Thumbs Up
Cash for sustainability
The Downtown Campus project earned a $100,000 Greenpower grant from the Eugene Water and Electric Board recently for its Earth-friendly plans. Blueprints for the building, which will replace the current Downtown Center by Fall 2013, include a 12-kilovolt photovoltaic array on the roof and heating, cooling and ventilation systems designed to be part of the Energy Management Program. A similar grant in 2009 helped fund the electric vehicle charging station on campus. We guess you could call this a green thumb on a few different levels. Sorry, but we just had to go there.
Thumbs Down
Oregon graduation rates
If a student enrolls at a public state high school, statistics show they’ll have about a two-in-three shot at graduating in four years. While the numbers are a bit higher in Lane County — about 85 percent of Eugene high school students graduate on time and 75 percent in Springfield — we’re not too thrilled about the correlation we see between graduation rates and state funding for these institutions. It’s no secret public schools have been struggling to acquire more dollars in recent years and we surely hope Gov. John Kitzhaber sees what we do.
Thumbs Up
They’ve got the power
Lori Wilson and Matt Ray, both students at the college, were named to the 2011 All-Oregon Academic Team sponsored by the Oregon Community College Association. Both were nominated by administrators at LCC for their outstanding academic work and joined students from the state’s other 17 two-year colleges for an awards ceremony at the state capitol. This is what we like to hear.
