity Fund. An allocation of $37.6 million will
remain available to provide higher education opportunities to students who come from low-income families in
economically distressed areas of the state.

NJ STARS I and NJ STARS II are merit-based scholarships that are awarded to high achieving students who attend a New Jersey county college and then continue at a four-year New Jersey college or university. For fiscal 2011, no incoming freshman will be accepted into the NJ STARS I program. No current STARS
scholarships will be affected by the funding reduction.

To see the complete Budget In Brief:  http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/omb/publications/11bib/BIB.pdf