Free event to encourage environmental awareness

June 15, 2012 By

When Kevin Archdeacon, 28, took the Ohio Fellows humanities approach to leadership course, it inspired him to want to help Sinclair students become passionate about protecting and sustaining water resources and become more aware of the environment.

Archdeacon, who is a chemistry major at Sinclair, said that the course was environmentally based and required him to do a service learning project. For his project, he has to display leadership. So he is bringing his passion for the Miami River and the environment to Sinclair on June 7, in the basement of Building 8, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The event will have live music and free food. The Fair Shakes, a local band, and Sinclair student performers will be present. The event is open to the public.

“I love the river and the water, so I decided to use that as my project,” Archdeacon said. “Denny Wilson and I decided to make this a great event, so that the students can feel connected and feel like there is something to be involved with.”

Sarah Hippensteel, from the Miami Conservancy District (MCD), will be one of several experts from the City of Dayton. She will be discussing ways that the MCD helps to preserve the quality of water through monitoring and testing, as well as how the MCD provides students with the education to protect their local water resources.

“The Conservancy District helps the communities protect their water resources. We work with community members to help them understand the benefits of our water resources and how individuals impact the quality. And how they can use the rivers and streams as recreation opportunities,” Hippensteel said. “We believe that people are more likely to care for something if they appreciate it. The more we are able to get people down to the river then they are more likely to protect the river and the groundwater.”

Archdeacon said that this event may be the springboard for a Sinclair organization next year that is environmentally based. Future projects include annual chemical testing of The Great Miami River, creating a program with MCD to teach students about the river and the environment and increasing the amount of recycling bins on campus as well as river clean-ups.

“Student engagement is something that I have always wanted to do here,” Archdeacon said. “I want to get students together to be passionate about something. For me it is the environment, but if this event can get students together regardless of their approach, maybe I can use this event as a way to inspire students to do great things.”

The event, Archdeacon said, will help students enhance their knowledge of water resources and the environment. There will be many tables set up from representatives with information about their local ecological organization and what they do in regards to river conservation and sustainability.

“This is my passion, I have always felt connected to the environment and the earth,” he said. “This class and this event have helped me show my passion and try to inspire other people as well.”

Filed Under: Campus, News

Passion inspired dance club to form

June 15, 2012 By

The members in the Last King’s Dance Club (LKDC) always bring their passion to the dance floor.

“This is our passion and this is what we do—dance,” said one of the dancers, Edward Sevillano. “It is all about having fun and teamwork.”

Performing hip-hop, break dancing and choreography, the club consists of 30 students, of which 10 perform. Many of the members involved with the club don’t know how to dance and are in the process of learning.

“We spend our time teaching lessons and teaching people who want to learn how to dance,” said one of the dancers, Ryo Ke. “But really there are no rules to dancing, you just express yourself.”

The idea for the LKDC was conceived by close friends of Sevillano and Ke. They practiced daily with another dance crew but no one was thinking of forming a club at Sinclair. They decided to make it an official club last quarter.

“I don’t dance, and I wasn’t interested, but they put my name as the president,” said President Mark Nguyen. “But now I am looking forward to learning from them.”

Their passion is what brought the dance crew together, but Sevillano and Ke were both inspired by different influences in their lives.

When Sevillano moved to the United States in 2006, he brought with him an array of dancing skills because in the Philippines he was required to dance in school.

But when he moved to the U.S., he had to quit.

“I couldn’t find anyone with the same passion,” he said.

Ke was inspired to dance when he watched the movie “Kickin’ It Old School.” The movie motivated him to research breaking dancing and from there he started to learn the moves. But Ke said that he too had to quit because he couldn’t find anyone with the same love of break dancing.

Nguyen, the club’s president, knows a little about hip-hop, breakdancing and choreography from the movie “You got served.” He watched it in Vietnam, and he said that he is ready to learn how to dance.

“Anyone can join who wants to know how to dance,” Nguyen said.

For now, the club can be found performing at different venues around Dayton. On April 14, the members performed at Wright State University’s Asian Cultural Night. Then on May 18, they performed at the World A’fair in the Dayton Convention Center. At the end of June into the beginning of July, the crew will showcase their moves at Dave and Buster’s.

“We are always focused on the student and focused on performing at any event,” Nguyen said.

