NBC's New Comedy - Community (College)

There's a new half-hour comedy about higher education...and lower expectations coming from Emmy Award-winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo to NBC this fall titled Community. The comedy is centered around the fictitious Greendale Community College. Here's an interesting quote from the NBC website describing the show:

It's been said that community college is a "halfway school" for losers, a self esteem workshop for newly divorced housewives, and a place where old people go to keep their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. Well, at Greendale Community College...that's all true. Community focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talkin' lawyer whose degree has been revoked (Joel McHale, The Soup). They form a study group and, in "Breakfast Club" fashion, end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work.

NBC is going all out with this show - they're even going to put together a Greendale Community College website that will introduce the show characters including: the student body, Dean Pelton, the faculty, etc. Here's a 4 minute promo you may find interesting.

What's the real story? Here's some current stats from the American Association of Community Colleges website (I've quoted these in the past).

Number and Type of Community Colleges: Total: 1,195 Public: 987 Independent: 177 Tribal: 31	Enrollment: Total: 11.5 million Enrolled full time: 41% Enrolled part time: 59%
Selected Demographics: Average age: 29 Women: 60% Men: 40% Minorities: 35% First generation to attend college: 39% Single parents: 17%	Percentages of Undergraduates: All U.S. undergraduates: 46% First-time freshmen: 41% Native American: 55% Asian/Pacific Islander: 46% Black: 46% Hispanic: 55%
Employment Status: Full-time students employed full time: 27% Full-time students employed part time: 50% Part-time students employed full time: 50% Part-time students employed part time: 33%

Sound familiar? Maybe your neighbor, your friend, your grandchild, maybe even you. Community colleges are wonderful, inexpensive places to get the first two years of a four year degree or learn a specific skilled technology.

I just don't get where this show is coming from. Is it tongue in cheek humor? We'll see and we'll see how long it lasts..... The series premieres Thursday, September 17th 9:30/8:30c.

The Convergence Technology Center at Collin College

Last week, I had the privilege of visiting Collin College and attending the National Science Foundation funded Convergence Technology Center (CTC) National Visiting Committee meeting in Frisco, Texas.


Here's some information from the CTC website:

The CTC was established in 2004 at Collin College to meet the growing need for skilled specialists in the area of Convergence Technology and Home Technology Integration. The Center pulls together the strengths of regional and national educational institutions and business and industry partners to create of pool of qualified convergence technicians who can design, build, test, secure and troubleshoot communication infrastructure and devices in the convergence technology arena, both for enterprise and home markets.

This center has four primary goals:

1. Program Improvement: Develop convergence technology and interoperability curriculum to meet workforce needs;
Objective A: Determine skills required by the region for convergence technology
Objective B: Design convergence technology curriculum

2. Professional Development for Educators: Equip regional faculty to teach convergence technology;
Objective A: Develop opportunities for educator professional development

3. Recruit and Attract underserved populations into the field of convergence technology;
Objective A: Recruit and attract underserved into the Convergent Technology programs
Objective B: Retain/graduate underserved populations in Convergent Technology programs

4. Capacity Building: Function as a Regional Distribution Center.
Objective A: Provide access to the CTC Convergence lab with regional business and college partners
Objective B: Serve as a clearinghouse for education materials on convergence technologies

Three college districts drive the work of the Convergence Technology Center, led by:

• Dr. Ann Beheler, Principal Investigator (PI), Vice President - Academic Affairs, Porterville College
  
• Dr. Bette Plog, Co-PI, Professor and Director, Information Technology Institute, Information Technology Programs and Systems Support, El Centro College, Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD)
• David Keathly, Co-PI, University of North Texas,Computer Science and Engineering Lecturer and Undergraduate Advisor
  
• Helen Sullivan, Director, CTC
  
• Ann Blackman, Program Manager, CTC

I am always so impressed with this group - the CTC in doing excellent work and we had an excellent meeting. Highlights included a tour of the brand new Frisco Independent School District Career and Technical Education Center.

Additional pictures taken at the meeting are linked here.

Presentation to STCC School of Engineering Technologies

Today I had the opportunity to present at our Springfield Technical Community College School of Engineering Technologies opening semester meeting. My Technology Update presentation is displayed below.

SET Presentation Jan 2009

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: technology education)

Motivated and Committed People = Outstanding Work

I've been back and forth to Dallas a couple of times the last two weeks - first for a futures conference presentation and this past week for a two day National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Convergence Technology Center at Collin College visiting committee meeting.

