November 2, 2002
If Henderson Community College had a word of the week, this week that word likely would be "grateful."
For one thing, the 42-year-old school closed out its fall registrations during the week with a record enrollment of 1,598 students. That represents a 13.5 percent increase over last fall's 1,407 students and marks the college's eighth straight semester of enrollment hikes.
In addition, HCC's gratitude to a local company and individual for years of service to the college will be expressed this evening at the Kentucky Community and Technical College System's third annual President's Gala and Benefactors Awards Dinner in Lexington.
Each of the 16 KCTCS districts will salute benefactors, and those recognized by HCC are Alcan Primary Metals Group and HCC Board Chairman and College Foundation Vice President W. Cassidy Wilson III, a local attorney who has long been involved with the school he attended.
Alcan also has been a long-time supporter, and during HCC's Partners in Progress fund-raising campaign in the mid-1990s pledged significant resources to be used for scholarships and expansion of the college's technical programs. An HCC press release notes that "many students have benefited as a direct result of (Alcan's) generosity." The college continues to expand its partnership with Alcan.
HCC President Patrick Lake said the school is fortunate to receive "such significant support from members of our community. This ongoing support is vital and provides us with a means by which we can continue to meet the ever-changing needs of our community."
HCC's 2002 fall semester student tally easily caps the previous enrollment record of 1,500 in 1992, and represents a full-time equivalency of 789 students, a 6.1 percent increase over last fall's 743 FTE students.
The number of FTE students is reached by dividing the total number of student credit hours for the semester by 16. That formula is required by the state Council on Postsecondary Education, though students actually have full-time status with only 12 credit hours per semester.
Patty Mitchell, dean of student services, attributed part of the enrollment growth to expanding business and industry training programs, but added, "We see enrollment as a two-pronged approach: Recruitment and retention. We've worked very hard the last three years."
During the past year, she said, there has been special focus on retaining currently-enrolled students from semester to semester.
While nearly every Kentucky public college and university saw increased enrollments this fall, KCTCS reported the most dramatic growth. As of late September, the system's enrollment totaled 66,370, which was 3,250 more the fall of 2001. By comparison, four years ago total KCTCS enrollment was 45,529.
The 13 community colleges and 15 technical colleges in the system have been challenged by the Council on Postsecondary Education to educate more and more of the population and reach an enrollment of at least 95,000 by year 2020.
November 7, 2002
Community colleges got mixed results on Tuesday when they asked local voters to increase the amount of taxes they pay in support of the colleges or to approve bond issues for facilities or technology equipment.
In California, 14 community-college districts won a total of $3.2-billion in bond issues. One other district, Rio Hondo College, just outside of Los Angeles, lost its bid to get voters to approve a $150-million bond issue.
Thomas J. Nussbaum, chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, thanked the state's voters in a statement, saying that the passage of the bonds was "essential to provide instructional access to the increasing numbers of students who are seeking a higher education at community colleges."
Four Illinois community colleges asked voters for bond and property tax-rate levies. Two were successful, two were not.
Illinois Valley Community College had sought a $16-million bond issue and a property-tax increase of 15 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. Voters said no to both measures. Joliet Junior College also was unsuccessful in its bid for a $251.6-million bond issue and a 2-cent increase in the property tax rate.
The College of Du Page and Waubonsee Community College, however, successfully persuaded voters to approve bond issues of $183-million and $63-million, respectively.
In Missouri, Jefferson College asked voters for a bond issue of $18.66-million to replace roofs and repair roads on the campus. Voters rejected the measure; the college had spent some $10,000 in a campaign promoting its approval. Roger Barentine, a spokesman for Jefferson, said the college would probably go after the bond issue in the state's primary election next spring. "We weren't trying to build the Taj Mahal," he said. "We need to repair a roof. In the end, it will cost our local taxpayers more to defer the maintenance."
In Maryland, voters in Baltimore County agreed to issue bonds totaling $200-million for the county and the Community College of Baltimore County, $15-million of which will go to the college for a new center and for general renovation projects.
Four Oregon institutions -- Central Oregon, Mt. Hood, Oregon Coast, and Rogue Community Colleges -- all lost referendums seeking bond issues. Al Sigala, a spokesman for Mt. Hood, said that he believed the poor economy was to blame.
"We've had major layoffs in this state, and I think the taxpayers were telling us that they simply couldn't afford any more," Mr. Sigala said.
Ray Taylor, president and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees, said that an increasing number of community colleges have gone after bond referendums in recent elections. He called the attempts by the colleges a "coping mechanism" to deal with shrinking state appropriations. "But it's a Catch-22," he said. "When the economy is bad, taxpayers don't want to shell out more money, either."
The chairwoman of the association's board, Brenda Knight, was unsuccessful Tuesday in her attempt to hold on to her seat on the board of the Peralta Community College District in Oakland, Calif. That means that Ms. Knight will also lose her seat on the association's board, and will be replaced by the chair-elect, Richard N. Adams, a trustee at Edison Community College in Ohio.
November 10, 2002
The young man is a Henderson Community College Adult Basic Education success story.
Thanks to that program, he obtained his GED and with renewed confidence began college courses. This month he receives his degree in optometry.
And he's done it all while being incarcerated.
He was at the Henderson County Jail when he began his GED studies with HCC instructor Kay Groves, and he's completed requirements for his degree while serving time in another correctional institution.
