Published in the September 26, 2014 Noozhawk. “Isn’t it funny,” the student’s essay began, “how life itself is not just a fight for survival, but more a fight for mastery? Some people are satisfied with just survival, but others …” I had assigned my freshman composition class at Allan Hancock College the task of writing […]

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Published in the September 25, 2014 Santa Maria Times. The Santa Maria Valley Union Picnic and Celebration of Sept. 1 was an amazing success, far surpassing the expectations of its organizers. On Aug. 29, I wrote that a new Labor Day tradition would be starting in Santa Maria. Thanks to the efforts of the Part-Time […]

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Published in the August 29, 2014 Noozhawk. The American system of higher education is widely regarded as the world’s best. More than half of the top 100 universities in the world are American. In 2013, Fareed Zakaria proclaimed in Time magazine that American higher education is “the envy of the world.” But beneath the congratulatory […]

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