Posts Tagged ‘College’
College preview, No. 59: Purdue men, Long Beach St. women
July 14th, 2011
Believe it or not, the start of another college golf season is just a few short weeks away. Asher Wildman will take the next 60 days to break down the top 60 teams for both the men and women. Today, we hit No. 59 on the board with the Purdue men and Long Beach St. women.
For a complete listing of all the teams on the list thus far, simply
PURDUE MEN
2010-11 final ranking: 59
Coach: Devon Brouse (13th year)
Top returnees: Will Sjaichudin (won three times a year ago), Tyler Duncan (won this summer’s Indiana State Amateur), Adam Schenk (2011 Big Ten Freshman of the Year).
Top newcomers: Junior Jakob Ziegler, a transfer from Oakland (Mich.) University
Projected starting 5: Will Sjaichudin (sr.), Tyler Duncan (sr.), Adam Schenk (so.), Jakob Zeigler (jr), Sam Fu (so.)
Key loss: Nakarintra Ratanakul
Key fall tournament: The Jack Nicklaus Invitational
2010-11 recap: The Boilermakers were a combined 88-58-5 a year ago, including victories at the Purdue Midwest Shootout, Butler Spring Invitational, and Boilermaker Invitational.
If there was one noticeable concern for Purdue, however, it was erratic play. Other than its three victories, the team had only one other top-5 finish. After winning the Midwest Shootout, Purdue tied for ninth at Olympia Fields. Following the team’s win at Butler, the team tied for 10th at the Illini Spring Classic, and followed up a win at their own tournament with a T-6 at the Big Ten Championship and a T-11 performance at NCAA regionals.
Player to watch: Tyler Duncan. “He really played well his freshman year,” coach Devin Brouse said. “He tailed off his sophomore and junior year, but his game has come back. This senior year, we expect him to compete with guys like Luke Guthrie of Illinois and Eric Chun of Northwestern for Big Ten Player of the Year honors.”
2011-12 preview: There is excitement in the golf program this year in West Lafayette, Ind., and we’re not just talking about the women – the 2010 NCAA champs and perennially one of the nation’s strongest programs. The Purdue men strongly feel they can compete for a Big Ten crown as well. Brouse thinks his team has plenty of depth and firepower at the top.
Oakland University transfer Jakob Ziegler is a key. If the junior can come in and plug himself in as at least the No. 3 player, that will be one less score for Purdue to worry about. Last year for the Grizzlies, Ziegler won twice and had five other top-15 finishes.
The Big Ten will be deep this season, and Brouse knows it. “Look at Iowa with Coach Hankins and Donnie Darr at Ohio State,” Brouse said. “Those programs have been raised in just a few years. Our conference has great coaches with great facilities, which gives teams the chance to be successful.”
Over the past few years, Brouse has recruited well, putting the Boilermakers in position to have a strong year. But they enter the year with a lot of what-ifs as opposed to certainties.
“I think we have four guys who can all battle each week to be our No. 1 guy,” Brouse said. “This team can be a top-25 team, but we can’t just talk about it. We need to put it on the board and do it.”
Bottom line: Brouse might have top-25 expectations, and it’s possible if all the pieces align just right. But a position in the top 50 is more realistic, enough to earn Purdue another trip to regionals.
LONG BEACH STATE WOMEN
2010-11 final ranking: 59
Coach: Joseph Cerulle (third year)
Top returnees: Simone Hoey, Monica Villarreal, Noelle Zavaleta
Top newcomers: Freshman Ashley Greer (redshirted last year); freshman Monica Umpant of Cerritos, Calif.; freshman Bow-Kay Salotti of Palm Desert, Calif.; freshman Chaewon Park of Torrance, Calif. (two state titles at Torrance High School).
Projected starting 5: Simone Hoey (jr.) Monica Villarreal (sr.), Noelle Zavaleta (sr.), Rochelle Chan (so.), No. 5 spot TBD.
Key losses: Reina Rogers and Lindsey McAtee
Key fall tournament: UNLV Fall Invitational
2010-11 recap: After a solid season in which Long Beach State won the Folino Invitational and posted five other top-5 finishes, the 49ers were left out of postseason play. Despite an overall record of 70-41-2, the NCAA committee decided not to offer the team an at-large bid to NCAA regionals. “I had the whole team in my office with me for the conference call,” head coach Joseph Cerulle said. “We waited and waited and finally realized we weren’t getting called.”
What likely kept Long Beach State from the postseason was its inability to close out tournaments. Before finishing as the runner-up to UC Davis at the Big West Conference Championship, the 49ers had chances to win the Anteater Invitational (fourth) and Pacific Coast Intercollegiate (T-3). For most of the year, the team performed well for 36 holes, but had problems in the final round.
Player to watch: Noelle Zavaleta. “She finished runner-up at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate and then (at) the Long Beach Women’s City Amateur this summer,” Cerulle said. “She is playing with a purpose now, and is ready to show the talent that is there.”
