Category — News Articles
Fundraising is critical at TNCC, president says
Friend-raising leads to fundraising, and Thomas Nelson Community College officials are mounting a big effort for both.
Raising money hasn’t always been a big part of the world of academia, but it’s essential there these days, says according to TNCC President Alvin Schexnider. This fall he has emphasized that as state budget cuts continue, the college will have to find ways to generate private donations.
October 15, 2009 Comments Off
Student ‘communities’ progress together at TNCC
Tabatha Hankerson isn’t sure she would have stayed at Thomas Nelson Community College if its Communities of Learning program wasn’t recommended.
Hankerson spent last spring as part of one of the communities, which are groups of students who attend classes together. Students are also set up with faculty and staff in common for support and extra help staying in school.
October 9, 2009 Comments Off
TNCC students learn about their majors in English class
Recognizing that generic material in an English class is, for some, akin to watching paint dry, Thomas Nelson Community College instructors have tailored some English classes for freshmen to specific areas of study.
So as classes started Saturday, TNCC put to the test the idea that reading and writing on topics related to a student’s future profession will hold attention longer.
English 111: College Composition I will be available to coincide with studies in science and technology, social science, business and accounting, liberal arts and pre-nursing, said college officials.
The new courses are part of TNCC’s Communities of Learning program, which helps students successfully transition into the college environment with a team of counselors, advisers and career planners.
It was launched about three years ago to help students in developmental, or noncredit, English classes.
August 25, 2009 Comments Off
TNCC Historic Triangle enrollment expected to blossom
Thomas Nelson Community College has conducted classes in various spaces around Williamsburg for a long time, but this fall it opens the first building on a permanent satellite campus there.
Tours are available to the public between now and Aug. 20. Classes start Aug. 22.
Future plans for the campus call for additional buildings if and when student enrollment demands it and state funds are available, said TNCC Historic Triangle Provost William Travis.
If trends hold, enrollment will continue to grow. Enrollment in classes conducted at the college’s Historic Triangle sites has steadily grown over the past three years, except for a slight drop from 738 students the spring semester of 2006 to 731 in the spring of 2007.
For the fall, 749 students were enrolled in 2006, 966 in 2007 and 1,117 in 2008.
In spring 2008, there were 850 students enrolled in classes, and that number rose to 1,102 this past spring. These numbers do not count students who are dual enrolled, which means they are high school students taking courses for college credit.
August 4, 2009 Comments Off
Steps simple to find help paying for community college
Applying for money to attend classes at Thomas Nelson Community College isn’t nearly as complicated as you might think, and there’s guidance available at every step, says Kathie Anderson.
Anderson’s the college’s director of financial aid, veterans’ affairs and scholarships. It’s where financial aid of all types stops and starts.
Anderson outlined the steps for a prospective student coming in with no money for classes. The goal is to exhaust every possible avenue for free money.
“The first thing we try to explain to students is it’s not that difficult if they follow the instructions,” Anderson said.
July 19, 2009 Comments Off
Community college officials thrilled with Obama proposal
Local community college presidents were as close to gushing as decorum allowed Wednesday and were still digesting the possibilities opened up by President Barack Obama’s proposal of increased funding for their schools a day earlier.
“We give him an A-plus,” said Deborah DiCroce, president of Tidewater Community College.
Continuing his attempts to bolster the sagging economy, Obama unveiled a plan Tuesday to infuse $12 billion into the country’s community colleges over the next 10 years. The “American Graduation Initiative” includes $9 billion in challenge grants to qualifying schools for new programs, or expanded training and counseling; $2.5 billion toward facilities renovation and construction; and $500 million for expansion of online education.
The president spoke of the importance of giving unemployed workers opportunities to be retrained for jobs that are in demand and of the increasing need for career and technical skills. His goal is for an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020, which is on top of the approximately 6 million students who attend such classes.
July 16, 2009 Comments Off
Newport News Notebook: have a conversation about poverty
BY SABINE HIRSCHAUER
9:54 PM EDT, July 14, 2009
If you can spare a minute or two and have a thought, an idea or opinion on how to fight poverty in your community, join in a conversation this weekend.
Act on Poverty is a poverty summit and a simultaneous conversation Saturday. The Peninsula location and time is from 10 a.m. to noon at Thomas Nelson Community College’s Peninsula Workforce Development Center. The sessions will be held in Rooms 1301 to 1303 at 600 Butler Farm Road in Hampton.
TNCC is one of the 26 community colleges across the state participating on Saturday.
Food for thought about poverty:
• Virginia has the 10th-lowest poverty rate nationwide, according to a recent 2009 American Community Survey, but that rate remained pretty much unchanged since 1989.
• About 50 percent of poor Virginians are white, nearly 37 percent are black and the rest are Hispanic and Asian.
• Most of poor Virginians — more than 20 percent — have less than a high school education, and nearly 70 percent of impoverished children live in families headed by a single mother.
On Saturday, people can also share their ideas via e-mail to poverty@governor.virginia.gov.
Act on Poverty will be the largest ever, simultaneous conversation focusing on fighting Virginia’s poverty, according to state officials.
For more information about Act on Poverty, go to www. hhr.virginia.gov/poverty summit
July 15, 2009 Comments Off
Students Look at STEM Career Options
HAMPTON -— Students had to return to classrooms in mid-summer, but fortunately for them, one physics project required riding roller coasters at Busch Gardens.
It was part of a camp designed to introduce a group of local high schoolers to career possibilities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Career coaches from Thomas Nelson Community College’s office of outreach and recruitment, who work with students in their schools, sponsored the event this week.
Time for New Career Choices: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) 101 included hands-on activities, presentations by professionals and field trips.
The STEM fields are receiving a lot of attention as areas where workers will be needed in the future. Both candidates for governor — Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell — have made training workers for those jobs a priority and the Virginia Business Higher Education Council’s recently launched Grow by Degrees initiative placed training workers in STEM fields among its seven areas of emphasis.
The subjects were a natural choice for a career-focused camp, said DeBorah Littlejohn, who works part-time at TNCC as one of the career coaches. Younger students may want to be a brain surgeon or an astronaut, so showing them more realistic alternatives where workers are needed locally is important.
“When we look at a focus for our camps, that’s exactly what we do — we look at what’s going to be needed and what is the demand,” said Littlejohn, who is assigned to Heritage High School and An Achievable Dream High School. “We look at our business and industry. We look at our business partners.
“We want to make sure that in helping them make a decision to choose a career, that it’s going to be something that they can give back into their own community.”
July 10, 2009 Comments Off