For more information or for practice times email Nguyen at [email protected]

Filed Under: Campus

$200,000 awarded to fund nanotech education

May 30, 2012 By

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $200,000 collaborative university education grant to Sinclair Community College and the University of Dayton in January. Only five months into the two-year grant, that investment has yielded a number of new educational modules in nanotechnology, the study of manipulating matter at the atomic level.

This Fall Semester, Sinclair, the University of Dayton and Dayton-area high schools will each be offering two new nanotechnology courses developed under the NSF grant by Surinder Jain, coordinator of Sinclair’s Engineering University Transfer program, and Andrew Sarangan, associate director of the University of Dayton electro-optics graduate program.

High school students will be able to build upon the modules if they matriculate to Sinclair, and Sinclair students who transfer to the University of Dayton for their bachelor’s degree will be able to take their nanotechnology credits into the program. The Dayton Regional STEM Center and local nanotechnology businesses will help guide the workforce development taking place in the new education pipeline.

“We’re trying to educate from high schools, to two-year colleges, to universities, so we’re starting from grass roots,” said Jamshid Moradmand, an associate professor of Engineering Technology at Sinclair and one of the project’s organizers.

Moradmand is working on a Ph.D. dissertation on nanotechnology and said that the idea for the project came from discussions he had with nanotech faculty about how difficult it was to find students that are educated and interested in the field.

“Students should know what the latest technology is,” said Jain. “Nanotechnology is a big and upcoming field, and there are quite a few companies in Dayton now that are starting nanotechnology manufacturing and fabrication.”

Nanotechnology is the basis for many technological developments, from the cutting edge to the mundane. It is used both in stain-proof pants and in the latest advances in computer and military hardware.

“People use these things daily without knowing what sort of nanotechnology is already in there,” said Joseph Haus, director of the University of Dayton electro-optics graduate program. “We thought it would be of great interest to bring this kind of information to undergraduate students and get them thinking about how it might play a role in their future.”

One recent nanotech development is graphene, a carbon compound that can be stretched into layers one hundredth the thickness of a human hair. Graphene has applications that range from advanced circuits to room-temperature distillation.

“Nanotechnology is going to touch every aspect of life in the coming years,” Jain said.

To manipulate materials at a sub-atomic scale, nanotechnology researchers use high-powered scanning electron microscopes. The nanotechnology program will allow students across many institutions to learn from the scanning electron microscope at the University of Dayton. Using high definition cameras, Jain and his team will broadcast video from the microscope to students across the Dayton area.

“Most colleges can’t afford $2-3 million scanning electron microscopes,” said Jain. “You could be sitting at home, and if you are a student in one of the courses, you could attend a webinar at your home, or you could have it here in one of our labs, so this could be anywhere in the world.”

This Remote Nano Demo System will allow two-way audio communication between the demonstrators and students, and is one of several innovations that won Sinclair and the University of Dayton the NSF grant.

In order to work with nanotechnology, laboratories require clean rooms and astronaut-like gear to prevent contamination, and clean rooms can’t accommodate enough people to be viable venues for teaching large groups of undergraduates about nanotechnology. To overcome this obstacle, Dr. Nick Reeder, professor of electronic engineering technology at Sinclair, is developing software that will simulate the type of interface that students would encounter in a nanotechnology laboratory.

“The typical nano-fab facility has millions of dollars of equipment…but it’s a restrictive environment,” said Reeder. “This will let people specify, for example, a layer of aluminum, the pressure or power of the instrument, and it will do the calculations and give them a visual representation of what the [finished product] would look like.”

The Nano-fab Simulator will be ready for use in the Fall Semester courses at the University of Dayton and Sinclair, and the designers hope that it will also be available for training high school teachers this summer.

“We’re going at a very fast speed, because what we really want to do is, within the grant period of two years, we want to develop everything and then test everything out and tweak everything.”

Then, the group will apply for a bigger grant to continue the program, said Jain. Eventually, the courses will be part of a short-term technical certificate program at Sinclair.

“Every university in the nation is trying to do nanotechnology…but ours is very unique,” said Jain.

Jain said that the program would lay an educational foundation that nanotechnology companies will be able to build upon quickly and easily.

“What I really like about this program is we get a chance to work with Sinclair…and also to try to make a connection to high school teachers,” said Haus. “This is trying to get into the pipeline and get this information to a lot of students who will be coming up and thinking about careers in engineering or science in the future.”

