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October 5, 2010

Colleagues:

Today President Obama convened the first White House summit on community colleges, highlighting the role that community colleges play in educating workers. President Obama was joined by Jill Biden, wife of the Vice President and a community college faculty member in opening the meeting that brings together representatives of businesses, philanthropic groups and community colleges to focus on the role of institutions that Obama says are “crucial to future U.S. economic growth.”

This effort has been boosted by a $35 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “These are students that you don’t think of: non- traditional working students,” Melinda Gates, co-chair of the foundation, said on NBC’s “Today” show this morning. “They’re working students; they often hold down two jobs; they have a child.” The goal for the grant program is for those students to “complete community college and get a job in the economy,” she said.

Obama told his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, “One of our most-undervalued assets as a nation is our network of community colleges…. These colleges don’t just serve as a gateway to good jobs for millions of middle-class Americans; community colleges also serve as a pool of talent from which businesses can draw trained, skilled workers.”

Moving our strategic direction on Online Learning and Educational Resources:

At Fall inservice I mentioned that we are trying to focus and align our planning efforts at Lane. One of the strategies we will use is to hold conferences throughtout the year. At the conferences, teams of faculty and staff from departments will engage in conversation and build their department plan in alignment with the college directions. The first conference will be held on October 29th with its focus on technology and digital literacy. Stay tuned for more information.

Food Services :

Our food services did a phenomenal job again to support students during this enrollment surge. You can see from the table below that the customer count and first day sales have been steadily increasing.

Financial Aid:

Financial Aid applications this year are up 16.5% over 2009-10 which was up by 47.6% over the previous year. As of September 21st, the department packaged and awarded 9,805 students for this academic year an increase of 1,759 students over the number of students awarded this time last year, 8,046.

Health Clinic:

The number of patients seen for the first five days of the following academic years:

The average has been 183.4 patients per year, during the first five days of the academic year, over the 5 year period. These numbers do not include vaccine clinics, emergencies, urgent appointments, or people who had to be put on a wait list. Staffing was at a minimum in 2008 and 2009 which accounts for the lower numbers.

The Health Clinic vaccinated approximately 80 staff members with the influenza vaccine on Inservice Day. The Health Clinic would like you to recognize the faces behind this phenomenal operation

That’s all for now.

Until next time …..

Sonya