Greenfield Community College and Western New England College of Springfield, Mass., signed a joint admissions agreement that is worth up to $7,000 a year for full-time transfer students from GCC, announced Presidents Robert L. Pura of GCC and Anthony S. Caprio of Western New England College.
"This joint admissions agreement allows us to work closely with Greenfield Community College and we are very pleased about this," said Dr. Caprio at today's signing ceremony. "This is also a creative private/public partnership that will be beneficial to many students at GCC."
"As transformational as the associate's degree is, the baccalaureate is even more so," said Dr. Pura. "This collaboration with Western New England College will help create more of those opportunities for our students and our community. We are pleased to have Western New England College as a partner."
Students who apply while at GCC can get up to $7,000 in scholarship assistance per year, according to Kathleen Maisto, coordinator of transfer at GCC. "It opens up an opportunity for them to consider a private school and defray the cost based on their grade point average," says Maisto. Furthermore, the agreement guarantees the transfer of credits toward the bachelor's degree from Western New England College. Eligible programs include business administration, criminal justice, human services, and liberal arts.
Matthew Fox, associate director of admissions at Western New England College, describes the private institution of just under 2,400 undergraduate students as a smaller, intimate environment with some wonderful opportunities. Western New England College's School of Business is accredited by the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business International. "Only about 15% of business schools worldwide earn this accreditation," notes Fox. "We are the only private school in western Mass. that has this accreditation for its school of business." GCC business administration graduates can expect a seamless transfer into Western New England College's business program, which also offers a minor in entrepreneurship.
One of the largest programs at Western New England College is criminal justice, which is a popular major at Greenfield Community College as well. Criminal justice majors can choose from a wide variety of careers including law enforcement, corrections, probation counseling and security, according to Fox.
Greenfield Community College has long had what are called " joint admission" agreements with state colleges and the university, explains Maisto. Advantages include guaranteed admission for students in good academic standing, acceptance of all GCC credits toward a baccalaureate degree program, a shorter admission form, waiver of application fee and generous scholarships.
Beyond the financial incentives, there are compelling academic reasons why GCC students might choose to transfer to Western New England College.
Western New England College has climbed in the rankings for 2007 American Best Colleges as compiled by U.S. News and World Report. "We're considered a top tier school in the north for comprehensive colleges and universities," says Fox, who also cites a nice balance between athletics and academics at Western New England College, a Division III school. "We offer 19 sports teams here at the school. We've added a new baseball stadium and a new football stadium.
"I think what's really important are the people that are here," continues Fox. "This is the kind of place where the faculty do provide students with the opportunity to engage in the classroom and they make themselves very accessible. It's more of a mentoring relationship that the students develop with the faculty, staff and administration here at Western New England College."
For more information, please contact Kathleen Maisto at (413) 775-1207 or Matthew Fox at (413) 782-1321.
One of the requirements of Professor Abbie Jenks' Introduction to Peace Studies class is to do a social action project so that students can apply what they have learned in the classroom to the larger community. "That's one of the things I've designed my program to address," says Professor Jenks. "You don't just learn about peace and social justice, you also learn what you can do about it."
For Sarah Meikle, 28, of Greenfield, that requirement has inspired a new publication that will debut the second week of December. Called " peace meal," it will offer readers "a taste of peace, or a small meal" of tantalizing tidbits that both educate and inspire the reader to the possibilities of nonviolence.
"The first issue is going to be covering what exactly peace is," says Meikle. "One of our first assignments was to write an essay on just that and some of my fellow students have been kind enough to share their essays. So I'll be taking some excerpts from their writings, as well as an interview I'm doing with our teacher, Abbie Jenks.
"I also want to highlight some of the peace movements and activities going on in the Valley," continues Meikle. "It's a very active community for conscious thinking and conscientious living.
"Then there'll be a section on how you can get involved globally. There'll be a book review, and a section called Web Works, which will highlight people who are creating peace and promoting its presence online, such as Good Search. Just like Google, it's a search engine, but every time you use it, they make a donation to the charity of your choice. Finally, there'll be a sort of inspiration section with brief quotes, inspiring ideas and thoughts from all sorts of people.
"I felt it was sort of piecemeal " hence the name."
The response to her project has been gratifying. "I wasn't really sure that it was going to get off the ground," says Meikle, "but everybody seems to be excited about this journal. I think people are very hungry for something like this. They want to be talking about these issues. I've been receiving many submissions from my fellow students which, hopefully, indicates that people are excited about the possibilities of this venture."
It's also a way to promote an important concept known as "student engagement," a term that encompasses that feeling of belonging that grows out of social interactions with other students, faculty and staff. Like many community college students, Meikle works full time and goes to school part-time. "One of the hard things at a community college is creating that sense of community that four-year schools have," Meikle says. "Hopefully, this will contribute to that."