Students interested in the new nanotechnology program at Sinclair can contact the office of Science, Mathematics and Engineering at 512-2918.

Filed Under: News

Sinclair courses prepare inmates for a better future

May 30, 2012 By

Cynthia Morrison, 40, doesn’t want to be remembered for her past, but for her future. Her past landed her in the Dayton Correctional Institute (DCI) for theft of guns and cars on Jan. 9, 2012.

But in her future, Morrison sees herself obtaining a construction certificate with the goal of working in her family’s construction business upon her release.

Before DCI, Morrison spent 27 years of her life addicted to drugs, but after enrolling in the Advanced Job Training Program that Sinclair offers, she has been sober for 13 months. Morrison has two semesters left to complete her construction certificate.

“I wanted to do something with my time and keep busy–not just wallow around–but change something in my life,” Morrison said. “I didn’t want to resume living the way I was. I wanted to make positive changes and not be stuck where I was  in my life.”

The partnership

For more than 25 years, DCI has partnered with Sinclair to provide inmates with the necessary education and job training skills in order for them to be productive members of society upon their release.

“DCI is a medium-security prison for inmates who have a sentence of eight years or less, and they are rehabilitated through education,” said Coordinator for the DCI program Tom McAllister.

Sinclair offers students in the Advanced Job Training course certificates in construction supervision, help desk analyst, drafting and design and computer support technician.

DCI has approximately 900 inmates, of which 67 students are taking courses.

“Currently the state of Ohio is willing to pay for certificates but not for degrees,” McAllister said. “It costs more to obtain an associate’s degree versus a certificate.”

Inmates enrolled in a college course were 50 percent less likely to return to prison, according to a study by Ashland College. If the student is released before they complete their certificate, any college credits that they earned would transfer easily to Sinclair.

“We don’t have any hard evidence, but I think at least 25 percent of the inmates who are released have obtained jobs in their certificate programs,” McAllister said. “We don’t have anything conclusive because once they leave DCI it is difficult to track them, but several have been in contact with us and tell us that they have obtained a job.”

The fear of rejection 

“Being in prison is not what I wanted for my life, but it is where I needed to be.” 

Julie Rouse, 41, was caught on Sept. 28, 2009 for passing bad checks, and has been incarcerated for three years.

She is now enrolled in computer information systems and business courses at DCI. Her plan is to transfer to Sinclair after she is released on Sept. 1, 2012, just two and a half weeks before her 42nd birthday.

“Just being in school in general has taught me how to handle money better and learn to ask for help,” she said. “I think that it has been great to have Sinclair here, so that we can utilize this.”

Growing up, Rouses’ life wasn’t headed in the wrong direction until she met her ex-boyfriend.

“I thought I needed to buy things to have them love me,” she said. “So I would write the checks and purchase items knowing that I could not afford them. The experience [being at DCI] has taught me that I don’t have to have a man in my life, and I don’t have to have the fear of rejection.”

Johna Wood, 47, was incarcerated when she was caught making methamphetamines during a drug raid.

She was sentenced on June 21, 2011, and will be released May 14, 2014. At the end of the summer, she will complete her help desk analyst certificate.

“These classes are really good,” Wood said. “All the info we are learning has been very useful.”

When she completes her certificate she wants to enroll in a dependency counseling course.

At the end of her sentence, Wood would like to finish her associate’s degree at Sinclair.

“I hope that these classes will help me get out,” she said. “It’s really important for me to get out and do better in my life.”

Making an impact 

Thirteen Sinclair instructors make the weekly trip into the 75-acre institution to teach 19 courses at the prison.

“The teachers are really hands-on,” Morrison said. “It’s good because if I have questions, they are always there to help me. And I can ask questions in my dorm with other students who are taking classes.”

Morrison said that the teachers have provided her with the guidance to succeed in her courses.

“I don’t know anything about computers,” she said. “But they help me through it. And here I can say that the teachers really do care.”

Kinya McBeth, assistant college coordinator, has seen a tremendous amount of change in the students since she started working at DCI in September 2010. She is the liaison between DCI and the college, and teaches a Tuesday and Thursday open lab. During that time, she serves as an educational provider, mentor, tutor and friend to the students.

“I fight for them, and I really challenge them to push themselves harder,” McBeth said. “I don’t see them as they were in their past because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

McBeth said she pushes her students so when they are released they can empower other women and juveniles. Her top priority with her students is helping them break through the barriers of self-doubt, self-hate and low self-esteem.

