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The Daily Independent
February 3, 2005
Farmers learn to use today's essential tool
COALTON Farming. It's a tough way of life.
Up early, feed and water the stock, plow the field, boot up the computer ...
Boot up the computer?
Yep, the PC has joined the John Deere as one of today's essential farm implements,
and some northeast Kentucky farmers are learning how to maneuver through cyberspace
as effectively as they guide their tractors down the rows of corn.
In a class at Ashland Community and Technical College's EastPark campus, they're
learning to use their computers to manage their herds, keep their books, order
their supplies and even sell their produce.
The class is offered through an $80,000 state grant to the Kentucky Community
and Technical College System to offer courses to farmers in tobacco-dependent
counties.
As part of the grant, the farmers taking the course get to keep the computers
they use in class.
Most of them already know computer basics so, except for a few neophytes, they
can skip over the what-is-a-mouse phase and get straight into how the computer
can help them run their farm.
Randy Lowe, for instance, raises beef cattle on a spread in the Kavanaugh area
in southern Boyd County.
He's a Lexington firefighter for whom farming is a sideline, and so far not
a profitable one.
So if his computer will help him make his operation more cost-effective, it's
worth taking the course, he said.
Further, tracking his herd and keeping his books with a computer will save
him time, he said. "Most farmers around here have other jobs. They have
limited time."
Instructor John McGlone introduced his students to accounting and spreadsheets,
software designed for farm use, and the internet.
Having a farm background himself - McGlone has a small beef cattle operation,
is a graduate of the Kentucky Master Cattlemen Program, and active in Boyd County
4-H - he was able to tailor his accounting presentation to farm needs.
For instance, he was able to show students how accounting software can organize
their expenses for tax purposes by category, like fuel and feed and fertilizer.
His internet presentation focused on searches and sites most likely to provide
valuable farm information and resources.
That's essential, said Jim Crace, who is retired from the information technology
business but relatively new to farming. He's recently launched a cattle-breeding
operation in the Bolts Fork area.
"There are thousands of farm- and agriculture-related Web sites out there.
This is helping me find them. Otherwise I'd have to dig them out on my own,"
he said.
There's a growing trend to maintaining computer databases of animals for breeding
purposes and also because of threats like mad cow disease, he said.
Chris Boggs is an ACTC professor who specializes in information technology.
His own early background, he said, is in farming. "I grew up in farming
and it's real backbreaking work. The ability to integrate technology can assist
(farmers) in taking some of that load off their backs.
"It's working smarter, not harder," he said.
The Internet is increasingly a tool for buying and selling, said Missy Branham,
who was taking the class with her parents, Ray and Phyllis Sammons of Rush.
Branham and her parents raise beef cattle and horses.
They can buy hay and corn and market their animals the same way consumers buy
merchandise.
An agriculture teacher at Lawrence County High School, Branham thinks farmers
need to keep up with technology like anyone else.
She expects the accounting segment of the course to be particularly useful.
Currently their records repository consists of a box for receipts, she said.
McGlone is teaching a second class under the grant this month. It's already
filled up. If there's further interest, ACTC may offer future classes for farmers,
but without the grant money they wouldn't include free computers, he said.
The Henderson Gleaner
February 3, 2005
Local health fair big draw
The specially-equipped military Humvee and ever-so-realistic flight simulator
drew them just as Uncle Sam had anticipated.
And when the various "nieces" and "nephews" of the world's
most famous uncle explored those unique attractions at Henderson Community College's
annual Health Careers Fair Wednesday, they discovered the multitude of healthy
opportunities offered by the U.S. Army.
Captain Tony Taylor noted that the Army is in need of RNs, LPNs, X-ray and
lab technicians, physical therapists and other medical personnel and is more
than willing to educate them -- provided they qualify physically, academically
and morally for that training.
Already-educated health care professionals are eligible for a possible direct
commission, Taylor said, with the higher pay that status includes.
Uniformed recruiters were at the college because of the day's emphasis on health
care opportunities, but Taylor said they weren't really focusing "on one
particular profession." That flight simulator, for instance, could be the
first step in identifying potential helicopter pilots to fly what Taylor called
"the $14 million Apache or $7 million Black Hawk."
A black tent with the words "An Army of One" saw plenty of visitors,
but so did the 19 booths manned by health careers recruiters from this area
and as far away as Louisville and Cincinnati.
In fact, students and others began flooding the campus Fine Arts Center's corridors
half an hour before the 10 a.m. fair was scheduled to begin.
