MWCC News & Events

MWCC News & Events: What's Up at the Mount

MWCC's weekly e-newsletter

Friday, Feb. 17, 2006

NEW YORK TIMES’ ‘DEMOCRACY IN ACTION’ PROGRAM STARTS TUESDAY

By Kimberly B. Caisse

Through a partnership between MWCC’s Center for Democracy and Humanity and the New York Times’ “American Democracy Project for Civic Engagement” initiative, students can pick up free copies of the New York Times around campus starting Tuesday, Feb. 21.

A limited number of this 88 Pulitzer-Prize-winning newspaper will be available to students weekdays at the student center, the cafeteria and other locations on campus.

In addition to the NYT’s daily news, students can read about specific topics throughout the week. It includes a business section on Mondays, the Science Times on Tuesdays, an education section on Wednesdays, the Circuits (technology) section on Thursdays and the Weekend section with articles on films and the arts on Fridays.

“The first step to students becoming civically engaged is to become more knowledgeable about their communities and interests,” said John Ryan, an education account manager at NYT, during a presentation to faculty and staff at a service-learning meeting in Room 127 on Monday, Feb. 13.

According to Kevin Cappallo, NYT’s national director of education sales, students prefer a hardcopy of a newspaper over reading them on the Internet. “How long does it take to boot up? How long does it take to close down? How long does it take to share with a friend?” he asked.

Through this initiative, MWCC students will also have access to the NYT college website (www.nytimes.com/college). With a search engine built on academic taxonomy, students can research articles by subject and features links to a broad range of research tools. NYT reporters use these links for their research.

The Center for Democracy and Humanity will support students in a club or class who organize a discussion relevant to news in the New York Times by providing refreshments during the meeting. They can contact Assistant Vice President of Public Affairs Lea Ann Erickson at ext. 322 or lerickson@mwcc.mass.edu or AmeriCorps VISTA Amanda Landry at ext. 564 or alandry@mwcc.mass.edu to make arrangements.

Faculty can use the newspaper and college-oriented website to supplement their instruction. Access to News Tracker, Newsroom Navigator and TimesSelect is free through this program. To gain free access to TimesSelect, students and faculty need an access code. Special access cards are available from Erickson in office 108 in the President’s Suite, by calling ext. 322 or by sending an email to lerickson@mwcc.mass.edu.

Students and faculty will also receive a 5 percent discount on New York Times books, such as “How Race is Lived in America, Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times” and “Scientific Conversations: Discussions with 38 Celebrated Scientists.”

LIVE FROM TORINO: BCT STUDENTS GET INSIDE SCOOP ON FILMING AND BROADCASTING OLYMPIC HOCKEY

By Kimberly B. Caisse


	Joel Anderson's television production students listen to Gabe Nucci talk about filming Olympic hockey while they watched Olympic footage in room W12.

Just after filming the men’s hockey game between Switzerland and Finland, freelance technical director Gabe Nucci took a break from dinner in Torino, Italy, to speak via cell phone with Joel Anderson’s television production students about his experience.

Nucci’s phone call at 11 a.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 15 was a bonus. Before he left, he set up a blog (http://olytorino.blogspot.com) to communicate with Broadcasting and Telecommunications students during his Olympics assignment.

Nucci said his 17-member crew was working out of one of two hockey parks and filming each game. Most of the cameras are operated by the Torino Olympic Broadcasting Organization, and their footage is sold to the networks covering the events. From these and several NBC cameras, NBC technicians decide what to show of the best games. “Whenever there’s a stop in the action, we may show our own replays,” he said.

The crew checks in around 9 a.m. Torino time to test the equipment, he added.

Any live footage United States viewers see is delayed six to seven seconds, as the footage is transmitted over fiber-optic cables and satellites between Torino, New York and cable operators across the country, Nucci said.

As the team’s technical director, Nucci said he unexpectedly found himself in a variety of new roles due to an outbreak of illness. He “tried to run tape” in one instance and “TV the show while another guy handled the tape operation” in another. In both cases, he was learning these skills on the fly.

Before filming could begin, the team spent five to six days completing their audio plan, which called for a combination of surround sound and stereo mixes and elements that allow the commentators to be edited out at a later date, he explained.