“DCI gives them an opportunity to reinvent themselves,” she said. “I look at this as a way for them to change their thinking or as a way for them to start thinking for a change. It is very rewarding to empower the women, give them the resources to be successful and a glimmer of light for their future.”

Heidi Arnold, associate professor of communication, has been teaching an interpersonal communication course at DCI since the fall of 2011.

“The students are hungry for an education, respectful and interested in what they are learning,” Arnold said. “I feel that I am making a bigger impact than I do in Building 2.”

Both McBeth and Arnold said that teaching at DCI is an invaluable experience.

“Society looks at them and think that they shouldn’t have an education because they are being afforded an education through taxpayer dollars,” McBeth said. “But these women are on the Dean’s List and gaining an education. I rather fortify them with employable skills, so that they can come out and be productive citizens.”

The students’ lives after prison 

“I am ready to go home, and see my family,” Rouse said.

Rouse said that family is her first priority when she leaves DCI in September. She especially wants to see her daughter.

“It has been a long time,” she said.

Rouse plans on selling her paintings at Traders World in her down time, and she also wants to spend most of her time getting reacquainted with her daughter. Then she will enroll at Sinclair.

Morrison has other goals.

She wants to open up a shelter and a soup kitchen upon her release in 2016.

“I’ve always brought animals and people home, so it has always been my life-long goal just to help the needy.”

The shelter/soup kitchen will be named after her grandmother, who passed away several years ago.

“When I am released, I am going to be in the church and helping the young children come to know God at an early age,” Morrison said. “So that I can possibly help my community turn itself around.”

 

Filed Under: Campus, Life, News headlines

Fall semester brings registration changes

May 21, 2012 By

The end is near for one of Sinclair’s paramount transformations—converting from quarters to semesters. Starting May 23, fall registration will begin for the first semester of Sinclair’s 125-year existence since 1968.

“I want students to know that registration is similar to registering on a quarter system…everything is the same,” said Project Director for the semester transition Allison Rhea. “But I want to stress that students should register as early as possible.”

Online registration for Fall Semester will begin at 6 a.m., not the 12 a.m. timeframe that many students are accustomed to.

In case students have difficulty registering for prerequisite courses, the call center will be available for students at 6 a.m. In-person registration will begin at 8 a.m.

“If we determine, after talking with a student, that there is a systemic problem then we can fix it,” she said. “Between six and eight the only problems we [the call center] will be dealing with, is if we coded the system [student information database] wrong in some sort of way.”

Rhea expects that students will be able to register for fall semester without any glitches in the database.

“We believe that we have the system set up correctly, but there are going to be some bumps in the road,” she said. “We are trying to make sure that there is somebody here, if students have problems registering for the prerequisites.”

For students that are worried about semester conversion, Rhea said that they should contact an academic advisor.

“They don’t have to figure it out on their own,” she said. “We have people here to help them figure it out.”

Semester conversion

Fall 2012 is the beginning of the year when 17 public universities in Ohio, including Sinclair, will make their switch from quarters to semester. A common calendar will facilitate shared academic programs, ease of transfer between institutions and students’ ability to undertake internships and co-ops, Rhea said.

While Rhea and the Registration office will no longer be “swarming” students to inform them of the conversion, Rhea said that her door is always open if students want to ask questions, but speaking with an academic advisor is essential for the success of the student during this conversion.

“It is not too late for students to go see an adviser,” she said. “If they haven’t, they really, really need to do that especially before they register for Fall Semester. We just want to make sure that they are taking the courses that they need to take.”

Student  bills under semesters will be one-third higher than during quarters because they will be paying for 15 weeks of classes, followed by a week of testing and evaluation. Quarters involve students paying for only 10 weeks of courses, but overall the annual cost of tuition will remain the same.

“It is a significant chunk of money for students to come up with at one time,” Rhea said. “But annually they are not paying more money.”

For students receiving financial aid, the amount will be larger, but financial aid will be distributed two times during the semester as opposed to three. The biggest difference is that students will purchase textbooks and pay for their tuition only twice a year.

“Our number one priority is making sure that our students aren’t harmed during this conversion,” Rhea said. “We know that that there are going to be tiny, tiny bumps in the road, but we need to work through them together. I really need students to advocate for themselves.”

