(Source: www.usveteransmagazine.com)

Attention all veterans! Whether a student at BC or not, there are a wide range of resources available to veterans and their families through the programs here on the Bellevue College campus.  Just last Wednesday, April 25, the Project Succeed program brought employers from the surrounding area to a hiring event hosted specifically for the veteran community.

Employers in attendance were looking to hire veterans for a variety of positions with flexible options, ranging from part-time to full-time summer employment to continuing positions and internships. Recruiting companies such as Walmart, Safeway, Remlinger Farms, Franz Bakeries, and Securitas set up a neat row of display booths managed by their professionally attired employment representatives.  Veterans were greeted as they arrived by the friendly faces of Project Succeed’s program manager, Andy Brucia, Veteran Career Representative, Carol Folzt and Veteran Certifying Official, Margo Georgian, before proceeding to browse the tables.

Amid the pleasant chatter a casual onlooker might have mistaken the gathering for a purely social occasion, but Program Manager Andy Brucia acknowledged the event’s much greater significance: “Summer jobs are an important resource for veterans because they receive housing benefits while in school, but a lot of people don’t realize that these benefits don’t apply to un-enrolled vets in the summer. This often leaves veterans and their families without the proper means of support during summer months.” Fortunately, with the hundreds of positions made available at the hiring event offering college-friendly schedules and opportunity for advancement, the veterans didn’t seem to have a problem finding compatible job options.

“I love having the opportunity to come to events like these,” said Jeremy Winn, store manager at the recently opened Walmart neighborhood market in Bellevue, “especially those for the veterans. I have multiple family members who are veterans and have hired several store associates for their outstanding qualities as veterans alone.”

For those veterans who missed the hiring event on Wednesday, there is no need to worry.  Bellevue College is home to Project Succeed, a unique grant-funded program tailored to connect with military service members and their families, located conveniently at the Center for Career Connections (B231) on campus. It is one of only five entities in the nation chosen to represent veterans by partnering with community colleges and other agencies through a grant from the Microsoft Elevate America Veterans Initiative.  The program provides many career-oriented services to assist veterans in their transition back into civilian life with respect to individual background and experience.  Veterans on or off campus can visit Project Succeed anytime for assistance in selecting a career path, writing a resume, finding a job or internship, and much more.

“As a part of Project Succeed it is my role to walk veterans through finding out their strengths and talents in order to help them navigate the system and ultimately choose a career path,” said Project Succeed’s Veteran Career Representative Carol Folzt.

The Bellevue College Veterans’ Office is another important resource for vets, located in the Student Services building (B-125M).  Their officials work closely with Project Succeed and the Financial Aid Office to provide continued support to veterans, disabled veterans, dependents and spouses.  They offer education benefits, work-study opportunities, housing and medical resources, general advising, social services and other networking.

Drop by Student Services to contact Program Manager Andy Brucia from Project Succeed at the Center for Career Connections (a.brucia@bellevuecollege.edu) or Veteran Certifying Official Margaret Georgian from the Veterans’ Office and Financial Aid (margo.georgian@bellevuecollege.edu) to learn more about upcoming veteran events and the many ways to become involved or give back to the community of veterans here on campus.

Photo courtesy of the International Student Association

With international students hailing from Uzbekistan to Slovakia to Malaysia to Turkey, Bellevue College is an extremely diverse campus. Here at our school we have students from 56 different countries, and a very active International Student

Association (ISA). On the evening of Saturday, April 28, the ISA put on their biggest event of the year: International Night.

This year the theme was “Unity in Diversity.” The event began with an introduction of the emcees, Noreen Wong from Hong Kong, Michael Yoon from South Korea, and Takhmina Dzhuraeva, from Tajikistan.  They introduced Anh Nguyen, the well-loved president of the ISA, who gave a short address—and welcomed VIPs such as Laura Saunders, college president—and the event began.

The first thing to happen was a banquet featuring food from around the world—some items on the menu were curry, piroshky, Pad Thai, and Lumpia. Students and guests ate and talked for awhile and then were invited out to the show.

Next was a welcoming dance featuring all the performers of the evening. It was the opening to the bigger event: the Parade of Nations, a fashion show depicting the different styles of cultural dress in countries across the world, starting with Afghanistan and ending with Viet Nam.

Each country had at least one style that was modeled and explained – the outfit’s history was given, and its purpose. Some couples paraded together in wedding attire for that specific country. Every outfit displayed was unique to its culture, and every one was exquisitely beautiful.