Then there's the individual who took the GED test in jail here in 1999 and reportedly scored higher than any other tested GED student in Kentucky that year.
"I've found a lot of really smart people at the jail," said Groves, who meets with 25 prisoners at a time in a detention center classroom that initially was sparsely equipped but now boasts donated computers, file cabinets, a marker board, bulletin board and other amenities.
The instructor, who is past retirement age but enjoys her work too much to give it up, is at the jail three or four days each week preparing her students for the GED test, teaching literacy, adult basic education, job readiness and employability skills as well as life-skills sessions.
The program's roots go deep. Pam Wilson, director of the HCC Adult Learning Center, said "it's probably been around as long as the learning center has existed here. It's always been one of our missions."
This fall the program received a $17,423 state grant that tops previous annual grants by about $3,000. It buys educational supplies for the county, state and federal inmates, who are said to appreciate the opportunities offered to them. Groves said that when she was out on sick leave during the last year, she received "Get well" cards and letters from concerned prisoners, and it isn't unusual for her to hear from former inmates who have served their time and gone on to college or found fulfilling employment.
Maj. Leslie Gibson, who works closely with Groves in the program, said, "It's a great program. We've had (representatives from) other county jails here to see what we do and try to imitate it" at their facilities.
There are quarterly GED tests at the jail, with about 14 inmates taking the test each time, and an average of nine passing each quarter. As an inmate draws within six months of being released, HCC introduces him or her to the "Bridges to Freedom" program that features resume writing and preparation for job interviews.
Male and female inmates have separate classes, with the exception of literacy instruction.
Statewide, the overall adult education in county jails program has been awarded $550,000 this fall, with allocations going to 56 county jails.
It is for any inmate who doesn't have a high school diploma or GED or functions below twelfth grade level.
Cheryl King, state Department for Adult Education commissioner, said the aim of the program that's currently enrolling about 4,000 prisoners is to increase basic educational skills in order to help inmates become productive citizens.
A U.S. Department of Education study based on Kentucky's state institutions found that state correctional education programs lowered the number of inmates reincarcerated by 29 percent.
November 11, 2002
LYNCH, Ky., Nov. 7 — Years ago, Bob Lunsford toiled in the depths of a dark and grimy Appalachian coal mine, hardly the kind of place people would pay money to see. Now he’s a guide for thousands of tourists from around the world who come to Harlan County to peer into the abandoned mine that once was the economic lifeblood for this coal company town. And next year, tourists — if they dare — will be able to travel inside Portal 31 to see exhibits showing the transformation of the industry from the picks, shovels and ponies of the early 1900s to the powerful digging machinery used today.
“PEOPLE HAVE HEARD so much about coal mining that they want to go in and see it for themselves,” said Lunsford, who worked 42 years in and around the mine in the eastern Kentucky town of Lynch. “It was very hard, very nasty work. You would have roof falls. A lot of people got killed in these mines. It was dangerous.”
When the last miner left the played-out mine a decade ago, the Appalachian coal town’s fate seemed sealed. The economy hit rock bottom and has yet to rebound.
Local leaders searching for a solution looked again to the mine, a seam that runs under tons of rock from a mountain above. Tourists would walk about 1,200 feet into the mine.
Bruce Ayers, president of Southeast Community College in nearby Cumberland and
head of a committee that oversees the Portal 31 project, said he believes tourists
will indeed flock to Lynch and other Harlan County communities to experience
life in a historic coal town.
TOWN’S HISTORY
Coal mines, copper mines, even salt mines have been opened to tourists in other areas, but few of them in a place as romanticized as Harlan County, where the crushing burdens on coal miners were depicted in the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary “Harlan County, USA,” an account of a violent 1974 strike.
Most of the houses, stores, schools and churches built by coal companies are still standing in the area. And many retirees are happy to tell visitors what life was like under company rule.
Lunsford tells visitors how, in 1917, the U.S. Steel Coal and Coke Co. bought 40,000 acres and formed Lynch, which was named after the company’s first president, Thomas Lynch. He tells them that over a 40-year span, more than 1 million tons of coal per year passed through Portal 31, and that Lynch’s tipple — where coal is loaded onto rail cars — was the biggest in the world when it was built in the early 1920s.
Lynch was a bustling town in its heyday, with about 10,000 people from 30 countries living here. Now, the population is little more than 1,000. Nearby Benham, hit just as hard as Lynch by mine closings, has turned an old company school into an inn, and a former store into a coal mining museum to try to capitalize on tourism.
The effort is beginning to pay off.
About 30,000 people visited the museum this year, and Lunsford expects just as many to pay $5 each for the half-hour tour of the coal mine when it opens, perhaps as early as June.
Southeast Community College has spent $750,000 to strengthen the mine walls. An additional $1.2 million in federal and state money has been set aside to create underground exhibits.
SAFETY FIRST
Lexington mining engineer Steven Gardner was responsible for ensuring the mine
poses no risk to tourists.
That meant limiting tours to only the sturdiest half-mile section of the mine, installing a super-strength wire mesh across the ceilings to keep rocks from falling, and drilling double the number of 4-foot bolts into the overhead rock to hold it in place.
Also, tunnel walls have been covered with a sealant to permanently bind the coal and rock in place. And contractors sealed off unused mine tunnels to keep methane gas out.
The final safety measure will be an enclosed rail car that will take tourists
through the mine. The reinforced top will be strong enough to withstand any
rock falls.