The 10 percent drop in enrollment

Some quarters, Sinclair has seen an increase in student enrollment. Because of the semester conversion, Sinclair is planning for the possibility of a 10 percent drop in student enrollment.

“We had an extreme, extreme rise in enrollment two years prior,” Rhea said. “The increase was unprecedented at the institution, so it is not at all surprising that our enrollment has come down.”

The boom in the economy, fewer displaced workers and students registering for the quarter are the reasons Rhea said that Sinclair has planned for a 10 percent drop in student enrollment for Fall Semester.

Two years ago, Sinclair had roughly 17,000 students, and now the college has increased to about 26,000 students.

“Particularly there are less students registering for Spring Quarter because they did what we told them to do, which was do not get stuck in the middle,” Rhea said. “If what they had to take was a series course, we told them to wait or try to finish the series before the semester conversion.”

To be fiscally responsible, Sinclair is planning for the possibility of being down 10 percent, Rhea said.

“You have to do that or you will be spending money that you don’t have to spend or making plans or adding classes for enrollment that you’re not going to have,” she said. “It’s not that the institution wants to or expects to be down 10 percent, we are just being cautious.”

A decrease in student enrollment affects Sinclair’s budget because the institution receives money from the state based on the number of students enrolled and how many students graduate. A decrease in enrollment also causes fewer courses to be offered for students.

“The institution is more affected when enrollment goes up because we don’t add staff, we just keep doing more with what we have,” Rhea said. “However, we want every student that wants to come here…here.”

For more information visit sinclair.edu/semesters or contact the call center at 512-3000. Rhea can be reached at 512-4515.

Filed Under: News, News headlines

Theater Department to showcase the Laramie Project

May 21, 2012 By

Matthew Shepard’s death in October 1998 was denounced as a hate crime when he was kidnapped, brutally beaten to death and left tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyo., because he was gay.

Shepard died 50 days before his 22nd birthday.

Five weeks after Shepard’s death, the tectonic theater traveled to Laramie and conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town.

All of the interviews gave rise to the poignant play, The Laramie Project.

The play, by Moisés Kaufman, member of The Tectonic Theater Project, and Director Scott Stoney, is a powerful depiction of one town’s healing in the aftermath of the horrific ordeal.

“The function of the play is to let people know exactly what happened in Laramie,” Stoney said. “I believe that their [Kaufman and members of the tectonic play] primary mission is one of raising consciousness about hate crimes and trying to do what they can to take an active part to try and diminish hate crimes all over the country.”

As an ensemble, the Laramie Project is divided into three acts, and nine actors portray more than 60 characters in a series of short scenes. Actresses Angela Dermer, Cydnie Hampton, Rachel Wilson, along with actors John Dunn, Chris Hammond, John Ray, Matthew Smith, Matt Turner, Robb Willoughby, are the cast members who will depict how the small town of Laramie struggles with intolerance and compassion.

“What they end up with is a composite of small town behavior,” Stoney said. “They haven’t edited out anything, so you have people dealing with the results of what they believed to be a hate crime, and those that believed he was killed because he was gay.”

During the interviews, the townspeople, Stoney said, have differing opinions about the death of Shepard.

“Some people will think that is exactly the way it happened and that the crime is an awful thing,” he said. “You will have people that think that he deserved it because it is a lifestyle that they don’t approve off—because they feel that he is immoral.”

Shepard’s death occurred 24 years ago, but the themes of intolerance, prejudice and hatred are present today.

“The Laramie Project is a really important story to be told. Not only do the Tectonic Theater do really great work, but they tend to work on very important topics,” said Theater Director Stephen Skiles. “We also have a lot of LGBT youth here at Sinclair, and I think is important to do it so that we are nurturing that group of students, as we nurture all of our students.”

Actor and Communications major at Sinclair John Ray said that it is important to keep the conversation about Shepard alive.

“The Laramie Project is definitely something that doesn’t need to be forgotten,” Ray said. “Gay rights are the civil rights issues of this time. It is important to keep telling the story of Shepard and learning the lessons.”

The Sinclair Theater Department will open the Laramie Project on May 18 at Blair Hall Theater in Building 2.  All tickets cost $10 for students and seniors. For adults, the tickets cost $15.

“This could happen in our neighborhood,” said Theater Performance major Angela Dermer. “People think ‘oh that happened in Laramie that could never happen here,’ but the realization is that it can happen anywhere.”

Filed Under: Campus, Featured, Life
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