Happy Thanksgiving from North Shore Community College

It’s the day after Thanksgiving – I was thinking, which is always good, about how Thanksgiving Dinner shouldn’t be called Thanksgiving Dinner. I’ve got a problem with the word “Dinner.” Thanksgiving only comes around once a year and we call it a dinner? Dinner just doesn’t do justice to the hallowed day of eating – a day to stuff your face and eat mashed potato’s with your fingers (as my niece probably did) celebration, she loves the SO BIG GAME; we use this to manipulate her into letting us wash her hands!

Thanksgiving’s like a small festival, especially if you’ve got a huge family as I do, but this year wasn’t as large as we’ve had in past years - we had anywhere between 8 and upwards of 20-25 people at our house. Over the past year family members have moved to Italy, spent it with boyfriends or girlfriends, or simply just wanted to keep it quiet. I hope that you had a wonderful holiday.

The times at North Shore Community College are changing. We only have two weeks left for this half of the academic year. I’ve definitely been hearing whispers of finals week. Today, as a matter of fact, the schedules for the fall final dates have been made available. This year is flying.

Putting the holiday aside and getting back in to the groove of things wasn’t too hard, the vacation was delightful and refreshing. I’ve been quite the busy bee, as we approach the next semester, my interface with students will go up.

I have two big projects underway: community service fair and a leadership series. The fair will occur at the Lynn Gym in February. The leadership series will be a variety of panel discussions, workshops, and finally guest speakers.

Student Leaders will follow a track for the series. We will offer three concentrations for student to follow, the concentration will be decided by the student, where they feel improvement is need :

Communication Skills Track

Programming Skills Track

Personal Track

Each track will require students to follow guidelines, depending on what track they take will determine which workshops they will attend. After they meet all the requirements of their track they will be rewarded with a certificate.

The planning aspect of this series will be “daunting Will” as my co-worker Victoria, Assistant Director of Student Life , says, but I say why not do something of this nature. Victoria thought of the having it set up as a track program. I thought the idea was brilliant, next thing you know it, Diana Kerry, Director of the Public Policy Institute, is now on board for helping in the efforts.

It’s a great time to be at North Shore Community College! I can’t wait to give students the chance to improve their leadership as well as connecting them with the community. Early Service Training is coming up next week. A time for us to reflect on this past semester’s progress and receive more training. It’s going to be a fun time.

Peace Out!

Will