Following the Parade was the beginning of the performances that would take up the rest of the evening; a duo on the guitar and accordion sang in the Italian style, at one point serenading emcee Dzhuraeva.

Following them was an African dance entitled Rhythm of Africa, performed by the African Student Association. The music for that number was sung in three different languages.

Next came a Chinese Kung-Fu demonstration—masters showed off their skills with weapons as well as with traditional martial arts.

After that was the traditional Thai dance pictured above. The beat for this dance started slow but increased midway through.

Following the Thai performance came a cultural tradition from Japan – Taiko drumming. The emcees, who would frequently tell the audience interesting pieces of information during their short skits between performances, said that this drumming actually used to be used to motivate warriors in battle in ancient Japan. It was very intense music, and extremely well-received.

After the Thai performance came the Filipino student dance, in which they performed a cultural dance meant to imitate the Tinikling bird, which has to avoid traps set by rice farmer.

The next performance was from the Indonesian Fellowship, and this dance was done without traditional music: rather, the students themselves used chanting, clapping, and song to provide the beat for their dance.

The second to last dance was done by El Centro Latino and the LACC – this was the Merengue Dance, which was done with three partners. They later did an encore performance after the official end of the night.

Finally, the last performance featured the entire ISA – and the BC Glee Club. They sang “We Are The World,” inspiring the entire audience to sing along.

The event ended up being a huge success, with all 300 tickets selling out three days prior to the event. And, as the emcees said together at the end of the night, “We hope we’re one step closer to… unity in diversity.

Source: http://img.dailymail.co.uk

On Wednesday, April 25, Bellevue College kicked off the start of the Alcohol Awareness Fair in the Cafeteria by presenting faculty member Gerald Blackburn of the Chemical Dependency Counseling Center. The speaker presented a PowerPoint in room N201 about the socially overlooked physiological realities accompanying and stifling drug addicts, which are biological intermediaries hidden to the public.

“The central nervous system works like keys and locks-a cascading system of use which leads dependence by the individual. We have 89 different genes that relate to compulsive disorders,” said Blackburn.

He describes the spiral-like process which precedes all drug addictions. A self-proclaimed former alcoholic himself, Blackburn stresses that spectators must understand this concept when confronted with a family member, acquaintance or long-time friend held hostage by their addiction.

“Chemicals become the most important thing. It is not an issue of choice, self-control, character and certainly not an issue of morality…although these factors circulate around addiction pretty consistently in terms of misconception in our society,” he said.

The route to addiction according to Blackburn is pretty simple: “The majority of drug addicts start in early adolescence because they do not have the full development of the prefrontal cortex to make these decisions.”

While he was saying this, a blue screen lit up, outlining a brain with arrows pointing to two sections of the organ. One section was the nucleus accumbens, located in the center of the brain as the headquarters of the body’s pleasure centers. Located in the forehead is the prefrontal cortex, which determines judgment and reasoning.

“Addiction is simply a state in which an organism engages in compulsive behavior (drug use) because the behavior is physiologically rewarding. Subsequently the ability to control or limit this behavior is lost.”

His anecdotal evidence and use of attaching intellectual classifications to words such as “blackout,” which he referred to as “alcohol induced amnesia,” was just one of his ways of vocalizing the severity of alcoholism.

He mapped out the stages of drug addiction throughout the PowerPoint, beginning with the trial stages where the use of the drug may be regarded as and practiced recreationally.  He then describes what the screen further highlighted as the “tolerance” segment.

“It is when the central nervous system and the body physically need more of the chemical in order to get the same results,” says the speaker.

Lastly, the presentation progressed to elaborate upon the ins and outs of the “dependence” stage: “A state in which the organism functions normally only when the drug is present and withdrawal symptoms occur when the chemical is removed.”

Blackburn went on to say, “I can justify everything that happens after that; you know, homelessness is like camping.”

The diagnostic criteria is where one must have at least three out of seven symptoms to be considered chemically dependent. The behavioral symptoms include: Increased tolerance, loss of intake control, use in spite of negative consequences, attempts made to control use, withdrawal symptoms/use to avoid symptoms, social behavioral changes to accommodate use and preoccupation with use and associated activities.

(Source: themoneytrack.com)

Enrollment this academic year of 2011-2012 at Bellevue College is lower than it was last year, but this hasn’t caused next year’s budget for Student Programs to fall.

