NCC Mag Fall 2001

FALL 2001 VOLUME V NUMBER I HAPPENINGS SEPTEMBER 19 “Best You Can Be” Panel, Noon Featuring NCC Alumnus Chris Martin of Martin Guitar Company & other CEOs 27 Lear Lecture Series, 11 a.m. Dr. Martha Palmer will speak on artificial intelligence NorthamptonNorthampton 30 Longaberger Basket Bingo to benefit the Nursing COMMUNITY COLLEGE MAGAZINE Scholarship Fund, 7 p.m. OCTOBER 1 Grand Opening of the ACT Center, time TBA 12 “Night at the Races” to benefit Alumni Association scholarships, 7 p.m. 15 Library Dedication, 3:30 p.m. 16 Annual College Night for High School Students, 6:30 p.m. 23 Guest Speaker — Elva Trevino Hart, Author of “Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child,” 11 a.m. 23 Opening of Mixed Media Exhibit — Izzy LaDuca & FOUNDATION Virginia Abbott, 11 a.m. 24 Alumni Awards Mixer, 5:30 p.m. 25 Executive-in-Residence ANNUAL Lecture by Damian Braga, senior vice president and general manager of Aventis Pasteur U.S., 11 a.m. REPORT NOVEMBER 1 Open House — Arts & Sciences, 7 p.m. 2 Opening of “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles, 7 p.m. 3 Annual Fall Craft Show, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Open House — Allied Health, 7 p.m. 14 Open House — Business & Technology, 7 p.m. DECEMBER 1 Winter Concert: NCC Women’s Chorus, 8 p.m. 1 Winter Concert: NCC Collegiate Singers, 8 p.m. Visit our web site at www.northampton.edu For additional information and details, please call the Information Center at 610/861-5300. Northampton Community College Change Service Requested Non-Profit Org. 3835 Green Pond Road U.S. Postage Paid Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18020-7599 Permit #513 Bethlehem, PA www.northampton.edu LETTER FROM THE EDITOR TABLE OF CONTENTS Northampton Volume V No. I he first work crews came with entirely renovated. Outside, earth was FEATURES T the birds of spring this year. They moved, creating new vistas that made showed up one morning and bolted a this place look entirely different Editor 2A CAUSE FOR APPLAUSE four-foot diameter, diamond blade overnight.As we approached the start Paul Joly A History of America’s Community Colleges rotary saw 30 feet up on College of class, the pace became more frantic. Center. There it was, a massive saw And then suddenly it was finished. Contributing Writers 6NORTHAMPTON’S METAMORPHOSIS mounted to a solid cement wall, blade And the students came — hundreds Heidi Butler Wherefore Art Thou, Kramer? tip poised 90 degrees to the surface.At more than the college has ever seen Emily Eider From Slide Rules to Smart Rooms the time, we didn’t know, but that walk through the doors the first week Smoothing Transistions bizarre wall sculpture was a sign from of class. James W.Harper About Face: Military Second Careers above telling us to find somewhere else But that’s just the first phase.All James L. Johnson ’89 to be for the rest of the summer if we this activity is the start of a three-year Michael E. Nagel 19 SPECIAL SECTION knew what was good for us. campus renovation that is shaping up Sandy Stahl Northampton Community College Sure enough, we found out the as the most ambitious renewal since Foundation Annual Report next day that these guys meant business the college’s founding. Cherry trees, Alumni Notes when they fired that monster up. locusts, red maples, Japanese holly, yews Brian Leidy ’88 Right through the solid cement wall and flower beds will add a natural DEPARTMENTS like — well — like steel ripping touch and plenty of shade. A new quad through concrete it went, cutting the dotted with oversized redwood bench- Design 20 ALUMNI NOTES first opening in a building that has es draws students, faculty and staff out Susan Williams & Associates stood windowless for 30 years. But of the surrounding buildings to relax, 24 DONOR PROFILE that was only the beginning. study and socialize in the airy space. Photography R. Dale Hughes Next came demolition of a second Next week, we hear, half a million David Coulter floor pedestrian bridge that crossed bricks will arrive for re-surfacing the 30 PROFILE over the campus quad. The rubble buildings. Drab, mildew-stained con- Randy Monceaux Teresa Donate and Blanca Smith filled the area below the president’s crete will be transformed to look new. Philip Stein administrative office suite, a section The brick and stucco “skin” will 35 DONOR PROFILE four stories up that rests on long increase energy efficiency, adding N Dr.Kathryn Krausz Holland columns down to the ground. All after- value even beyond the aesthetics. noon as they broke up the chunks with We can’t wait. President pneumatic pavement smashers right The theme of this issue is Dr. Robert J. Kopecek around the base of those columns, the “Metamorphosis.” As dramatic as these fourth floor conference room vibrated physical changes are, they only hint rhythmically while we did our best to at the adaptations we’re making in Vice President go on with a meeting. There probably education to prepare students for the Institutional Advancement were