Jim Lane, dean the 19 credit hours will count toward their bachelor’s degree at the university and their associate’s degree at JCCC. The arrangement helps JCCC by improving the college’s completer rate. Many students take two years of classes at JCCC and are just one or two courses away from the degree when they transfer to a four-year school. Community colleges are under more pressure nationally to become accountable, and Kansas legislators and college leaders want to increase the number of students who earn degrees. University officials will notify all students who are eligible for the JCCC degree during their first semester at the four-year school. JCCC staff will then review the student’s transcript to determine if the university classes will count toward a JCCC degree. JCCC, as well as two other Kansas schools, is among 15 community colleges in six states participating in a collaborative project on developing Asian studies curricula. JCCC will serve as the project’s Kansas coordinator, with Dodge City Community College and Butler Community College, Eldorado, also participating. The three-year project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of its “Bridging Cultures” initiative for community colleges, is being coordinated by the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. A core group of 45 faculty members and administrators from the 15 schools will work with the East-West Center’s Asian Studies Development
Program to create new course syllabi, Web resources and public outreach activities exploring how different Asian societies approach issues of cultural difference. The project, which will focus on China and Southeast Asia, will explore how the arts, literature, knowledge systems, religious traditions and trade serve as cultural bridges; how different conceptions of personhood and community affect issues of cultural plurality; and how Asian perspectives on cultural difference might complement those that are prevalent in American undergraduate classrooms. The program is for community colleges, highlighting the fact that such institutions serve the broadest spectrum of Americans, including both college-age students and those returning to school later in life, often with an interest in developing new employment skills and knowledge. JCCC’s Continuing Education branch has developed a new pharmacy technician program in an effort to fill the growing need for trained help in area pharmacies. The program is the first of its kind at a community college in this area. The certificate takes approximately three semesters to complete and includes 600 contact hours. Nearly half of those hours are served as an extern, with more than 100 hours in a retail or community pharmacy, and more than 100 additional hours in an institutional pharmacy, such as in a hospital. Certificate holders will be ready to take the national certification examination offered by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board.
During the last 20 years, a backstage office in the Carlsen Center was a second home for Jim Lane. From that hideaway, Lane prepared for the theatre classes he taught, designed sets as the designer/technical director for theatre productions, and helped run the music and theatre departments at JCCC. When you add in the evenings and weekends that he stayed late for rehearsals, you might understand why he considers his faculty and staff as his “brothers and sisters.” “We’re all just a big family,” Lane said. This year, Lane’s “family” grew significantly. As the new dean of arts, humanities and social sciences, the biggest division at the college, he is in charge not only of his replacement as chair of the music/theatre department but also of the heads of 12 other departments. Lane says he’s going to miss the theatre but anticipates the new challenges. Obviously, he said, one of them will be operating in a rocky economy with fewer dollars available to serve an increasing number of students. He also expects to be learning how to resolve conflicts, which could involve anything from a student’s grade to a disagreement among faculty. His goal, he said, will be to take care of the administrative chores so the faculty “can be the best teachers they can be.”
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