Newsmakers

Accomplishments by faculty and staff

Miramar College math professor Norris Charles was recently selected as Morehouse College’s Alumnus of the Year for his “dedication, commitment to the college, and active participation in community affairs.” Charles, a 1967 graduate of Morehouse, was a naval aviator during the Vietnam conflict. Over the years, Charles has been a prominent and active member of the local and national alumni association, serving as regional vice-president for two terms.

P. Darrel Harrison, paralegal program director at Miramar College, has been asked to author a regular column, “A Paralegal’s Perspective” in “The Paralegal Education” quarterly newsletter, the official publication of the American Association for Paralegal Educators. The association represents more than 800 schools, colleges and universities across the nation that offer paralegal education.

Thurber Proffitt, an adjunct history professor at City, Mesa and ECC, is at Trinity Western University, British Columbia, Canada, this semester teaching African-American and U.S.-Latin American relations under the Fulbright scholarship program. While there, Proffitt will research U.S.-Canada border issues to complement his studies of U.S.-Mexico border concerns.

Al Taccone, dean for the Mesa College School of Business, Computer Studies and Technologies, was elected Chair of the Region X (San Diego and Imperial Counties) Occupational Deans Committee. The group has to approve all vocational curricula for the region before the college may send them to the State Chancellor’s Office for review.

Bill Armstrong, Continuing Education’s research director, co-authored an entry about transfer students for the Encyclopedia of Higher Education in the United States (ABC Publishers), which will come off the presses in spring 2001. The definition encompasses persistence, success rate/graduation rate, number of students who transfer and transition issues.

North City Center English as a second language (ESL) teacher Eileen Schwartz is publishing an ESL game called “Grid It” and a text “Word Movements” through Alta Publishing.

Barbara Raifsnider, ESL teacher at West City Center, has recently published through Random House Publishers American English Pronunciation Program for Speakers of English as a Second Language and Native Speakers of English with Strong Regional Accents, as part of its Living Language series.

Gretchen Bitterlin, ESL resource instructor for Continuing Ed, chaired the national TESOL [Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages] Task Force on Adult Education Program Standards. The resulting “Program Standards for Adult Education ESOL Programs” has been published and the task force is now developing an ESOL program self-review instrument to accompany the standards.

Mesa professor Leroy Quintana’s latest book, The Great Whirl of Exile, won Best Book of Poetry in 2000 from the San Diego Book Awards Association. The book, containing poems of Chicano history, was the subject of a recent cable ITV special. Quintana has also been named to the University of Oklahoma advisory board “Chicano/a Visions of the Americas.”

Lynne Ornelas, Mesa College CalWORKs associate dean, will co-present the workshop “Collaborating with the Enemy” on Dec. 11 at the CalWORKs Partnership Conference, at the San Diego Marriot Hotel. Also presenting will be Lori Crosby, Continuing Education CalWORKs associate dean. Ornelas and Crosby intend to dispel the myth that community colleges and welfare reform are working at cross-purposes. They will use successful aspects of their programs to demonstrate a continuum of educational and employment opportunities for county-referred welfare recipients.

Pete Stafford, curriculum writer for Continuing Education and an instructor of welfare-to-work students for Mid-City Center, was approached by Prentice Hall to write an ESL study guide for machine tool practices. The study guide teaches machine nomenclature and technical English, and exercises students with many examples of job-related contextual language. Two audiocassette tapes for teaching shop-related vocabulary, conversation and writing accompany the book. The pages are illustrated with clear drawings of tools and machines. Safety and job-specific mathematics are also stressed.

Gregory Newhouse is the new manager of Miramar College’s Advanced Transportation Technology Center (ATTC) activities. ATTC is one of only 10 California centers dedicated to promoting advanced transportation technology, alternative fuel, and intelligent transportation system concepts and training to local governmental agencies and business. Prior to accepting the Miramar post, Newhouse led the Environmental Protection Office, Energy Facilities Siting Division of the California Energy Commission and was executive director for the San Diego Regional Energy Office.

Pamela S. Perkins, associate professor of speech communication at City College, was keynote speaker for University of Redlands Alumni Retreat, at the University of Redlands this summer. The presentation was entitled “Reaching Out: Communi-cating Within Cultural Boundaries.” They asked her to present on increasing the alumni volunteer pool considering the changing demographics of their institutional population. It was a enthusiastically received.

City College professor Theresa Savarese became a MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) authorized instructor this summer. In order to qualify, Savarese passed Microsoft-certified exams at both the core and expert levels in Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint using the Office 2000 suite.

Miramar College recently split the previous School of Business, Technology and Math in two parts. Berta Cuaron now heads the School of Business, Math and Science; and Mary Benard will oversee the School of Technical Careers and Workforce Development, which includes aviation, automotive, diesel, child development, workforce development and work experience. Benard brings to her new job more than 15 years of experience developing and implementing workforce programs and services. She has been director of targeted adult programs at the San Diego Workforce Partnership and has led the countywide effort to develop and implement the Department of Labor funded welfare-to-work programs in San Diego County.

Constance Carroll, president of Mesa College, was recently appointed to the state Department of Education Professional Development Task Force. Earlier this month in Washington, D.C., Carroll spoke at the National Endowment for the Humanities advisory meeting on the humanities in community colleges. And on Oct. 22 she will be the opening speaker for the California Assessment Institute, co-sponsored by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, the state Chancellor’s Office and other statewide organizations.

Curt McCarty, City College distance education faculty coordinator, received a Certificate of Recognition from the telecourse production agency InTeleCom for his distance education work. The district has been affiliated with InTeleCom, which provides most of the telecourses offered by City College, since 1993. McCarty was elected to its board of directors in 1999.

City College professor David Kater and student-athlete Martha Torres were winners of the 4th Annual Mixed Doubles Spring Tennis Championships at the college. They eased out the student-athlete team of Alex Bernhardt and Claudia Bidales with a score of 8-6. Consolation winners were alumnus and former student trustee Mark Jones and student Karen Gaar, who defeated professor Jake Molina and student-athlete Marcia Vieira 8-6.

Rosemary White-Pope, instructor of older adult classes for ECC, has been named to receive the 10Leadership Award for volunteering 30 years of her life to improving the lives of senior citizens in San Diego. She teaches consumer education and lifelong social issues at the Lazell Residence and Golden Age Apartments in South San Diego. She’s involved in implementing a nutrition program for seniors that provides discounted or free lunches for those in the community, starting an intergenerational program that matches seniors with young people, and founding a senior volunteer program where seniors work with other seniors.

Peggy Lipscomb, foods and nutrition instructor at West City Center, has had her cookbook Microwave/Convection Cooking on the Go reviewed in community papers as far away as Oregon and New Jersey. Just recently, Lipscomb, who’s been teaching microwave cooking for the past 20 years, has been featured, along with her students, in the foods section of the San Diego Union, and had Rod Luck of KUSI, Channel 51, follow her class on his program. Lipscomb is currently teaching “Fast, Easy Cooking for 1 or 2 People.”