At the futures conference I spoke on Globalization - specifically how college courses need to morph to properly prepare students for today and tomorrow's work. The reception, hospitality and quality of the event were outstanding and I am so thankful I get invited to these kinds of events. I learn so much listing to other speakers and talking with attendees.

Last week was the two day visiting committee meeting - larger National Science Foundation grants are required to appoint a National Visiting Committee (NVC) that meets once a year. According to the NVC Handbook published by the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, these committees are groups of advisors that work with grantees and NSF to help them achieve their goals and objectives. They assess the plans and progress of the project and report to NSF and the project leadership. Committee members also provide advice to the project staff and may serve as advocates for effective projects.

At the NVC meeting, among many things, we had a lot of excellent discussion about current and future of converged communications and networks - what many are now calling unified communications/networking. I'd like to especially thank President Cary A. Israel and Executive Vice President Toni Jenkins from Collin College along with Director Ann Beheler, Ann Blackman, Helen Sullivan, etc, etc from the Convergence Technology Center at Collin College for their hospitality, commitment, work, understanding and dedication to their students. It's always wonderful to see excellent work being done - especially when it is funded with taxpayer dollars.

Here's one photo of NVC student lunch presenters (click to enlarge) taken on Thursday - each a different story and each incredibly EXCELLENT is all I can say. You can check out my iPhone Tumblr photoblog of both events (and a lot of other events) at http://gsnyder.tumblr.com/ - scroll down to see all photos.

I'll get back on my five per week (or so) blog schedule this week - I've got a bunch of them started and I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of weeks!

Thanks again to all at Collin College in Texas.

UC Berkeley Posting Full Lectures on YouTube Channel

I said I would not until next week but just had to write a quick post on this topic. UC Berkeley announced today that it has started posting full lectures on YouTube. Subjects include biology, chemistry, physics and a lecture titled Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Here's a cnetNEWS.com quote from Christina Maslach, UC Berkeley's vice provost for undergraduate education:

"UC Berkeley on YouTube will provide a public window into university life, academics, events and athletics, which will build on our rich tradition of open educational content for the larger community,"

The Berkeley channel is at: youtube.com/ucberkeley. Take a look at what Berkeley is doing and also watch our NCTT channel at: http://youtube.com/user/NatCtrTelecomTech. You may find our RSS feed tutorial interesting!

H.R. 2272: The America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act (COMPETES)

Last Thursday, in a 367 to 57 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2272, a bill that provides $33.6 billion towards federal science, technology and research programs. Thursday night the bill was also approved by the Senate and is now on the President's desk.

H.R. 2272 is the result of 18 months of work led by the bipartisan House Science and Technology Committee and based on recommendations in the, 2005 Rising above the Gathering Storm National Academies report. This is from the H.R. 2272 bill summary:

"H.R. 2272 is the culmination of a year and a half-long, bipartisan effort led by Members of the House Science and Technology Committee to pass a package of competitiveness bills in response to recommendations in the 2005 National Academies report, Rising above the Gathering Storm".

"The Conference Agreement follows through on a commitment to ensure U.S. students, teachers, businesses and workers are prepared to continue leading the world in innovation, research and technology – well into the future".

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Title Portion of the bill is extremely encouraging with a strong emphasis on 2-year colleges and the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program:

"The conference agreement provides $22 billion to the National Science Foundation (NSF) over fiscal years 2008 - 2010, putting it on a path to double in approximately 7 years. Particularly strong increases are provided in fiscal year 2008 for K-12 STEM education programs at NSF. These programs, including the Noyce Teacher Scholarship program and the Math and Science Partnerships program will help to prepare thousands of new STEM teachers and provide current teachers with content and pedagogical expertise in their area of teaching.

In addition to providing increased support for programs that address the earliest stages of the STEM workforce pipeline, the conference report will help create thousands of new STEM college graduates, including 2-year college graduates, through increased support for the STEM talent expansion (STEP) program and the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program.

For those STEM graduates who continue on the path toward academic careers, the conference agreement provides critical support for young, innovative researchers by expanding the graduate research fellowships (GRF) and integrative graduate education and research traineeship (IGERT) programs, strengthening the early career grants (CAREER) program, and creating a new pilot program of seed grants for outstanding new investigators. Such programs have an additional benefit of helping to stimulate high-risk, high-reward research by identifying and taking a chance on the best and brightest young minds".

As the director of an NSF ATE Center at a Community College it is wonderful to see recognition of the work being done at all NSF funded institutions including K-12 and the two-year schools.