After the Board of Directors meetings took place during the first week of April, the Services and Activities Committee decided that no programs budgets would be cut this coming year, and that some programs’ budgets would rise. This is not the first time all programs have maintained their budgets; in fact, the budgets have been stable for years.

Faisal Jaswal, Assistant Dean of Student Programs, has no voting power on the Services and Activities Committee, but he can advise it on what actions to take concerning budgets. “His advice every year is to not reduce any program’s budget,” said Hristo (Chris) Stoynov, Program Coordinator of Student Programs, “to not cut anybody so to speak.” For Jaswal, a program should either be guaranteed its previous year’s funding or given a higher budget.

Programs, budgets, clubs, committees… This may all seem very complicated, and it is. The process of outlining the budget programs and clubs receive is a complex one with numerous procedures guaranteeing that students’ money is well spent. “This bureaucracy ensures that there are many checks and balances and that it is all transparent,” said Stoynov.

One common misconception that prevents understanding of this issue is that “programs” and “clubs” are the same thing.

A program is a more permanent organization within Student Programs. It has a yearly budget with which it spends on salaries for its employees, events and needed supplies. There are 63 programs at Student Programs, among which are the Associated Student Government, Black Student Union, The Watchdog and KBCS-FM, the Bellevue College supported radio station.

Programs are funded by a state-fixed percentage of what the college made off of tuition the year before. In other words: Enrollment takes place every quarter for a whole year. By the end of the year, a percentage of that money is set aside; the following year, that portion is given to Student Programs.

According to Takhmina Dzhuraeva, ASG Vice President of Finance and Communication, ours is one of the only colleges in the state where Student Programs receive money that was set aside the year before. “That’s the beauty of this program,” she said. At other colleges, the programs start the year off with nothing and wait until enrollment is over every quarter to know what their budget will be for that quarter.

Tuition money then goes to the Services and Activities Committee, who distributes it to the programs. “Sometimes it gets so complicated,” said Dzhuraeva, who was chair of the committee this year, because a number of programs will ask for a higher budget that the college isn’t necessarily making off of tuition costs.

This year, although enrollment wasn’t any higher than it was last year, the Services and Activities Committee was able to raise programs’ budgets by redistributing the money Student Programs has received. The extra money came from sources like a cancelled program or a cancelled grant budget.

A club, on the other hand, is less stable. “We have a number of clubs that changes from zero on July first, to close to 100, and then at the end of the year drops to zero again,” said Stoynov. At the beginning of every year clubs charter to exist. They have no budget.

When clubs need funding for a specific event, trip or project, they fill out a funding request for the amount from the Associated Student Government. The latter can then either refuse or accept to fund. If they accept, there are three funds out of which ASG can provide the money. The two smaller ones are for cultural and functional club activities. The third larger one is the ASG reserve.

Accepting or refusing to fund clubs is not an easy task either. When the amount being requested is larger than usual, the office of Student Programs sits down with the club and foresees the reasons for such a large request. “We scope the project with the students,” said Jaswal, describing how specifications like state-approved travel agencies, insurance and transportation are reviewed and taken into account with the students. A funding request is therefore rarely rejected, but can be re-evaluated.

Jaswal is adamant about the fact that these student funds should be in student hands. “I have a very strong belief that it’s important to help students learn fiscal responsibility, good stewardship of funds.” He said, “In my ten years here I’ve found most people to be very judicious. Students are very conscientious; they’re careful about controlling expenditure. I can’t remember a time when I said to a club ‘I’m not going to fund this.’”

Photo by Amy Leong

On April 26, the Associated Student Government elections will kick off with a barbeque outside the E Building complex on the Bellevue College campus.

The ASG election will decide which of this quarter’s candidates will become the next voice of BC and who will stand up for the student interests for the coming school year. There are ten positions to fill and quite a few students are fighting for a spot on the new school year’s ASG.

“Many students don’t know about ASG, and they really don’t think that ASG affects their student life much because we have to admit that we don’t see ASG everywhere around the campus. But the fact is that ASG has a very great defect into student life” said Thuy Ngoc Pham, an ASG candidate this year, during an interview for the upcoming election.

Split into two teams, the election candidates have been forming partnerships and relations all quarter. Executive candidate Thuy Pham, udicial board candidates  Kristin Velez, Asami Bandai and Sean Juel, and representative Ignatia Heidi Yota come together to form Team Justice.

