Community College News

In the remnants of the 9/11 terrorists attacks, few thought about one lone building from a local community college that was destroyed when the World Trade Center collapsed - except those who had come to call Borough of Manhattan Community College home. Over the next decade, the expanding college was forced to make other arrangements for holding classes – in the student cafeteria and temporary trailers set up in the vicinity of the original building. It was far from an ideal situation, with students reporting that the trailers didn’t always have working heat and served as a constant reminder of the terrible day when so many American lives were lost, including those of eight BMCC students and alumni.

But the school persevered.

This month, Borough of Manhattan Community College opened the doors of Fiterman Hall for the first time in more than 10 years. The beautiful new building is a reflection of light with windowed walls and a breathtaking lighted spiral staircase. It is a far cry from the smoke and debris that littered the area for so long. Now, students are preparing to take classes at Fiterman once again, in a brand new building designed just for them.

The Funding of Fiterman Hall

The day of the attacks, Fiterman Hall was damaged beyond repair. The building was finally razed in 2009, the year that reconstruction began, according to the community college’s website. Prior to razing, funding had to come in to pay for the project. The

San Francisco is in trouble, with a threat of accreditation loss looming and uncertainty over whether the school will even be able to remain open for much longer. According to many who have carefully examined the issues facing the college, the fault primarily lies with the school itself. From ineffective governance to mismanagement of funds, the City College of San Francisco is facing serious issues that could take Herculean efforts to overcome. Now, time is also running short for the school, as the accrediting commission has set a deadline in which the school must begin to show progress in improving their operations overall.

This video discusses how the fate of City College of San Francisco and its 77,000 students continues to hang in the balance.

Implications of “Show Cause” Rating

The accreditation commission recently gave the City College of San Francisco a “show cause” rating, which means the school shoulders the burden of showing why it should remain accredited. This sanction is the most serious of the three options an accrediting commission can offer. The San Francisco Examiner reports that a “show cause” rating is typically only given when an institution is in “substantial non-compliance” with accreditation standards.

Only two California schools have received similar ratings currently, according to the Los Angeles Times. College of the Redwoods and Cuesta College both are working their way through accreditation violations, in

The largest community college district in the country recently announced plans to move to the cloud, via Microsoft’s Live@EDU cloud suite. The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has determined that Microsoft’s package will best meet the needs of its students, staff, and faculty. The rollout is scheduled for the beginning of the upcoming school year.

What the Cloud Can Do

According to a report at PC World, the decision by LACCD to move to the cloud began with a desire to have every student on each of the nine campuses obtain their own email account within the school system. This idea slowly spread beyond email capabilities to include IM, video, and audio conferencing and calendaring. The cloud suite will also allow students to prepare online documents to share, edit, and collaborate with professors and other students.

“Students and faculty, once they start learning all the capabilities, I expect they’ll realize it’s way more than email,” LACCD CIO Jorge Mata told PC World.

Some of the specific features offered with Microsoft’s Live@EDU include:

• Email and calendars with a 10GB inbox
• Additional file storage up to 25GB
• Instant messaging
• Video chat and audio conferencing
• Document sharing
• Mobile email
• Accessible through Web browsers for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems
• Easy to set up and manage

This video explains Microsoft's Cloud Services.

Until now, the nine campuses for the Los Angeles Community College District have determined whether to offer students the option

The Obama Administration has focused heavilyon community colleges and college completion rates over the past three years, raising awareness about the importance of education in improving the country’s unemployment rate. However, some have criticized the President for placing too much emphasis on education and not enough on actual job development. In addition to the Skills for America's Future program initiated in 2011, President and Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled their latest plan to transform vocational education nationwide.

Making a Solid Investment

The latest initiative by the White House is titled “Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education.” The program was designed as an outline for revamping the current Perkins Act of 2006, initially created to provide funding for vocational training at the secondary and postsecondary levels. According to the U.S. Department of Education website, the Perkins Act primarily distributes funding through state grants, which State Boards for Vocational Education are encouraged and eligible to apply.

While the Perkins Act has been significant in developing vocational training across America, the current administration believes it could go further in helping Americans train for the industries that have the highest need for skilled workers today. At a time when unemployment rates are still high, a restructuring of the Perkins Act could make vocational training more widely available both to displaced workers and high school graduates who cannot afford the hefty tuition rates at a four-year institution.

Duncan reported in the Huffington Post:

Discrimination has become a point of focus at Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Arizona, as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has launched an investigation of some of the practices of the college system. The investigations are in response to concerns raised over two key issues: the request for immigration status from some students and the failure to provide appropriate services to non-English speaking students.

Concerns Raised by Civil Rights Center

Concerns over these issues were initially raised by a non-profit organization based out of Phoenix, the Civil Rights Center. Information on this organization is limited, but according to a report in the New York Times last year, the bare-boned group is run out of the Phoenix home of its director, Silverio Garcia Jr. Last year, Garcia filed a class-action complaint with the Department of Education, alleging that teachers in Phoenix schools were improperly transferred due to speaking accents that some children had difficulty understanding.

“This was one culture telling another culture that you are not speaking correctly,” Garcia told the New York Times.

The complaint, filed in May 2010, was closed in late August 2011 after the state agreed to alter its policy, stating that only teachers who were fluent in English could teach students learning English. State officials said accents were not a part of their monitoring process to determine whether teachers should remain in the classroom.

This year, Silverio Garcia’s organization has once again targeted Phoenix schools, this