THE UNIVERSITY OF JARY KANSAN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2009
NEWS 5A
Crafty carving
Chance Dibben/KANSAN Maggie Ma, Beijing freshman, carves a pumpkin on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union Thursday afternoon as part of the SUA Haunted Halloween open house. This was Ma's first time caring a pumpkin.
RELIGION
Churches going to the Web
BY RACHEL ZOLL
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Internet pastor for the Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Fla., chats with attendees around the world as he prepares to deliver a sermon on Oct. 25.
Church volunteers greet visitors entering the lobby. The worship band begins its set and a pastor offers to pray privately with anyone during the service.
When the sermon is done, it's time for communion, and the pastor guides attendees through the ritual. Later, worshippers exchange Facebook and e-mail addresses so they can stay in touch.
There is nothing remarkable about this encounter, which is replicated countless times each weekend at churches around the world. It's all happening online.
The World Wide Web has become the hottest place to build a church. A growing number of congregations are creating Internet offshoots that go far beyond streaming weekly services.
The sites are fully interactive, with a dedicated Internet pastor, live chat in an online "lobby," Bible study, one-on-one prayer through IM and communion. (Viewers use their own bread and wine or water from home.) On one site, viewers can click on a tab during worship to accept Christ as their savior. Flamingo Road Church, based in Cooper City, Fla., twice conducted long-distance baptisms through the Internet.
"The goal is to not let people at home feel like they're watching what's happening, but they're part of it. They're participating," said Brian Vasil, Flamingo
Road's Internet pastor.
The move online is forcing Christians to re-examine their idea of church. It's a complex discussion involving theology, tradition and cultural expectations of how Christians should worship and relate. Even developers of Internet church sites disagree over how far they should go. Many, for example, will only conduct baptisms in person.
The critics say that true Christian community ultimately requires in-person interaction. They deride the sites as religious fast food.
But advocates consider the Internet just another neighborhood where real relationships can be built. Rob Wegner, a pastor at Granger Community Church of Indiana, calls the Web the church's "front porch." Pastors who back the
sites say they feel a religious duty to this new way for reaching the spiritually lost.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Students stand in the back row of a full chemistry class at the California State University East Bay in Hayward, Calif., on Sept. 23. More than 50 students were on a waiting list for the class.
Courses filling up quickly
High enrollment nationwide causes long waiting lists for classes
BY DEANNA MARTIN
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS - Arthur Call commutes three hours roundtrip to his anatomy class at community college because similar courses on campuses closer to his Indianapolis home are packed this semester.
"Classes around the state were just full," says Call, a full-time student who takes the rest of his classes in Indianapolis. "Thank God it's only Tuesdays. I just have to drive there once a week."
President Barack Obama wants to invest some $12 billion in community colleges with the aim of seeing an additional 5 million students graduate by 2020. This goal comes while many schools are already bursting at the seams with droves of displaced workers hit by the recession competing with traditional students seeking an education bargain.
"All community colleges are not prepared to take on those potentially large numbers of students," said Debra Bragg, a professor and director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois.
Bragg says the schools' ability to deal with more students largely comes down to cash.
The Obama administration notes that 5 million more community college graduates doesn't necessarily mean there will be that many more students — schools could increase graduation rates to reach the goal. And the administration says money from the 10-year initiative to rebuild aging facilities and establish online classes would help schools handle the extra students.
Much of the money for the nation's 1,200 community colleges comes from local and state sources. That funding has been hard to come by during the
EDUCATION
A n d
more young
time of intense growth for the more than century-old community college system, which already educates more than half the nation's undergraduates.
economic downturn, even as enrollment booms. In California, community colleges are struggling to cope with $840 million in budget cuts while enrollment is expected to climb.
"We're cautious in making sure that we don't make expenditures on staffing."
Obama's 10-year initiative would provide a welcome infusion of cash, but some fear it would not sustain community college programs.
Americans than ever are going to college, particularly community college. A record high of about 11.5 million Americans age 18 to 24, or nearly 40 percent, attended college in October 2008, according to a study of Census data recently released by the Pew Research Center. Almost all of the increase of 300,000 students over the previous year came at two-year schools.
"They will be constrained by funding," says Bragg. "It could be potentially extremely challenging if there's not increased funding at the federal, state and local level to make that happen."
THOMAS SNYDER Ivy Tech president
About 12 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in community colleges last year, up from 10.9 percent in 2007.
Enrollment numbers are not yet available for the fall 2009 semester, but the American Association of Community Colleges estimates enrollment is up at least 10 percent over 2008. Some schools have reported increases of 25 to 30 percent.
Michael Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association, says classes in popular fields such as nursing require low student-to-faculty ratios and expensive equipment. He is concerned it will be difficult to meet new demand without yet more funding.
"It's a little bit of a bittersweet pill," Hansen said. "It's great that people are coming back to community colleges to get trained, but a student only brings about a third of the cost of their tuition."
The conundrum comes at a
Ivy Tech Community College President Thomas Snyder says his school can handle more growth
in part by finding savings internally and relying on philanthropic and community donations. The school will not expand too much and find itself with empty classrooms if an economic turnaround slows future enrollment.
"We're cautious in making sure that we don't make expenditures on staffing, for example, or other critical areas that we can't sustain," Snyder says.
While officials wait to see whether Obama's plan will become reality, community colleges are turning to creative — though not always convenient — ways to cope with already large crowds.
Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts holds graveyard shift classes that end at 2:30 a.m., while the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland has converted a student lounge and locker room space into classrooms. Parking shuttles and weekend classes are popping up across the country.
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