2011-12 preview: Long Beach State will enter the season with a chip on its shoulder. The 49ers may be the one bubble team from a year ago with the most reason to be upset about being left out of the postseason. However, that was last year and the 49ers need to move on.
Coach Cerulle has a core of four returnees that give him confidence for the upcoming season. “They are hungry and have yet to get to regionals,” Cerulle said. “This is a focused group with a lot of experience that will allow me to work with the freshman so we can get stronger.”
Competing for the fifth spot in the lineup will be redshirt freshman Ashley Greer, who may have a slight upper hand over incoming freshmen Monica Umpant, Bow-Kay Salotti and Chaewon Park.
For Long Beach State to reach the postseason this year, Simone Hoey and Monica Villarreal – the 49ers’ top two players – must step it up against better competition. The pair was a combined 0-42 against players ranked in the top 50 and 8-76 against players ranked in the top 100.
Entering the season, a Big West Championship and automatic NCAA berth is a realistic goal. This year’s team doesn’t want its fate decided by anyone but themselves.
“With the four girls returning from a year ago, and the three freshman coming in, we will compete for a conference title,” Cerulle said. “Not only is making it to regionals a goal, but I think making our way to nationals is realistic.”
Bottom line: One step at a time, coach. But the 49ers definitely have the experience and talent to make up for last year’s disappointment and earn a postseason bid, one way or another.
Tags: College, College Preview
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Going to college becomes an easy task with federal grants for single mothers
January 21st, 2011
With the rising recession, the labor market is being dominated by those with a college education. But then, there may be people who can not afford to pay for college. But thanks to the government, single mothers can now apply for grants to pursue their college education.
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Tags: College, College Becomes
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More Oregon college students study foreign language; more choose non-European tongues
December 7th, 2010
Christiana Lenamond, a senior at Portland State University majoring in applied linguistics, displays a Russian class project Monday in which she plays the role of a college recruiter in Russia. The large letters on her poster board say Philological Faculty and the smaller ones read St. Petersburg State University. Lenamond is part of PSU’s Russian language flagship program, supported by the U.S. Department of Defense in the interest of national security. PSU enrolled 257 students in Russian classes in the fall of 2009. More American college students, including those in Oregon, are studying foreign languages, especially non-European tongues such as Arabic, Chinese and Japanese, according to a national survey released Wednesday.
The number of college students nationwide enrolled in non-English language courses climbed to a record 1,682,627 in the fall of 2009, up 20 percent from 2002, the Modern Language Association reported Wednesday. The association’s report was based on a survey of 2,514 public and private colleges and universities, about a third of them two-year colleges.
The survey, which included 99 percent of U.S. higher education institutions offering foreign languages, found the number of students on Oregon campuses studying languages other than English jumped 35 percent to 31,595, outpacing overall enrollment increases between 2002 and 2009.
Students want to learn a second language to improve their career opportunities, to learn more about their ethnic backgrounds, to be players in an increasingly global culture or to undergird their liberal arts education, said Russell Berman, a German professor at Stanford University and vice president of the MLA.
While the numbers of foreign language course takers is up, the proportion of all students who enrolled in those courses climbed only slightly, from 8.1 percent to 8.6 percent.
Nearly double that share of college students, 16.5 percent, studied foreign languages in 1965. Universities began dropping foreign language studies as a degree requirement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, causing the percentage of students enrolled in languages to drop to a low of 7.3 percent by 1980.
Many colleges and universities now require foreign language classes for a bachelor of arts degree, but not for a bachelor of science. That’s one reason the percentage of students taking language classes on Oregon’s seven public university campuses varied widely in 2009 from 47 percent at the University of Oregon to 9 percent at Oregon State University, 8 percent at Eastern and 1 percent at the Oregon Institute of Technology.
Overall, about one in five students in the Oregon University System took a language course in the fall of 2009.
Numbers were mixed on Oregon’s private college campuses, too. Lewis & Clark College in Portland and Willamette University in Salem each enrolled more than 1,100 students in language classes, more than half of their undergraduates, because they require languages and they send a big share of students to study abroad.
However, the number of students enrolled in foreign language classes was 164 at Linfield College in McMinnville, 188 at George Fox University in Newberg, and 33 at Concordia University in Portland.
Students have “a growing appreciation for the importance of having access” to other cultures, said Mark Conliffe, professor of Russian at Willamette University.
Spanish, French and German still top the list of most popular foreign languages, and American Sign Language ranks fourth. But more college students in Oregon, as elsewhere, are choosing to study other languages, especially Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Russian.
Arabic showed the biggest growth in the survey, jumping to the eighth most studied foreign language in U.S. colleges, up from 10th. Interest in Arabic has climbed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in 2001, language professors say, along with federal funding for it and other strategic languages. Nationally, 35,083 students were enrolled in Arabic classes last fall, including a total 517 at Oregon’s three largest universities.
“The biggest change I’ve seen over the last 10 years is the increased interest in the Middle Eastern languages,” said Sandra Freels, former chair of the World Languages Department at Portland State University. The university not only enrolled 181 students in Arabic, but it also offers courses in Turkish, Persian, and most recently, Kurdish.
