That’s the subject line of an email sent by Sue Vanderwerf , assistant to the president and public information officer at Shasta College in Redding. I agree, so I’m sharing her note about staff members.

This past month, English instructor Kathryn Gessner traveled to Los Angeles to help in a fundraising effort in support of the charitable organization Lotus Outreach. The approximately $70,000 that was raised will serve to educate young girls in Cambodia. Education has been found to be an effective antidote against the trafficking of human beings, a practice that has alarming rates in parts of Asia. Kathryn also volunteers on the Board of Directors for Lotus Outreach. She also uses her writing talents in the drafting of grant proposals in support of this charity’s activities.

Over the past two summers, Shasta College math instructors Christina Berisso and Bob Bittner have been making problems for students–quite literally! Christina and Bob, with some help from Iraja Sivadas, have created banks of thousands of items that build the students’ mastery of concepts in Math 101 and 102. The instructors are preparing these for duplication and posting on the web, so that students may receive the kind of practice they need, in order to be successful in these pivotal courses. An added bonus is that paper copies will be offered at a minimal cost to students, and the online material will be free. This material is of such quality that it could well replace the need for students to break their bank accounts with the purchase of texts for these classes. These instructors have given up much of their summer free time, so that students will not have to spend tens of thousands of dollars for books.

On August 8th, GIS instructor Dan Scollon teamed up with the Shasta County Office of Education, NASA and the Schreder Planetarium to offer GIS/GPS training to Shasta County middle school teachers. Additionally, Dan has arranged for the Regents, UC and Shasta County 4H to bring students to campus eight times in the next half year, for the purposes of introducing them to GIS and GPS technology. This effort recognizes the importance of instilling at an early age a love for science and an ability to use technology.

Congratulations to Theatre Instructor Robert Soffian. He was featured in the August 2008 publication of Enjoy magazine. You can find the article on Page 48. If you don’t have a hard copy, click here to see it.