"Next year I need to bring more stuff," sighed Carol Phebus, assistant
director of West Area Health Education Center in Madisonville. Phebus, who promotes
health care careers in 14 school districts -- including Henderson -- noted that
even the coloring books she'd brought along for youngsters were all gone from
her table.
Phebus still had some "Health Career Opportunities" brochures that
were going fast. They list the pay range for various health care occupations
in this area, and raise a few eyebrows. A number of careers requiring only two
years of training have potential annual salaries of as much as $50,000.
But Chardae Chambers, a Henderson County High senior in the Health Science
Program, intends to take a longer educational route -- six years -- to become
a nurse practitioner specializing in OB/GYN. Nurse practitioners in this area
reportedly have a starting salary range of $51,000-$76,800 in 2005.
Mary Frances Conn, a second year student in HCC's associate degree nursing
program, already knows where she wants to work: Evansville State Hospital, which
had a booth at the fair. "I loved my clinical rounds there," she said.
"I fell in love with the people."'
Registered nurses find themselves in a buyer's market, particularly in areas
where nursing shortages are more critical.
Methodist Hospital recruiter Jan Vibbert said the local hospital is finding
the shortage easing, but St. Mary's recruiter Amanda Mason said that large medical
entity always needs nurses.
Vibbert was promoting the local hospital's scholarship program, which provides
funding for various health career occupations and requires that the graduate
be employed by the hospital here "six months for each (paid) semester."
RiverValley Behavioral Health recruiter Kathleen Burton reported that agency's
Owensboro psychiatric hospital for children is adding a new 24-bed unit this
spring and will need 16 additional employees.
Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati recruiter Sandy Richter drove nearly
four hours to man a booth at the fair, but said that's hardly any distance compared
to some of her recruiting trips. Her territory, she said, "is pretty much
the eastern half of the U.S."
Richter said Health Alliance is a six-hospital system that is experiencing
a nursing shortage. "There's always a need," she said. "I've
heard some project that the shortage will last another 10-20 years in the U.S.
I hope they're wrong."
Owensboro Community College radiography student Jason Boone asked if Richter
was taking resumes. "Absolutely!" she replied, adding that if he should
become a Health Alliance employee, "We do pay for your move."
The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 3, 2005
President Bush calls for bigger Pell Grants, more job training at 2-year colleges,
and less federal spending
In his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Bush called
for increasing the size of the Pell Grant, expanding job training at community
colleges, and reining in federal spending.
The speech to a joint session of Congress, which focused mostly on Social Security
and national security, barely touched on higher-education issues. When the president
did talk about colleges or federal funds for research, he provided few details
of his plans or reiterated what he has said in the past.
Of most interest to colleges is the president's plan for Pell Grants. The maximum
grant has remained at $4,050 for the past three years because the appropriations
have not been enough to keep up with an unexpected surge in demand for the awards.
"We will make it easier for Americans to afford a college education by
increasing the size of Pell Grants," Mr. Bush said Wednesday night.
Last month, at an appearance in Jacksonville, Fla., President Bush said he
would seek to raise the maximum grant by $500, to $4,550, over the next five
years, and eliminate a $4.3-billion shortfall that has plagued the student-aid
program (The Chronicle, January 17). But Mr. Bush is not expected to call for
additional money for the program when he releases his budget request for the
2006 fiscal year on Monday. Rather, he has said that he will seek to generate
savings by making changes in the federal government's guaranteed-student-loan
program.
Indeed, Mr. Bush made it clear during the State of the Union speech that he
plans to take aim at government spending in his budget request. "Next week
I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below
inflation," he told Congress.
The budget, he said, will reduce or eliminate 150 government programs. While
he did not mention any by name, higher-education advocates have told The Chronicle
that two of them will be Upward Bound and Talent Search, popular programs that
help needy students prepare for college (The Chronicle, January 24).
What is not clear is whether the president will propose spending any new money
on job training. In his speech, Mr. Bush proposed helping 200,000 workers "get
training for a better career, by reforming our job-training system and strengthening
America's community colleges." The president offered no specific dollar
figure for the plan and did not say how it differed from the $250-million in
federal funds that he pledged to community colleges in last year's State of
the Union address. Budget cuts in other job-training programs eventually resulted
in a net loss in the federal funds community colleges get for training workers
(The Chronicle, March 19, 2004).
The president said that his 2006 budget would make the tax cuts enacted over
the past several years permanent and he asked Congress to work with him on making
major revisions in the tax laws "to give this nation a tax code that is
pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all."
