Daily Lumina News 082021

Much of the higher education coverage related to COVID-19 has focused on 18-year-old students being displaced from their dorms and listening to history lectures or watching biology videos in their childhood bedrooms. Relatively little attention has been paid to the pandemic’s impact on career and technical education, much of which involves hands-on learning.
On this episode of The Key, Shayne Spaulding of the Urban Institute offers insight on how the pandemic reshaped the delivery of CTE programs and the outlook for CTE going forward.

Mothers with outside employment, among the hardest-hit by the COVID-19 recession, are returning to the workforce in impressive numbers, aided by the reopening of schools and daycare programs.
But the pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on millions of moms in terms of job security, pay equity, and long-term career opportunities—losses many will likely never recover.

The highly contagious Delta variant is causing coronavirus cases to surge throughout the United States, though most new infections and hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people. In turn, colleges are re-evaluating their safety measures for the fall.
While the pandemic has changed, the tools colleges should use haven't. Health experts says schools should continue to employ the mitigation measures that they know work—including mask-wearing and coronavirus testing—as well as encourage or mandate the vaccines for people on campus.

The dwindling number of Colorado students who didn’t complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) during the 2020-21 school year—nearly 1,900 fewer than the previous year—has raised concern among advocates focused on helping high school students realize their higher education dreams.
Especially troubling to educators and others in the state: The most pronounced downturns occurred at schools with greater low-income populations and a high number of students of color.

Community colleges have been experts in delivering short-term programming for adult learners for decades; this is where they thrive and where other institutions can leverage their expertise.
In this interview, Sandra Kurtinitis of the Community College of Baltimore County discusses how quality microcredentials can offer a fast and flexible way to get learners back into the workforce and keep them relevant throughout their career.

Since Aug. 1, the test positivity rate in Stanislaus County has climbed from 8 percent to nearly 13 percent. On Aug. 16, 740 new COVID cases were reported in the county, which has a population of roughly 550,000. And on the campus of Stanislaus State, part of the California State University system, nine positive cases prompted contact tracing to 88 people who then had to be monitored.
Stanislaus State President Ellen Junn explains how she made the tough decision to shift classes online just days before the start of the semester.