Beginning Winter Quarter, Shoreline Community College students will be able to purchase certain textbooks for $30 or less. 

Students who enroll in Paul Herrick’s Intro to Logic, Linda Khandro’s Intro to Oceanography or Federico Marchetti’s Intro to Statistics will have the luxury of purchasing the discounted textbooks as well as access to a world of digital resources.

These classes will be part of a new consortium of 81 classes designed by faculty across the state to help students afford college and textbooks.  The instructors are working with eLearning Directors, librarians and others to help identify high quality, affordable textbooks.

Lowering the price of textbooks for students is only a part of the Open Course Library Project that was designed to expand access and success rates for students.  Instructors and students will have access to digital resources that have already been proven highly effective for learning and teaching and resources that will be developed by faculty in our state.

The instructors will also have access to new digital resources available through a global open educational resources bank (open educational resources are educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute), as well as content development tools and online learning communities.

The grant, funded through the State Board for Technical and Community Colleges, also provided funding for eLearning and librarian support for SCC faculty members Herrick, Khandro and Marchetti, who each received $15,000 to develop their courses. 

Ann Garnsey-Harter, Director of eLearning, received $1,000 for each course development grant to provide eLearning support, and librarians Jonathan Betz-Zall and Mike Wood received $15,000 grants to help them identify relevant, high quality instructional materials (open content, open textbooks, etc.) for use in the Open Library courses.  A grant manager will also provide support.

These commonly taught courses will be openly licensed through SBCTC so that all Washington state colleges and universities, as well as the world, can freely use and modify them.  All colleges will benefit by having access to the educational resources and shared knowledge. 

The pilot courses will first be offered Winter Quarter 2011.

                                                             SCC/Donna Myers

“Shoreline has always valued multicultural understanding,” Betsey Barnett, Multicultural Studies instructor, said.  “It’s been a core of our college.”

Barnett said the program that started as an American Ethnic Studies curriculum has evolved over the decades. That growth will continue this fall when the program takes on a new name: Equity and Social Justice.

“Equity and Social Justice really embraces the core programs that we teach,” Barnett said.

The new name reflects the program's focus and its journey.

Over the years, new courses were designed and added in response to current issues, disparate views and world challenges.  Women’s Studies courses were developed, and with time, the scope of the curricula expanded.  Then came deaf studies, environmental justice, gender studies and examining power and privilege issues surrounding race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexual orientation, religion, ability, environment.

With the more contemporary, diverse course offerings, Barnett said faculty realized that the name of the department no longer reflected the entirety of the program and course outcomes.  A proposal was submitted to the college Curriculum Committee this past winter to change the department name from Intra-American Studies to Equity and Social Justice. 

While more descriptive of the program, Barnett says the bottom line for the name change was really for students – to make it easier for them to transfer the credits to four-year schools.

Previously, courses labeled IAS transferred as various Social Science and Humanities courses on a case-by-case basis.  Barnett says that most multicultural courses transfer as American Ethnic Studies, History, Gender and Women’s Studies or as Social Science or Humanities electives.

"In our curriculum revision, we coded each of our courses according to how they transfer to colleges in Washington state,” Barnett said, adding that under the former format, that wasn't possible and also have all the courses under one umbrella.

“It will be confusing at first, we know, as people try to find us under IAS, so we hope that everyone will help explain this to students,” Barnett said.

Barnett said most classes and most instructors will be the same. New this fall will be the program name and three new sub-headings – Gender and Women’s Studies; American Ethnic Studies; and Multicultural Studies.

Read more. 

                                                         Donna Myers/SCC

Angie Carranza smiles and waves as she files out of the 2010 Shoreline Community College Commencement. More photos

More than 500 Shoreline Community College students turned into Shoreline Community College graduates on Sunday, June 6, 2010.

Although participating in Commencement isn't required to graduate, an increasing number of students are choosing to don cap and gown and march down the aisle in an acknowledgement of their achievments.

"Commencement is always an inspiring moment," said SCC President Lee Lambert. "Many of these students overcome great obstacles, show incredible perserverance to attain their goals. When you see what they do to get an education, it just reinforces our resolve to everything we can as a college to help them."

One of those inspiring students was chosen to give the annual student address -- Angela Carranza.

Carranza said that growing up in her Chicago neighborhood, she saw a number of friends die in gang-related violence and going to college was not a given. Carranza, who has been accepted to Seattle University where she will study sociology, told her story in a poem: