Federal College Aid Form Getting Pared Down

The Obama administration plans to simplify the federal college aid form, which at 153 questions drives millions of families to give up before they finish it.

President Barack Obama wants to make the form much more user-friendly as part of a sweeping plan to put higher education within reach of more students.

Read more at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009375374_apusobamacollegeaid.html

IT Conference Comes to Central

Exciting news for IT!

This October, the premiere West Coast PostgreSQL Conference 2009 will be leaving its roots at Portland State University and moving north to sunny Seattle, Washington.

The event this year is being held at Seattle Central Community College from October 16th through 18th. The move to Seattle opens up a larger metropolitan area for continuing to expose databases users, developers, and administrators to the World's Most Advanced Open Source Database.

Following previously successful West Coast conferences, we will be hosting a series of 3-4 hour tutorials, 90 minute mini-tutorials, and 45 minute talks.

The event will cover the entire PostgreSQL ecosystem, including the following topics:

General PostgreSQL
Administration
* Performance
* High Availability
* Migration
* GIS
* Integration
* Solutions and White Papers

The Stack
Python/Django/Pylons/TurboGears/Custom
* Perl5/Catalyst/Bricolage
* Potato
* Ruby/Rails
* Java (PLJava would be great)/Groovy/Grails
* Operating System optimization (Linux/FBSD/Solaris/Windows)
* Solutions and White Papers

More information to follow in the coming months. Contact Lisa Sandoval with questions.

New Dental Assistant Certificate

Submitted by Ona Canfield

The New Expanded Function Dental Auxiliary (EFDA) program to open summer quarter at Seattle Central Community College.

The Expanded Function Dental Auxiliary Program is a two-quarter 13-credit program offering a certificate of completion.

Now the dental assistant is able to expand his or her skills to become this new licensed practitioner. EFDAs are able to place amalgam and composite restorations. In addition to treating patients directly, EFDAs may also work as educators and in business. Clinical EFDAs may work in a variety of health care settings such as private dental offices, public health clinics, hospitals, managed care organizations, and correctional institutions.

Seattle Central's program is six-months long and is developed for the working dental assistant. Classes are held on one week night and one Saturday for two eleven week quarters of study.

Call William Spence for information or to apply: 206-587-4188 or email to efda@sccd.ctc.edu