Meikle's background as a writer, graphic designer and creative technology consultant makes the journal a perfect fit for her skills. Right now, Meikle is the "editor extraordinaire" of "peace meal," but she hopes to involve other students so that the journal becomes a quarterly publication, with two issues a semester. Next spring, a "learning community," in which two professors jointly teach courses that complement each other, will combine a peace and social justice course with an English class. "Hopefully," says Meikle, "that class is going to carry the torch on some of the writing and use my social action project as a template for future issues. I definitely want it to continue."
Meikle is hoping to enlist a community sponsor to help support the very modest expenses of the publication and, at the same time, get their message out to a broad readership. For more information about "peace meal," please contact editor Sarah Meikle at gccpeacemeal@gmail.com.
On November 14 and 15, members of the GCC Human Service Club held a fundraiser to help the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. Club members made posters and publicized the event in advance on campus, and set up tables in the main and East buildings, asking people to donate $10 to buy turkeys for families for the holidays. In the past, according to Professor Abbie Jenks, club advisor, the students have collected food for the Food Bank. "But what we're finding is that cash donations can be stretched further because the Food Bank can purchase food for less," says Jenks. At the end of the two-day event, the club had collected a total of $328.75 to give to the Food Bank to provide a bountiful Thanksgiving meal for families in need.
Once upon a time, college students had to pour through voluminous catalogs in search of the courses they needed to complete their degree that were being offered at a time that fit their schedule. It was a tedious process that now seems quaintly archaic with the imminent arrival of a new online course catalog pioneered by Greenfield Community College Systems Analyst David Schein.
"Today's students are part of the 'myspace' generation," explains Schein, referring to the online Web site that increasingly serves as the "campus center" for a nation of students. "They are very computer-savvy and they expect to find what they need to know on the Web in an easy way."
And that doesn't mean just being able to download and print out a text file that you still have to scrutinize to extract the information that's pertinent to you.
What Schein has done is to write a state-of-the-art computer software program that, with a few clicks of the mouse, enables students and their academic advisers to search the universe of course options and zero in on the ones that are available in the coming semester on the days and times that fit a student's schedule.
"So if you're in a program that requires a biology class," explains Schein, "you can click through and see which classes satisfy that requirement and, of those classes, you can then see what's actually being offered next semester. From there, you can say, 'Well, I work on Tuesdays so now show me what's available if you exclude Tuesdays. In fact, let's see a course for which all the classes not only don't meet on Tuesdays, but the class ends before 4 o'clock in the afternoon when I have to leave for work."
For community college students juggling jobs, family responsibilities and college, this is the nitty-gritty information they need to know.
Additional benefits include faster updating of the course catalog and, eventually, monitoring of a student's progress toward completing a degree.
The project is an example of the innovative work that's going on at Greenfield Community College, according to Martha Field, Dean of Institutional Support and Advancement. "It says that we're constantly working to improve the usefulness and efficiency of our online materials for students, staff and faculty."
"It's surprising that there wasn't already a solution out there for this kind of thing," says Schein. "We would not try to write new software if there was something out there. But there just aren't really good solutions to do this right now."
The project was created using "open source" programming, which means that it's available for other educational institutions to use and adapt to their own needs.
"We're sharing this with the world, so that if anyone finds this useful, that's great," says Schein. "There is a lot of interest in it " I've received a bunch of e-mails already from other colleges."
The focus on student success is really what it's all about, says Schein. "It's easy to get disheartened or just not notice that there are courses that could fit your schedule so you could make progress toward your degree. The more we can give good, easily accessible information to students, the better. And certainly, the Web is where that happens now."
The new catalog is expected to be up and running by January 1 at gcc.mass.edu/catalog. To visit the "beta," or testing version of the project, go to http://beta.gcc.mass.edu.
Exciting and innovative performances by students and faculty of the Greenfield Community College Dance Studio will head the program for their fall dance event, "GCC Dancers and Friends," to be presented Thursday, December 7 at the Greenfield High School Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices are $4 for students and seniors; $5 general admission.
"The program is going to be very special this semester because we are having live music for several of the dances and also we are having guest performers join us," says Associate Professor of Dance Sharon Arslanian. "A jazz trio comprised of professional musicians Paul Arslanian, piano, Dave Shapiro, bass, and Makaya McCraven, drums, will play for the tap and modern classes, and Student Senate President and pianist Emily Joseph will play for the ballet class. Sekou Sylla will be playing djembe drum for the African dance class, and we hope to have live drumming for one of the middle eastern dances.
"Guest performers will be the Catalyst dance company from the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts School, directed by Jodi Falk, and advanced dancers from Stoneleigh Burnham School, directed by Ann Sorvino. Also, area tap dancers Rose Sinclair and Stephanie Weber will perform in an original collaborative work," said Arslanian.
For more information, please call the GCC Dance Department at (413) 775-1262.
Human Ecology students learn about the interconnectedness of our world
"We're not separate from the world around us," says Emily Houk, 24, of Northampton. "It's not like we were thrust here by aliens " we're really a part of it and it's part of us."
