Here’s a small buffet of news items that are or may affect Virginia’s Community Colleges and the people and communities they serve:

According to USA Today, your community college should be chatting you up on Facebook and Twitter:

The survey found higher levels of engagement among students who said they used social media multiple times a day for academic purposes, such as communicating with other students, instructors or college staff about coursework, than students who said they don’t use such tools at all.  It also revealed a potential downside for colleges that don’t harness the technology: Students who frequently used social-networking tools but not for academic reasons tended to put less effort into their schoolwork.

E.J Dionne at the Washington Post says the federal government is about to lose a lot of skill and institutional knowledge to retirement so it might just create an ROTC-styled program for government service:

That’s the idea of a bipartisan group of senators and House members, who are proposing to create a Roosevelt Scholars program, named after Teddy Roosevelt. Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Mike Castle (R-Del.) have introduced a bill in the House, and a similar measure is expected in the Senate this week from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio).

Although there is sentiment to include undergraduates in the program, the House bill is aimed at graduate students because the federal government has a special demand for highly qualified employees who are otherwise attracted (and heavily recruited) by the private sector. In exchange for generous scholarships in fields such as engineering, information technology, foreign languages and public health, the scholars would commit to three to five years of service in an agency of the federal government.

Over the weekend, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a story about the plight of Virginia’s foster youth, reminding us why the VCCS Great Expectations program was created:

Only 3 percent of people who have been through foster care will earn a four-year college diploma, the report says, far below the 28 percent of the general population who will.

Virginia’s Community Colleges are launching a reengineering taskforce to look for way to improve and optimize the way they operate:

The taskforce is being charged to, “Seek new ways of doing our work, to become smarter in our investments of people and talent and technology, to better leverage our combined size and resources, to restructure our work patterns and habits, and to break down barriers to change and improvement, without making changes to our fundamental governance and organizational structure.”

And talk about ending on a good note, despite last year featuring the toughest economy since WWII, the 24 foundations that support Virginia’s Community Colleges awarded nearly $6 million in scholarships:

“These stories are moving and they are pervasive throughout the individual foundations that are serving our community colleges,” said Jennifer Gentry, VCCS vice chancellor and executive director of the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education.  “There is nothing easy right now about building the relationships that are necessary to raising money and creating opportunities…  But the leadership of our foundations is working hard and they have a lot to show for it.”

Posted by Jeffrey Kraus