Nucci told the class he would stop by when he returned to the States. Then he had to go. “We’ll be cueing up for the third game soon,” he said.

COMMUNITY COLLEGES: A LEGACY OF HOPE AND OPPORTUNITY

By Daniel M. Asquino

Since their creation nearly 50 years ago, Massachusetts’ community colleges have become synonymous with hope and opportunity, and this legacy demands we play a unique role in higher education today.

People from all walks of life and with an assortment of interests, goals, skills and obligations can pass through our doors. Some come to start their college education. Others enroll in a class or two to learn a new skill. Still others, with bachelor’s or master’s degree in hand, want an entire set of new skills to take their professional life in a new direction.

At Mount Wachusett Community College and our sister colleges throughout the Commonwealth, we understand that to provide hope and opportunity to our students we must identify their needs, show them the benefits of furthering their education and help them reach their goals. Above all, we must be flexible.

We do this through our open enrollment policy. We do this by offering developmental courses and English as a Second Language courses to those who need them. We do this with our accelerated and evening courses. We accomplish this by providing an Honors Program for students with high GPAs. (And this is just a snapshot.)

Students attending community colleges typically balance school and homework with family and work. Often the only way to achieve this is by going to school part-time. That may mean taking one, two or three classes each semester.

Silvia Woodgett, who graduated last May on the deans list, is just one example of how MWCC gives people with a variety of commitments a sense of hope and opportunity. In combination with the staff at the North Central Massachusetts Educational Opportunity Center, we showed Silvia, who is raising four young grandchildren, that if she worked at it, she could succeed in college. “If I could do this, I could do anything,” Silvia said back in May. She’s now pursuing her bachelor’s degree.

Back in 1975, after earning her GED, the Rev. Susan Suchocki Brown balanced studying at MWCC with her family and work responsibilities. “I was scared to death,” she recalled. “But I remember immediately feeling comfortable.” Rev. Susan ultimately earned her associate’s degree from MWCC, her bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, and both her master’s and doctorate degrees from Andover Newton Theological School. Today, she teaches a comparative religion course for us.

In a perfect world, I would love see every one of our students return semester after semester until they graduate and/or transfer to a four-year college. But I know that life can throw us curves. Sometimes, it is college that takes a backseat and students “stop-out.” What is critical in these situations, I believe, is these students can return when their lives are back on track. Because of the nature of the community college system, they can pick up their studies where they left off.

At The Mount, we’re addressing some of the underlying reasons students “stop-out.” One common dilemma is child care. With $1 million from a generous donor, we can now provide child-care stipends to students who need this assistance.

While we continue to fulfill the community college mission and meet the myriad needs of our students, policy makers must embrace community college’s uniqueness and important purpose of offering hope and opportunity to all. The majority of our students cannot be pigeon-holed into an unrealistic graduation metric. Instead, they should be encouraged to meet their higher education goals, whatever they are, at a pace that makes sense to them.

* This column was first published in The Gardner News on Thursday, Feb. 2.

Dental Hygiene student Abby Brockelbank speaks to a patient after cleaning her teeth. Students recently began their clinical training, which involves treating patients of the Community Health Clinic Dental Services located next door to MWCC's program in Fitchburg.

Other MWCC News :

• Theatre at the Mount will hold auditions for the children’s musical Disney’s “Aladdin Jr.” by appointment only on Saturday, Feb. 18 at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. To schedule an appointment, call the Theatre at the Mount box office at (978) 632-2403 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., or email your appointment request to box-office@mwcc.mass.edu. Auditions will be held in room 182 at the Gardner campus.

• MWCC will host the 18th annual Girls High School Basketball Tournament, Saturday, Feb. 18, Sunday, Feb. 19 and Monday, Feb. 20, Wednesday, Feb. 22 and Thursday, Feb. 23, at the college’s Fitness & Wellness Center. Proceeds benefit player scholarships. One scholarship will be awarded to a player on each team. This year, 12 teams will participate: West Boylston, Lunenburg, Notre Dame, Tantasqua, Ayer, Narragansett, Bromfield, Littleton, Shepherd Hill, Nashoba, Gardner, and North Middlesex. Daily admission to the tournament is $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens. For more information, call (978) 630-9134.