Lane Glenn, NECC president, and Clara Benedicto, USAD director of cooperation and international relations, sign agreement, watched by Noemi Custodia-Lora, NECC (left in photo) and Julio Sepulveda, USAD (right in photo).

On Wednesday, August 12, Northern Essex Community College (NECC), with campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, MA, signed a historic agreement with the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), the public university system of the Dominican Republic at a ceremony held at 420 Common St., Lawrence.

In addition to creating faculty, staff, and student exchanges, the agreement includes transfer agreements between the two colleges, allowing local residents with credits from the university to seamlessly transfer those credits to Northern Essex and graduates of Northern Essex to transfer to the university.

“This agreement has the potential to improve a lot of lives,” said NECC President Lane Glenn.

According to Glenn, 38 percent of Northern Essex’s student population is Hispanic and the great majority is of Dominican descent.

“Many local residents carry credits with them from the university,” said Glenn. “Those credits will now have the potential to transfer into certificates and associate degrees at Northern Essex.”

Established in 1538, the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo is the oldest university in America. With 17 campuses and 200,000 students, it offers 119 undergraduate programs, 73 master degree programs, and PhD programs. With 2 campuses and close to 7,000 credit students, Northern Essex was founded in 1962 and has 70 certificate and associate degree programs

This will be the first agreement between the UASD and a Massachusetts college, and the first collaboration in the United States to include articulation and transfer.

Representing the university at the signing was Dr. Clara Benedicto, director cooperation and international relations. “There are many Dominicans in Massachusetts who want to continue careers, careers they abandoned because they immigrated, primarily for economic reasons. They know education is the way to progress and grow.”

State Representative Marcos Devers, who graduated from UASD with a civil engineering degree in 1978 and has also taken courses at Northern Essex, spoke on behalf of the many local residents who are UASD alumni. “I’m twice proud. As an alumnus, I feel joy seeing this dream come true.”

State Senator Barbara L’Italien who serves on the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Higher Ed Committee, said “It’s wonderful that people who have invested in higher ed will not be losing credits. I’m very interested in finding ways for people to access higher ed.”

For additional information on the agreement, contact Noemi Custodia-Lora, director of the Lawrence Campus and community relations, ncustodialora@necc.mass.edu or 978 738-7401.

With campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, Northern Essex Community College offers over 70 associate degree and certificate programs as well as hundreds of noncredit courses designed for personal enrichment and career growth. More than 7,000 students are enrolled in credit associate degree and certificate programs on the Haverhill and Lawrence campuses; and another 6,700 take noncredit workforce development and community education classes on campus, and at businesses and community sites across the Merrimack Valley. Northern Essex is the only state college located in the lower Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts. For more information, visit the website at www.necc.mass.edu.

Engineering Professor Jim Cahaly brings hands-on experience into the NECC classroom.

With seven patents and 32 years in the engineering field, Jim Cahaly has a hands-on kind of knowledge that he easily shares with his engineering students.

He became interested in engineering as a child growing up during the space race of the 1960s. Cahaly says he watched the Apollo missions with awe.

“Like so many other children of my generation, I was so enthralled by these feats of engineering that I was inspired to become an engineer,” he says.

Now, as a professor in NECC’s Engineering Program, it is Cahaly who inspires others to become engineers.

From those early Apollo days, Cahaly went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Amherst and a Master’s in Business Administration from Babson College.

As an engineer, he says, he has had the privilege of witnessing the beginning as well as the evolution of many products. He worked on two patents for the emerging automotive airbag industry, four patents in the factory automation industry, and one patent in the solar power industry.

“There really is always something new and interesting to work on,” he says.

There are many engineering opportunities locally, he says, the areas of biomedical, civil, computer systems, and networking engineers are among the fastest growing fields in the Boston area.

Cahaly started teaching physics at NECC in 2002. By 2011 he added engineering design classes. But his teaching days really started more than 30 years ago, he says, when as a professional engineer he was tasked with teaching the new, incoming, young, engineers the ways of the engineering world.

“It was wonderful to watch these young people begin to expand their creativity in developing new and innovative products,” he says. “I love that moment when I see that ‘light’ turn on in a student’s eyes when for the first time they feel empowered to actually create a new and innovative design from only their imagination. Once turned on, that light rarely ever goes out.”

His students can expect to work on “real world problems” like designing a two-stroke engine or a smart phone holder while listening to the strains of Bach or Mozart.

“I assign problems and projects that students are accustomed to seeing every day,” he says.

Free online English classes for adults who want to improve their English as well as learn about American culture will be offered through Northern Essex Community College in October.

Online or distance learning classes offer English language learners the opportunity to take classes at their convenience. These classes are designed for the student who cannot attend a traditional class or are looking for additional ways to learn English.

The Learning English at a Distance (LEAD) program uses a web-based site that provides basic and intermediate English classes. Students learn English, improve their vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, and speaking and life skills. They work with a teacher who monitors and corrects their work.

Interested individuals should attend one of the distance learning program registration days on August 24^th or August 26^th from 5 to 7 p.m. at NECC Riverwalk, 360 Merrimack Street, Building 9, Entry K, Room 312.

Admission to the Distance Learning Program is based on a placement test given at registration.

For more information contact Marsha Parinussa Flynn, NECC’s ESOL & Bridge Program Coordinator, at mflynn@necc.mass.edu or call 978-659-1279.

This program is funded by the Adult and Community Learning Services Massachusetts, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Allison Andrukaitis of Andover will be stepping into a medical lab tech position when she completes the program this summer.

Two iHealth@NECC associate degree programs, Health Information Technology and Medical Laboratory Technology, both of which are designed to move individuals from the classroom into high demand careers, will be highlighted during information sessions on Tuesday, August 11, at 4:30 p.m. and Tuesday, August 25, at 10 a.m. in the Northern Essex Community College iHealth building 52 Franklin St., Lawrence.

Faculty and staff will be available to discuss the Health Information Technology and Medical Laboratory Technology programs as well as all iHealth programs offered through iHealth@NECC.

Health information technology, one of iHealth’s newer programs, trains individuals to be guardians of patients’ health care records. The records, also known as health informatics, are valuable, private documents that chronicle a patient’s medical history. At NECC, Health Information Technology students learn how to properly acquire, store, and retrieve, this healthcare information.

Medical Laboratory Technology is another popular program. Medical lab technicians perform and report laboratory testing and work in hospitals, physician’s offices, and clinical laboratories.

“Building and delivering programs that meet community and student needs is what we are about at NECC,” says NECC Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Bill Heineman.

For additional information on these two programs or all iHealth@NECC programs, contact Linda Comeau at 978-738-7408.