A commission appointed by Mr. Bush to look at changing the tax code is expected
to issue its report this summer. Last week a Congressional panel that performed
a broad review of the tax code recommended several changes that would affect
higher-education institutions, including removing the tax exemption for tuition
benefits provided to college employees.
On Wednesday night Mr. Bush also repeated his support for research that does
"not take advantage of some lives for the benefit of others."
"America," Mr. Bush said, "will continue to lead the world in
medical research that is ambitious, aggressive, and always ethical."
The president did not specifically mention his controversial policy of providing
federal funds for only a limited set of embryonic stem cells. But he did say
that he would "work with Congress to ensure that human embryos are not
created for experimentation or grown for body parts."
Opinions in Congress are split on "therapeutic" cloning, the use
of cloning techniques to create embryolike cells to provide a source of stem
cells, a tool that biomedical researchers say is important to advance stem-cell
research.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 3, 2005
Republicans in U.S. House introduce bill to renew Higher Education Act that
mirrors last year's
The Republican leaders of the education committee in the U.S. House of Representatives
on Wednesday introduced a bill to renew the Higher Education Act that is nearly
identical to legislation they offered last year.
Efforts by the leaders of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce
to push the earlier bill (HR 4283) through the chamber died last summer amid
partisan bickering over a controversial provision that would have changed how
the interest rate is calculated for borrowers who consolidate federal student
loans. The change would have made the program less attractive to borrowers.
Congressional observers said at the time that the House Republican leadership
would not allow the legislation to reach the House floor, out of concern that
it would give Democrats ammunition to use against the White House and Republicans
in Congress during an election year (The Chronicle, July 2, 2004).
Rep. John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who heads the House committee, included
the provision -- which would prevent borrowers who wish to refinance their loans
from being able to lock in a low, fixed interest rate, as they can now -- in
the new version of the legislation (HR 507).
Mr. Boehner has repeatedly said that the billions of dollars that the government
provides in subsidies each year to keep the costs of fixed-rate consolidation
loans cheaper for borrowers would be better spent giving more benefits to current
and future students. With that in mind, he said, savings from the change would
be used to offset the costs to the government of other proposals in the bill
that would benefit students, such as an increase in the amount they are allowed
to borrow in their first two years of college and a cut in the origination fees
they must pay to obtain their loans.
In a news release, Mr. Boehner said that the committee intended to pass "revenue
neutral" legislation that would pay for itself by making "common-sense
reforms," rather than by adding to the federal budget deficit.
"We need to reform federal higher-education aid programs to put incoming
low and middle-income students back at the front of the line," he said.
"The Higher Education Act's first mission is to improve college access
for low and middle-income students. It has drifted away from that focus over
the years, at the expense of the very students it was written to serve. We've
got to change that."
But Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized
the consolidation proposal, which he said "would make college even more
expensive for students."
"I hope to work with Chairman Boehner to find common ground where we can,"
Mr. Miller said. "But I will oppose any changes to the law that raise the
price of college."
Specifically, the legislation would increase the loan limits for freshmen to
$3,500, from $2,625, and for sophomores to $4,500, from $3,500. The total borrowing
ceiling for undergraduates would remain at $23,000. It would also reduce the
origination fees students pay on their loans from 3 percent of the amount borrowed
to 1 percent.
The bill would also:
Keep the authorized level for the maximum Pell Grant, set by Congress in 1998,
at $5,800 over the next six years. (The figure is a ceiling that appropriators
cannot exceed when setting actual grant levels each year. The current maximum
grant is $4,050.)
Make Pell Grants available to students year-round, rather than only over the
nine months of a traditional academic year.
Gradually phase out a part of the formula that the government uses to divvy
up funds from three programs -- College Work-Study, Perkins Loans, and Supplemental
Educational Opportunity Grants -- that essentially guarantees colleges the same
share of money that they have received since the 1970s.
Place colleges that consistently raise their tuition and other costs of attendance
by more than twice the rate of inflation on a government watch list, and require
them to provide a detailed accounting of all of their costs and expenditures.
Eliminate a provision in the law that requires for-profit institutions to earn
at least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than federal student-aid
funds.
Clarify that student-aid applicants who have been convicted of drug-related
offenses are ineligible for federal student aid only if the offenses were committed
while they were attending college.
The education committee's leaders are expected to resume holding hearings on
the legislation this month. They have said that they would like to bring the
bill to the House floor this spring for a vote. The Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions has not yet begun work on its version of the
legislation yet.
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