The One-Stop Center which will open in NECC\u2019s new El Hefni Health & Technology Center in Lawrence will be named the \u201cMary Ellen Ashley Career Planning and Advising Center\u201d in honor of Mary Ellen Ashley, NECC\u2019s executive vice president.<\/p>\n
Trustees voted unanimously to approve this decision which was supported by Ashley\u2019s management staff, NECC President Lane Glenn, and the All College Assembly Executive Committee.<\/p>\n
Ashley\u2019s management staff wrote, \u201cIt is most fitting that NECC acknowledge Mary Ellen Ashley\u2019s contributions to the college, the community, and our students by naming the Lawrence Campus One-Stop Student Center in her honor.\u00a0 She is passionate about the one-stop student center concept, and has done so much to enhance the experience for our students in both Haverhill and Lawrence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley has worked at Northern Essex for 17 years.\u00a0 Under her leadership, Northern Essex\u2019s Lawrence Campus was designated as the first Hispanic Serving Institution in New England in 2001.\u00a0 As a result, the college became eligible for funding under the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Title V Developing Hispanic Serving Institutions Program.\u00a0 The college received $2.2 million in 2002 to develop a One-Stop Center in Lawrence which is referred to as the Career Planning and Advising Center (CPAC) and $2.7 million in 2011 to enhance the services offered through the Lawrence CPAC and to create a Student Success Center to address the needs of the most at-risk students.<\/p>\n
Ethel Schuster, computer science faculty, returned to campus this fall after spending a sabbatical year at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Schuster focused her sabbatical on researching successful techniques used in the writing of scientific papers and on exploring Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCS.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students have to write lab reports and technical papers,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m bringing back techniques that will help them write better scientific publications.\u201d<\/p>\n
While on sabbatical, Schuster took five MOOCs which are online courses with unlimited participation and open access via the web.\u00a0 \u201cMy goal was to explore what it is like to design, create, and implement a MOOC, and how MOOCs may assist faculty in creating learning-centered environments in their courses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuster says her \u201cdream\u201d is to create a MOOC at Northern Essex.<\/p>\n
Ken Langer, music professor and coordinator of the music program, spent last spring creating 14 books of original music using desktop music writing software that his students will be using in class.\u00a0\u00a0 The books are complemented by YouTube videos that allow the students to hear the music being played.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be able to assign students my own works, and they can ask me, the professor and composer, questions directly in class,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Northern Essex is leading community colleges across the state in deferred maintenance, according to NECC President Lane Glenn.<\/p>\n
When you look at the college\u2019s net asset value, which measures the condition of a campus, the college is last in the state, falling in the \u201ccatch-up\u201d stage which indicates that buildings need significant repairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a $90 million deferred maintenance back log. It\u2019s not that we don\u2019t work at it, we do, but we need to have a more aggressive strategy as far as cost so we can address this.\u201d<\/p>\n
At $162 a credit hour, Northern Essex\u2019s cost is the third lowest of the Commonwealth\u2019s 15 community colleges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one of the lowest cost colleges in the state, and we\u2019re proud of this but it\u2019s coming at a tremendous price,\u201d said Glenn.<\/p>\n
Northern Essex will have a new health care option in the fall of 2014 after trustees voted unanimously to approve an Electronic Health Records Specialist certificate program.<\/p>\n
The certificate program will prepare students to be medical records and health information technicians for hospitals, physicians\u2019 offices, nursing care facilities, and home health services.<\/p>\n
Employment opportunities for people trained with these skills are expected to increase by 21 percent from now until 2020 as the field transforms from paper to electronic health records, according to information which was given to trustees.<\/p>\n
Students who complete the program will be able to continue on to the Health Information Technology Associate Degree at Northern Essex.<\/p>\n
Trustees voted unanimously to approve Kathleen Pucci, assistant professor, Nursing; Angela Bowers, assistant professor, Medical Imaging, and Tina Favara, interim dean of enrollment services.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The One-Stop Center which will open in NECC\u2019s new El Hefni Health & Technology Center in Lawrence will be named the \u201cMary Ellen Ashley Career Planning and Advising Center\u201d in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n