Relevant Topic - Student Concerns

This is a small departure from a themed topic on my blog. I think this is a relevant topic that affects us all no matter what your thoughts are on the topic of CSU fee hikes and all the many 'takeaways' that are being proposed. I had occasion to hear a presentation by Students for Quality Education in one of my classes last week. They gave a presentation based on facts and frustrations that their voices are not being heard and felt there were very few options open to them without protest. They gave several strategies that this group and several other groups at the CSU campus' will be conducting over the next few months. This week in the news, one of the speakers is involved in a hunger strike in protest to: rising student fees, freeze on enrollments, loss of faculty and staff, salary increases to campus presidents, cuts to student classes and services, and elimination of bonuses and other perks (housing, car, and entertainment allowances) to campus presidents and executives. The protests proposed are all non-violent and are mostly to present solidarity. They indicated that there has been some intimidation by campus police and felt that there should be some free speech areas on campus.
Whatever your thoughts, we all have seen the many cuts to all services in city, county, public, and private organizations. We know that is a sign of the times. While our educational fees at a public university are still the most cost effective, we have seen cuts to our classes, prolonged graduation, and the fee hikes that do impact those students who have very few financial resources. I can't help worrying about those students and our children for their future educational pursuits. In review of needed improvements for our County, we need to have an educated workforce to encourage business and industry to come to our area. So, for this bidirectional model to work, we need to have college graduates to fill professional jobs and we need jobs for our educated professionals. The solutions will not happen overnight and will take much communication and cooperation from all sides of this discussion.

Hearing Conservation

My second next passion and interest is hearing loss and hearing conservation. Why, you ask... I worked for California Children's Services for 13 years. While I was there I had a wonderful opportunity to advocate and provide treatment services for children with hearing loss. We were able to improve our authorizations for treatment and equipment from taking 1 year to completing the process in less than 5 days. Since I was a supervisor you can impact and implement quality improvement controls. Hearing is one sense, when it's gone, it's gone. We have so much noise in our world and we do so many things that ruin our hearing, so I am a big proponent of hearing conservation efforts with our children.
I just finished the audiology course and am now certified as an audiometrist. I took that class while I was waiting for Dr. Stoner to bring this class back. I will try to find my articles on fetal hearing and discussions whether a fetus can sustain hearing loss.

Postpartum Depression

Postpartum depression awareness is one of my passion's as you will hear in my voice thread. I have been involved with the Inland Empire Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative since 2010. The mission is to bring awareness to the public regarding perinatal mood disorders, assist in training professionals, and collaborate to establish services for women and their families. Kevin actually assisted in developing their blog. (that is not a surprise for anyone). We will be having our annual conference April 30th at Department of Behavioral Health in Colton. More info regarding this at www.embracingfamilies.blogspot. The cost is nomimal - $40, free breakfast, lunch, book, and 8 CEUs. You can pay via Paypal or at the door. There were still advertising as of Monday.

Our slogan: "Speak Up when You're Down"

First Post

I really am in this class and will be up and (not running) but crawling forward. Had a small computer malfunction, but we are back in the ballpark again. The audio file was interesting, but I still need to figure out how to attach it as a video as well. First things, first. I found these great directions for using this blogger, let's see if I can follow directions. My husband doesn't think I can do this, so I really have to show him!!!
My colleagues at work think this is a hoot. Most of us that are supervisors don't have time to tweet, Facebook, YouTube, blog, etc. Since our employees do use these media sites so much I am sure we will soon have a more specific policy on social media etiquette and use at work. We have a policy prohibiting it unless authorized, but not for personal use at work. Off to my next adventure- licensing.