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Academy’s Community
Initiative Offers Qualifying Former Addicts Free Vocational Training
March 16, 2010 -- During economic times like these many students
are postponing or quitting their educational
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pursuits for financial reasons and valuable human
talent is left by the wayside as a result. For an addict these challenges
are not only real but exacerbated due to their personal fight. Today,
more than ever, affordable education, especially for those with
a disease such as addiction, is in dire need. The Academy for Addiction
Professionals has answered that call by arranging for qualifying
individuals to receive free, low cost or reasonably financed classes
towards educational certification as an addiction counselor (http://www.addictionacademy.com)
in the behavioral health industry.
When you ask a former addict why they now work in the addictions
field, the most common answer is that they want to give back. Indeed,
most former addicts want to help others struggling with their same
demons. However, getting a great job in the addictions field, like
most other industries, requires some basic training and certification.
Unfortunately for many former addicts, their money will have been
spent on the drugs and alcohol itself and then on the treatment
to then get clean. Oftentimes, in the process they have lost their
family, their jobs and their homes, leaving them with no hope for
the future.
This despair often leads to depression, stress and eventually relapse,
creating a vicious cycle.
This downward spiral can be stopped however, and the Academy for
Addiction Professionals may just be the solution. “Having
something to look forward to, having hope for the future, can be
the recipe for staying clean.” says Ben Brafman, CAP, LHMC,
Director of the Academy and founder of Florida based Destination
Hope drug rehab (http://www.destinationhope.net) center. As a licensed
mental health counselor and board certified supervisor for other
mental health and substance abuse professionals, Brafman has seen
it all, “At Destination Hope we offer goal oriented treatment
which keeps our clients focused on the good. With our new low or
no cost vocational training program at The Academy, former addicts
that want to be a part of the addiction industry will get that same
positive focus post rehab.”
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BMCC Engineering Students
Prepare for National Robotics Competition
New York, NY (Vocus) March 12, 2010 -- Borough of Manhattan
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| Community College (BMCC) (http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu)
students are building robotic devices in a special workshop
this semester, and plan to pit their creations against students
from both 2- and 4-year colleges nationwide this spring, through
a competition sponsored by the American Society for Engineering
Education (ASEE).
The student-designed devices are remote controlled and shoot
ping-pong balls in pre-determined trajectories. “The
whole point of the workshop is to create a device that is
fully autonomous—controlled by the microprocessor device,”
says Engineering Professor Mahmoud Ardebili, “and to
appreciate the microprocessor-based applications, from those
used in cars, to airplanes, appliances—in all kinds
of settings.”
According to the National Academy of Sciences, 40% of people
earning engineering bachelor and master degrees attended community
colleges, and BMCC engineering students contribute to that
number by taking advantage of the school’s strong transfer
partnerships with CUNY 4-year colleges, Polytechnic University,
New York University and others.
Professor Ardebili, whose own research focuses on turbulent
fluid flows and the monitoring of carbon fiber composite materials—with
the potential to make air travel safer—has a PhD in
Mechanical Engineering from the CUNY Graduate Center and oversees
the robotics teams. He mixes students at different skill levels,
giving them a chance to help each other and take different
roles.
“Project-based learning incorporates peer leader mentoring,”
he says. “Once you explain something, the material stays
with you.”
He notes that some of the students have computer programming
experience, and some don’t. “They work on macros—little
bits of programming,” he says, “that they put
together into the big program. And you have to have the mechanical
part, in addition to the electronic part.”
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Columbus
Technical College Supports Student Retention Efforts With Starfish
Arlington, VA (PRWEB) Mar. 16, 2010 -- Starfish Retention Solutions,
Inc., (http://www.starfishsolutions.com) a leading provider of student
success systems, announced today that Columbus Technical College
(http://www.columbustech.edu/) has deployed Starfish® to improve
the institution’s retention rate by more closely tracking
student performance and providing timely intervention to at-risk
students.
Columbus Technical College is one of 28 institutions that constitute
the Technical College System of Georgia (http://www.tcsg.edu/index.php).
Offering an accessible higher education option to every citizen
of the state of Georgia, the system supports a broad range of career
opportunities through a variety of certificate, diploma and associate
degree programs as well as continuing education and economic development
programs.
The college serves about 4,000 students quarterly in Columbus,
Georgia, enrolled in business, health sciences, professional services
and technology programs. The institution provides an avenue for
students, whether coming straight from high school or looking for
retraining later in life, to help themselves through better career
opportunities.
Given its diverse student population, the institution recognizes
that each student requires a unique set of support services. This
recognition is reflected by the TCSG’s guarantee to students,
which offers to retrain at no instructional cost to the employee
or the employer any graduate found to be deficient in one or more
competencies as defined in the standards.
After initially developing a system internally, Columbus Technical
College collaborated with Starfish to introduce a comprehensive
early alert system that fully integrates with the other technology
systems in place, including the college’s existing ANGEL Learning
Management System (http://www.blackboard.com/Teaching-Learning/Learn-Resources/ANGEL-Edition.aspx).
“Our recruitment team does a great job attracting students
to Columbus Technical College. Our job is to keep them here. Unfortunately,
for a lot of our students, all they need to do is stumble once and
they are out the door,” said B.J. Landen, counselor, CARE
Center for Columbus Technical College. “The simplicity of
Starfish makes it easy for our faculty, including a large percentage
of adjunct professors, to communicate a concern they have for a
student. Starfish takes the legwork out of simply getting a student
in for help. In addition, because our team members receive the pertinent
information about a student from Starfish, they are able to spend
more time helping our students.”
Specifically, Columbus Technical College is using Starfish to track
students taking developmental courses. For example, any time a student’s
course average drops below 70 percent, Starfish alerts a CARE Center
counselor who reaches out to the student to get them back on track.
The system is also tracking students based on attendance, classroom
behavior, lost employment and online activity. To date, on average,
a counselor addresses issues raised through Starfish within five
days.
“Within just the first few days of Starfish being in place,
we were already seeing upward of 30 percent of our instructors using
the system to raise flags on students,” said Ray Mercer, director
for virtual learning for Columbus Technical College. “Starfish
makes it easy for our counselors to ‘close the loop’
with the instructor who raises the flag. This simple step in the
process encourages instructors to continue to get involved, because
they know their concerns are being addressed.”
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