a few who prayed in a public new career world out there. The Susan K. Kubik school building that day. articles that follow look at some of Work progressed on this campus those changes. Northampton through the summer inside and out, Community College seemingly everywhere at once. Inside, Foundation Board Chairman corridor walls were stripped and Paul J. Mack papered, new carpet was laid, class- rooms were painted. The library was —Paul Joly Publisher Northampton Community College Foundation 3835 Green Pond Road Bethlehem, PA 18020 1 the United States for generations, others FAMOUS AMERICANS who just arrived. WHO GOT THEIR START We offer no apologies. Instead we celebrate. AT COMMUNITY COLLEGES We take strength in our community. We take pride in our diversity. And the hopes we share, Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle And the dreams we dare, Fred Haise, Apollo 13 hero Our unity, proclaims Northamp- Dr. Douglas Fields, director of research at the National Institute ton’s alma mater. of Health The celebration of community Dr. H. Craig Venter, a leading figure in the race to decode the colleges’ contributions to higher human genome education and to their communities — and of their passionate commitment Dr. Daniel Hayes, transplant surgeon to open access — took on national Dr. R. Bruce Merrifield, Nobel-prize winning chemist significance in 2001 as the community Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse’s dad college movement marked its 100th William Hanna, cartoon film producer anniversary. Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman, Oscar-winning actors In 1901, classes began at the oldest Jane Curtin, Sandy Duncan and Lee Meriwether, actresses continuously operating public two-year John Cougar Mellencamp, Natalie Merchant, and college in the country. The place was Randy Owen, singers not the East — home to many of this John Walsh, host of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ nation’s oldest and most prestigious uni- David Chu, president and CEO of Nautica versities, but the Midwest. The motives Harry M. Krogh, president and CEO of Osh Kosh Corporation were not as democratic as you might Calvin Klein, fashion designer imagine. Charles Collingwood and Jim Lehrer, broadcast journalists Buoyed by the publicly-funded Marti Galovic Palmer, ‘60 Minutes’ producer grammar and secondary schools, pop- Carol Guzy, NCC’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist ulists did push to expand opportunities William Thomas, L.A. Times editor for higher education, but they met with Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former U.N. Ambassador resistance from professors wedded to Cordell Hull, former Secretary of State CAUSE FOR the European traditions on which Arthur Goldberg, Supreme Court Justice American universities were modeled. Parris N. Glendening, Governor of Maryland Some faculty members held tight to the Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP British belief that universities should Fletcher Thompson, Assistant FBI Director focus on providing the upper classes Roger Clemens, Andy Petit, Jackie Robinson and PPLAUSE with a classical education that would Curt Schilling, baseball stars prepare them to lead; others favored the Sheryl Swoopes, basketball star German emphasis on research and engi- Cathy Turner, speed skater and Olympic gold medalist Community Colleges Celebrate Their Centennial neering. Few professors clamored to teach introductory-level courses. Frederick Hood, yacht-designer and America’s Cup winner A Ben Davidson, Frank Gifford, Warren Moon, and In stepped William Rainey Harper. A faculty member at Yale, Harper had Art Powell, NFL Hall of Famers earned a reputation as one of the great- John Madden and Dick Vermeil, NFL coaches est classical and biblical scholars of his BY HEIDI BRIGHT BUTLER time. When John D. Rockefeller decided to finance the creation of the University er of the public schools, Harper came Harper envisioned the University ising SAT scores. High class ranks.A fine crop of National Merit Scholars. of Chicago — now one of the most up with what today we would call a of Chicago as a two-tiered system: a R These are bragging rights for many colleges that pride themselves on exclusivity. selective universities in the world — ‘new paradigm’ for education. “I have a network of free-standing lower colleges Not so, community colleges. We boast of being inclusive. Our doors are open wide. Through them Harper was named its first president. plan which I am persuaded will revolu- would provide the first two years pass honors students and high school dropouts, rich and poor, kids fresh out of school and classmates old enough Sympathetic to the concerns of uni- tionize University study in our country,” of undergraduate education, freeing to be their grandparents, learners of every ethnic background imaginable — some whose families have lived in versity faculty, but also a strong support- he told Rockefeller.

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