Oregon students also study other less common languages.
At the UO, 67 students studied Swahili, six Finnish and a handful were learning Sahaptin, a Native American language.
Others are sticking to the classics. About 400 Oregon college students statewide studied Latin.
More students are also learning languages to get an edge in the job market. More than half the 300 students with minors in Spanish at OSU are business majors, said Guy H. Wood, professor of Spanish.
“Anything students can do to enhance their chances of getting a job,” he said, “they do it.”
–
Foreign language studies in Oregon colleges and universities in fall, 2009
Number of students enrolled in sampling of foreign language courses in Oregon’s colleges and universities.
Spanish French German Japanese Chinese Arabic Russian Latin
University of Oregon 3,481 1,354 997 1,015 910 305 319 139
Portland State University 1,494 581 364 465 147 181 257 121
Oregon State University 845 316 427 169 132 31 8 0
Western Oregon University 447 84 82 0 0 0 0 0
Southern Oregon University 388 166 79 0 16 0 0 0
Eastern Oregon University 267 0 30 0 0 0 0 0
Oregon Institute of Technology 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Portland Community College 2,113 296 195 385 0 0 131 0
Clackamas Community College 302 47 32 0 0 0 44 0
Mount Hood Community College 577 78 36 110 11 0 0 0
Lewis & Clark College 491 244 121 97 81 0 72 27
University of Portland 402 140 176 0 0 0 0 0
Reed College 146 148 57 0 56 0 66 45
Concordia University 18 0 3 0 0 0 0 4
Pacific University 456 76 29 139 19 0 0 0
Williamette University 568 206 67 116 50 0 37 64
George Fox University 111 30 0 20 0 0 0 0
Linfield College 183 44 33 45 5 0 0 0
Total all public and private 2- and 4-year colleges and universities listed 12,332 3,810 2,728 2,561 1,427 517 934 400
Source: Modern Language Association
Tags: College, College Students
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New law directs community college transfers to CSU campuses
September 30th, 2010
Gov Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill that next fall will allow students a streamlined, well-defined path for transfer from a community college to California State University, Fresno and the other California State University campuses.
The bill, signed Wednesday, Sept. 29, had the support of CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott, the Campaign for College Opportunity, California State Student Association and Student Senate of the California Community Colleges.
Bernard Vinovrski, Fresno State’s associate vice president for Enrollment Services, said, “For the first time, students beginning at a California community college will have road map to follow.”
Students who follow that course to an associate’s degree will avoid taking classes that aren’t applicable to the bachelor’s degree from a four-year university, Vinovrski added, “and will undoubtedly shorten time to earn their BA.”
The statute establishes a transfer Associate of Arts (AA) for those students who have completed 60 transferrable units. Students who obtain the transfer AA will be admitted to the CSU with junior standing.
The CSU and community colleges estimate millions of dollars in savings by eliminating excess units that transfer students often accumulate in completing their degree. By simplifying the transfer process, seats are freed for other students, allowing both systems to serve 50,000 more students.
Students at Fresno State and elsewhere worked hard to gain legislative support for the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act (STAR Act).
Selena Farnesi, a junior majoring in philosophy and anthropology who is executive vice president of Associated Students Inc., said enacting the legislation “is a huge victory for us, and we were strong advocates for its passage.”
She and other Fresno State students traveled twice to Sacramento to advocate for the legislation last spring.
Chancellor Reed said, “This is a watershed moment for future college students across the state of California, who will now be able to more easily reach their goal of attaining a bachelor’s degree.”
Companion legislation signed by the governor implements the same transfer system between community colleges and the University of California
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Tags: College, Community College
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College Students Put In A Whole: 14 hours per week of studying
September 7th, 2010
Our proposed small grad school, with its very intense workload, is evidently swimming against the trend. This op-ed, in 2009, created a mini-firestorm. Kara Miller teaches at Babson College. She wrote:
Teaching in college, especially one with a large international student population, has given me a stark – and unwelcome – illustration of how Americans’ work ethic often pales in comparison with their peers from overseas.
My “C,’’ “D,’’ and “F’’ students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have – despite language barriers – generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants.
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More recently, Keith O’Brien contributed this thoughtful essay to the Boston Globe ideas section.
According to time-use surveys analyzed by professors Philip Babcock, at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, at the University of California Riverside, the average student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week. Today’s average student hits the books for just 14 hours.
The decline, Babcock and Marks found, infects students of all demographics. No matter the student’s major, gender, or race, no matter the size of the school or the quality of the SAT scores of the people enrolled there, the results are the same: Students of all ability levels are studying less.
“It’s not just limited to bad schools,” Babcock said. “We’re seeing it at liberal arts colleges, doctoral research colleges, masters colleges. Every different type, every different size. It’s just across the spectrum. It’s very robust. This is just a huge change in every category.”
We like to say there’s only one thing harder than our year-long teacher residency.
That’s the rookie year of teaching we’re preparing you for…
Tags: College, College Students
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