“[Team Justice] represents Diversity, Equality, Unity, Compassion and Justice” said Pham.

The other side of the spectrum, and competition against Team Justice, is Team Enthusiasm, consisting of Ishatpal Singh Momi vying for ASG Presidency, Michael Yoon for ASG Vice President (or VP) of Student Affairs and Pluralism, and Keturah Anderson, going for Campus Life and Events Representative.

“I want to bring the clubs in the school more to life” said Momi on his goals if he earns ASG president. “I feel like there’s excellent clubs at our school, and many clubs would be popular, I think, amongst all my friends – and they have no idea what [the clubs] are until I mention them.”

Individual candidate Takhmina Dzhuraeva is running for ASG president as well, and will be in a head-to-head competition against Momi this election.

Dzhuraeva is not the only candidate choosing to run solo however; Dustin Boehlke, Emily McMillan, Mackenzie Williamson, Alex Clark, Megan Phan, Jonathan Paek, Vannarith Khov, Jiaxin Liu, Steve Turner, and Dinh Kevin Tu are independant candidtates competing to win positions in the upcoming election period as well.

“There will always be issues that we’ll be fighting for and trying to fix.” said Dzhuraeva on her views of the election process and the ASG.

“Being the president…It’s not only the ideas and the facts of what you’re going to change and how you’re going to change it. It’s who you are as a person and if you care about what you are doing, because you will have a team of students [on ASG]. It’s not only you fighting for all of this, it’s the other nine people.”

The ASG election is fast approaching. On interviewing students around the campus about who they would be voting for and if they would be voting at all however, a new issue formed up against the elections.

“I don’t know how to vote” said Elizabeth Holbrook, a drama student in the E Building lounge.

“It’s pretty simple actually: just go on the BC website and there’s going to be a link on it that says ‘ASG Elections.’ You click that link, you enter your student information just the same as you were logging into BC. Once you put that information in, press sumbit. Then you’ll be brought up to the voting screen. Another easy way to vote is we have a team facebook. If you ‘Like’ [our] page, then right at midnight when the time comes to vote we’re gonna post a link up, and that will lead you directly to the log-in site” Said Momi.

The ASG election will begin accepting votes on April 26 and ends on May 4. You can vote at the BBQ kick off or online at the Bellevue College website.

Graphic by Seth Walker

Bellevue College has scheduled a town hall meeting to discuss opening a new satellite campus near the Issaquah Highlands. This meeting will be held on May 1 at 6:00 p.m. in Blakely Hall, 2550 NE Park Drive, in order to hear from the community.

“We want to be more available to people east of Bellevue, like Issaquah, North Bend, Sammamish, Snoqualmie,” said David Sandler, Public Relations Manager at Bellevue College.

The college originally bought the 20 acres in August of 2010 with a satellite campus in mind. Beginning with one building, the college will probably continue adding and developing the land as it is needed. For now, no construction has taken place. “We’re still in the process of gathering information.”

The meeting will be open for any topics, from potential courses to building designs to campus planning.

“Our goal is to hear from as many people as possible, because there are so many great ideas out there as to how we should develop this campus,” said Laura Saunders, Interim College President. “It’s important for the end result to reflect the needs and desires of the community this campus will serve.”

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/j-and-p/

The most basic goal for the meeting is to find out what the community wants. Any and all plans regarding a new campus are up for debate.

“We haven’t made any decisions about classes there. First we want input on what they [the community] want in terms of classes. Our plan is to have one building initially, then in a few years down the road, we’ll add more. We could have classes relating to business, or running start, which could be helpful to the running start students in Issaquah. We could also have nursing classes there that could coincide with the Swedish hospital nearby. Early childhood education, summer camps for children—basically, we want to reflect the needs of the community,” said Sandler.

Students are welcome to attend the forum. Attending BC officials include Bart Becker, Director of Community and College Relations, Ray White, Vice President of Administrative Services, and Laura Saunders – Interim President of Bellevue College.

Source: codeday.org

Last week, students from all around the area worked for 35 straight hours in a competition to build, design, and program an application for iPhones and Androids. Upon completion, the apps were examined by three judges and categorized. First place, and the “most likely to sell” prize was awarded to the work done by two BC students, Kieran Brusewitz and Brandon Ramirez.

