Humor: Your Choice–A or B?

From Steve Barton….

The Great Northwest Rotary Business Network

Program Summary: Sheila Edwards Lange, Seattle Central College, “Higher Education: What’s Being Done to Close the Gaps for Students of Color”

Our speaker on December 3, 2020 was Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange.

Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange is the President of Seattle Central College. She started her tenure at Seattle Central in August 2015 as interim president, and was named to the permanent position in May 2016. Prior to this, she served as vice president for Minority Affairs and vice provost for Diversity at the University of Washington. Dr. Edwards Lange earned a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in social ecology from the University of California, Irvine.

Here are Dr. Edwards Lange’s slides:

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Providing equitable access to opportunity is a key theme of the unrest observed in our country. Seattle Colleges are playing a key role in addressing this issue.

Seattle has three community colleges and a plethora of satellite facilities that provide $1.1 billion in economic impact. There are 44,000 students in the system.

The median age is 28.
43% are non-white.
36% are full time.
20% have dependents.
48% are first generation college students.
49% are in career directed professional programs.

Seattle Colleges accept all applicants. They are focused on programs desired by employers and are a leader in innovation.

Dr. Edwards Lange noted that the Washington Roundtable forecasts that there will be 740,000 job openings in the next five years. Two-thirds will require a degree or professional certificate. Dr. Lange noted that students of color have lower rates of obtaining credentials; one of the results is that our region imports talent instead of hiring local talent.

Currently, students of color graduate at a 48% rate compared to 60% for all other students. Closing this equity gap is a key priority of the college.

To do so, the Colleges are committed to a Equity Can’t Wait program. This includes working with the City of Seattle’s Seattle Promise program that provides support and free tuition to students that enter the college programs right after high school. One third of Seattle Public School graduates are in the program and 64% are students of color.

Much has been accomplished the the Seattle College program–and there are many more challenges to overcome.

A Tour of Copperworks to Benefit Rotary (With Discounts!)

Join the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club on the 18^th December 2020 for a Virtual Tour of the Copperworks Distillery. The Bellevue Club is offering some tremendous Rotary discounts on the Whiskey, Gin and Vodka as part of the event, which can make tremendous seasonal gifts for friends and family.

Each purchase of a bottle will provide you with a free raffle entry to win some amazing prizes that include festive gift baskets full of goodies, an opportunity to actually tour the distillery with 15 guests, or win a trio of craft-spirits from Copperworks.

Check out the event site for more details! $75 Admission and Tour.

Dr. Hal’s Corner: How the Internet Started, according to the Gospel of Dr. Hal

Please do not Google or check this with Snopes. They will lie to you. Trust me!

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the name of Dorothy. And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of breast, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband, “Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?”

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said,

“How, dear?”

And Dot replied, “I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS).”

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.

To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures – Hebrew to the People (HTTP).

And the young men did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates’ drum heads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say, “Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others.” And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known. He said, “We need a name that reflects what we are.”

And Dot replied, “Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.” “YAHOO,” said Abraham. And because it was Dot’s idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham’s cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot’s drums to locate things around the countryside.

It soon became known as God’s Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).

That is how it all began. And that’s the truth.

I would not make up this stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Courtesy of Steve Barton

Warm Winter Drive

University Heights Center hoping to collect warm winter clothing for the University neighborhood on December 18, 2020.

Dr. Hal’s Corner: Good Dog!

Rotary International: 2020 Council on Resolutions Report of Action

Program Summary: Doc Reed and Steve Gerritson

By Nancy Bittner

The Club’s program on November 19, 2020 featured our two newest members.

Wilson (Doc) Reed – Doc was born in Vicksburg, MS into a family of farmers & grew up in the small town of Redwood which became the home of International Paper Company after buying up many of the small farms in the area. Doc lived his early life during the Jim Crow era of the South that was regulated by 22 laws regarding race relationships. Because of this strife nearly 6 million Americans fled the south & migrated to the north & midwest. He attended racially segregated schools. Doc’s mother died at age 36 from cancer & his family pretty much fell apart. In 1969 he boarded a bus & traveled 2600 miles, arriving in Seattle to live with his father’s family. He attended the UW & earned four degrees. He taught at Seattle U. for 17 years before retiring. He is currently writing a book on poverty to Ph.D., lives in Shoreline, & is a single Dad to a 21 year old son.

Steve Gerritson – Steve was born in a small town on the coast of Maine. His parents moved a lot as his Dad was a salesman, selling chemicals to dry cleaning businesses.

He went to high school in Boston, MA & went on to college, completing only one year before his father died. He played minor league baseball for two seasons before joining the U.S. Air Force. He graduated U. MA & received a masters from Princeton. He worked for the Foreign Service in Africa & also worked for the MA state legislature. Steve moved to Seattle in 1994 when his then wife was accepted to do post-doctoral work at the UW. He was employed by PAC-RIM Enterprise Center that sold products to the government. In 2004 he was part of Clean Tech Alliance & was part of the committee that hired Tom Ranken as its Executive Director. Steve retired in 2015 & was looking around for some environmental cause to become involved in. He found that most opportunities wanted him to “oppose something.” Tom Ranken convinced him that he should try something positive like Rotary. In his spare time, Steve has written & published two mystery novels & is working on his third book.