Learning about that interconnectedness, and then sharing it with others, is one of the goals of Human Ecology, according to Professor Angel Russek, who teaches "Introduction to Human Ecology" and " Education and Advocacy for the Environment" at Greenfield Community College.
"Her classes are really about connecting the world around us to the people who live in it," explains Houk, "talking about the way people and nature are really the same thing and how they affect each other."
Russek believes in giving students multiple perspectives and lenses to help them become advocates for the environment. "Certainly one view is through a Western paradigm, which is our traditional education system," says Russek. "But exposing them to indigenous wisdom and learning is another key piece. Understanding the native history of this area, which many of us have no idea about, is powerful for anyone who wants to teach about the environment."
At the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut, Russek's students met with Trudie Lamb Richmond (Schaghticoke), director of education at the museum, to discuss the challenges of teaching native values and culture in a western paradigm. Those values include appreciating all life, from the smallest being to the earth as a whole, and expressing gratitude for the earth's bounty in a series of Thanksgivings throughout the year, not just on one day.
"She talked about leaving no child inside, rather than 'leave no child behind," says Russek, referring to the federal program which has had the effect of crowding out art, music and physical activity in school. "Children are spending far too little time outdoors and developing an understanding and relationship with the outdoors."
A recent field trip to the Discovery Center in Turners Falls and, from there, to a tract of land in Greenfield owned and farmed by the Friends of the Wissatinnewag, showed how Native American farming techniques are being applied to reclaim land from which gravel had recently been mined by planting grasses, restoring embankments and growing "heritage gardens" of indigenous crops.
"Students got to walk on this land and hear the story of this piece of land that's thought to have been inhabited by humans over the past 10,000 years," says Professor Russek.
"I was particularly impressed by the crop arrangements," says Caleb Perry, 22, of Turners Falls. "They weren't right next to each other; it was spread out so that each plot could grow on its own and not invade others. They had very simple stick fences to keep animals out. There was a large cooking area and a small communal structure, very well crafted of long sticks bent and tied together, the kind of structure that was likely to have been there back when it was native land.
"This area in Turners Falls was sort of a communal fishing area," explains Perry. "Neighboring tribes would all come here and drop their feuds for that period of time when the salmon were running in that particular spot of the river."
"I think one of the most important things that it did for me," says Houk, who also
went on the field trip, "was to remind me that there are still native people around here who are trying to preserve their culture. I feel like we get this idea in history books that these people are gone, when really they're not gone."
Field trips like this also get students out of the classroom and offer an additional way of learning.
"We learn through music, art, storytelling and our physical bodies," says Russek.
"It's very important to get out and actually see what you're learning about," agrees Perry. "A reason that people go to historical places is to get that atmosphere, that sense of being in a place where something very important happened."
"(Professor Russek) tries to integrate different ways of learning," says Courtney LaRose, 23, of Greenfield. "My personal learning technique is visual and hands-on, so being there and seeing the land made more sense to me."
LaRose says she learned about the massacre by European settlers of Indian families that occurred on the site, and about the struggle to preserve the purported site of Native American remains. "This gets me mad, the fact that they were trying to build there," says LaRose, adding, "That's one thing about her class that I enjoy " it gets you mad."
Mad enough, or just intrigued enough, to change students' lives.
"It's probably the most influential class I've ever taken in my entire life," says LaRose, whose career goal took a new direction as a result of Russek's course. "I started off at GCC thinking I wanted to be a wilderness guide, but I also have an affinity for art, music and philosophy," says LaRose. "Being in that class let me know that there's other ways out there besides being a wilderness guide to help people realize their connectedness with everything."
Houk is a human ecology major. "It's not a program you find at very many community colleges," she says. "What I really liked about it from the beginning was that it talks about connections between different fields, like the environment and economics: Those things aren't often talked about together but they're very much related in the sense that, right now, when people are studying economics, they don't take the environment into account on balance sheets. They're not subtracting anything because we don't need to take that into account with our current economic system. But we are literally subtracting something when we take from the environment, so I think it's really vital to add that cost into the balance sheet. Otherwise, it's just sort of faulty math."
Houk hopes to teach children about the environment. "If people are going to care about it and understand it, they really have to start young in life. Having a really good foundation in it from the time we're kids, I think, is going to have a tremendous impact on how much people care about it later on. So I've been thinking about that a lot lately in terms of what I will do later."
For Caleb Perry, who plans to major in biology, the study of human ecology has led to an interest in related concepts like environmental conservation. "Biology is basically the study of all life and the natural world," says Perry. "Human ecology is studying human beings' impact on the environment. It comes into play in current biological issues such as mass extinctions, the depletion of natural resources and the sustainability of ecosystems. It's about how animals and plants sustain their own life and how they live amongst one another."
"Human ecology is a new field and it's really broad," says LaRose, "but I think it's important to take a step back and actually study who we are as people so we can go on to make a difference."
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