Brusewitz and Ramirez both go to a non-profit organization called Student RND (research and development) near downtown Bellevue. “Student RND is a community of students who love science and technology,” said Edward Jiang, the creator of the program and member of the leadership team.

Last weekend Student RND hosted a weekend-long event called Code Day, where students from Bellevue College, the University of Washington, and other local high schools and colleges gathered for the purpose of creating apps. They started at noon on Saturday, and awards were given out at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Ramirez and Brusewitz teamed up at the beginning of the event and wrote a game called “Slide.” “Slide” is an app for a touch screen phone where the user moves colored blocks around the screen, trying to beat the ticking clock and create lines. It was compared by many participants in the event to be like Tetris taken to the next level. The graphics and even the techno-style music were designed by Brusewitz, Ramirez wrote the software.

Overall, the judges felt that it was a very well-rounded app that had the most potential to actually be marketed. After the winners were announced, Ramirez said, “Next stop, the app store!”

The judges – three industry professionals – looked around at the apps being worked on by the teams on Sunday before the 5:00 p.m. presentations. After viewing the presentations they left the main room and made their decisions behind closed doors.

Some of the other apps that won awards were the games “Space Cat”, in which a cat tries to get back to Earth and has to dodge planets, black holes, and exploding stars (which came in third place), and “Accelerometer,” an app that connects the tilting function of an iPhone to a computer and hooks up with the mouse, (which won second place and Most Ingenious).

Other apps marked notable by the judges was the “Feed Me” app – an app created by the team calling themselves Raven Tech that would upon its completion order the user a surprise meal under $15 after pressing the Feed Me button – and the “Day By Day” app, which was worked on by two UW students and was a daily countdown app or, as described by Andre Stackhouse, one for the students who worked on it, “A count-down timer.”

Student RND hosts events like this on several weekends throughout the year, but they have normal day-to-day schedules as well. Tyler Menezes, a BC student and member of the leadership team, said that Student RND is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with people often around even on the days they weren’t officially open, and that usage was free for students, but unlimited pizza and soda was $10.

BC students according to James Gan, a BC student who frequents Student RND, are about one fourth of the population there, and most of the leadership team members either is or was a BC student.

“We provide resources for students to work on cool science and technology projects,” said Jiang. “We have tools you can use to build really amazing stuff.” One such tool was the huge laser cutter held above the workspace.

There is a history of success at Student RND such as Marshall Meng, a BC Running Start student, who created plasma speakers there. These speakers use energy between two nails to project very high-quality sound. “It’s like 40,000 strikes of lightning every second, only you can control the sound of the thunder,” said leadership team member Adam Ryman.

The money made from the plasma speakers enabled Student RND to purchase the several thousand dollar laser cutter.

The next two weekends at Student RND will be post-event workshops, focusing on refining and marketing the apps created over the 35 hour period of time. Following that, they are open Wednesdays and Saturdays for the use of any student –college or high school – to come, learn, and create.

During the summer, a program called Incubator will be run. “Five teams of four students will have the eight weeks of summer to build something amazing. It’s like an eight week long Code Day!” said Jiang.

For more information about Student RND, students are encouraged to visit their website, www.studentrnd.org.

Graphic by Michelle Fredrickson

It’s Earth Week at Bellevue College and sustainability initiatives can be seen all over the campus.  Earth Week is all about promoting environmental friendliness, and with an Environmental Representative on the ASG and a Bellevue College Sustainability Department, there are many upcoming programs for students to consider.

“One of the exciting projects at Earth Week is the ‘Pledge and Act of Green’ campaign,” said Deric Gruen, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator in an e-mail. “We’re making a video and will be building a tree of pledges from students to make sustainable behavior changes.”

Being green will be a theme for this week, and this is just one of the initiatives during Earth Week where students can show support for the environment.

Even with the huge environmental event of the year right here, environmental coordinators are still planning ahead. For summer, a new Student Ride Match Program will be started. “[This will] help students save money and earn rewards by finding partners to share the ride to campus,” said Gruen. “We are working with King County Metro and the Washington Department of Transportation to get grant funding to customize the site and coordinate its launch.  Students in the advertising class are creating a campaign to create awareness.”

Once this site is created, it will be posted in the sustainability newsletter. The newsletter subscription is another project in the works at the department – getting subscriptions up. Gruen said, “We’re currently in the midst of a campaign to sign up 1,000 students to our monthly newsletter and student opportunities mailing list.  We currently have 759.” Subscriptions are easy and available at the BC Sustainability Department website. Also on this site is more information about parking and ride-sharing initiatives on campus; there’s an environmentally friendly way to get to school from most places.

Another major project underway is the water system – according to the Sustainability Department website, “Bellevue College closely monitors energy and water consumption, matches HVAC and lighting equipment schedules to building occupancy and maintains procedures to promote conservation.  In 2011 we undertook a comprehensive audit of all campus buildings which will lead to retrofits of lighting and water fixtures and improvement to our heating, ventilation and air conditioning.”

The entire campus will physically become more sustainable with environmentally friendly water systems and lighting.

The website also lists other projects underway: IT efficiency, resource conservation procedures, BC2 Eco-office audits, and many others.

Gruen said, “We’re also working to infuse sustainability across the curriculum into everything from accounting to business to humanities.”  It’s a goal of the sustainability department to integrate environmental friendliness to teachers and students all across the school through faculty trainings, course development, sustainable classroom practices, and sustainable literacy.

Finally, there are many major long-term campus involvement initiatives, which aim to get students involved with sustainability on campus. Earth Week is one of these initiatives. So is the Captain of Sustainability – a coalition of staffers to improve communication about sustainability—, the Bellevue College: Beyond Conservation (BC2) – a group that takes surveys of faculty, staff, and administrators to learn more about environmental behavior – and sustainable internships with Gruen’s department.

Details on all of these initiatives and more are available through the monthly sustainability newsletter. More information and subscriptions are available at http://depts.bellevuecollege.edu/sustainability/.

Photograph by Jwanah Qudsi

Sam Reed, Washington Secretary of State, visited Bellevue College on April 10 to talk about the importance of student civic engagement and its effect on the future of higher education in the state. The event was part of BC’s “Civics Week,” an event that aimed to raise political awareness among BC students. The event was organized by BC’s Office of Student Legislative Affairs (OSLA).

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks for Reed, as he visits state colleges and speaks to promote civic engagement among students. On April 10, he and his team had visited three state colleges in Seattle, Bothell, Shoreline and still needed to make their way down to Tacoma. Despite his tight schedule, Reed came to Bellevue College at 3:30 p.m. and spoke before a room full of enthusiastic students.

“Enthusiastic” is not a lightly chosen word to describe the vibe of the audience that day. If BC students were ever accused of being politically oblivious, the questions they asked the secretary proved differently. These questions varied from “How does your office ensure that people of color are voting more often and taking an active part in civic engagement?” to “What are you planning on doing after you retire?” to “What is your favorite movie and why?” (He answered Dr. Strangelove, because it both “scares the heck out of you and makes you laugh”).

The secretary started by making a five-minute speech about the importance of civic engagement for today’s youth.  He mentioned some state initiatives in progress like legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage. He repeated that students should register to vote in order to get involved in such initiatives, and explained how to do so (see sidebar on page 5 for details).

“It is critical that you do this, this year,” Reed said. “You have so much at stake.”

In response to ASG President Brandon Anderson’s question about how to get more colored people involved in voting, Reed said he has hired a Chilean-American woman who is focusing on things such as language issues among minorities by working on translations. She works with the ethnic groups to encourage their participation.

Minority participation, Reed said, is very important because for the first time in history, we have “minority majority” districts in Washington, districts where minority races make up most of the population. “2012 is going to be a dramatic election year,” said Reed. Participation by everyone is therefore crucial.

Another question asked was “Companies today would rather hire someone from China than from the US for certain demanding jobs. What is the state doing about that? Are we making college more affordable? Are we encouraging more people to get into higher education?”

According to Reed, The state has unfortunately reduced the funding of higher education because of the nation’s budget. “And by the way, that affects my office too; I’ve lost staff,” he said.

On the positive side, the state is providing much more money for scholarships. The state is also opening more schools. Edmonds Community College, for example, has opened a whole new ranch that focuses on teaching the technologies needed to work in the aerospace industries.

Monica Mendoza, Organizing Director for the OSLA, is among the people who have put the most effort into organizing this event and all the other events of College Civics Week. “He [Sam Reed] really cares about students and spreading awareness about how to be civically engaged,” said Mendoza.

Reed has been in office since the year 2000 and will retire this coming January. To the question “What are you planning on doing after you retire?” he laughed and answered, “Goof off!”