text:
Enterprise Begins Service At ECHO Crude Oil Terminal
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD) today announced that the initial phase of its Enterprise Crude Houston ("ECHO") storage terminal in Harris County, Texas is complete and the facility is now receiving deliveries of crude oil. The first three tanks total 750,000 barrels of storage capacity. The next phase of the ECHO terminal expansion includes the addition of up to 900,000 barrels of storage capacity, which could be in service as early as the first quarter of 2014. Enterprise estimates that the ECHO facility could have up to 6 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity when completed.
"Enterprise's ECHO facility is at the center of a historic and fundamental shift in our nation's crude oil infrastructure by linking growing supplies of North American crude and condensate production with the U.S. Gulf Coast refining complex," said A.J. "Jim" Teague, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Enterprise's general partner. "We are very pleased to announce the completion of the initial phase of ECHO. Our investments in ECHO, the recently completed Eagle Ford Shale pipeline and the Seaway Crude Oil pipeline will benefit both producers and consumers of crude oil while supporting energy security for our nation. Ultimately, ECHO will provide pipeline and waterborne access to every major Gulf Coast refinery, representing more than 7 million barrels per day of capacity."
Recognizing the flexibility and market liquidity potential of ECHO and its significance as a delivery hub for growing sources of North American crude oil, ECHO is under consideration by the New York Mercantile Exchange ("NYMEX") as a regional pricing point for the U.S. Gulf Coast crude market. Through the Seaway crude oil pipeline, ECHO will be connected to the storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, the NYMEX benchmark pricing point for its West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract.
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is one of the largest publicly traded partnerships and a leading North American provider of midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas, NGLs, crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals. The partnership's assets include approximately 50,700 miles of onshore and offshore pipelines; 190 million barrels of storage capacity for NGLs, petrochemicals, refined products and crude oil; and 14 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage capacity. Services include: natural gas gathering, treating, processing, transportation and storage; NGL transportation, fractionation, storage, and import and export terminals; crude oil and refined products transportation, storage and terminals; offshore production platforms; petrochemical transportation and services; and a marine transportation business that operates primarily on the United States inland and Intracoastal Waterway systems and in the Gulf of Mexico. For additional information about Enterprise, please visit www.enterpriseproducts.com.This press release includes "forward-looking statements" as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein that address activities, events, developments or transactions that Enterprise expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including anticipated benefits and other aspects of such activities, events, developments or transactions, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including required approvals by regulatory agencies, the possibility that the anticipated benefits from such activities, events, developments or transactions cannot be fully realized, the possibility that costs or difficulties related thereto will be greater than expected, the impact of competition and other risk factors included in the reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Enterprise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Except as required by law, Enterprise does not intend to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Select the service that is right for you!COMPARE ALL SERVICES
Action Alerts PLUSTry it NOW
Jim Cramer and Stephanie Link actively manage a real portfolio and reveal their money management tactics while giving advanced notice before every trade.
Product Features:
- $2.5+ million portfolio
- Large-cap and dividend focus
- Intraday trade alerts from Cramer
- Weekly roundups
TheStreet Quant RatingsTry it NOW
Only $49.95/yr
Access the tool that DOMINATES the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500.
Product Features:
- Buy, hold, or sell recommendations for over 4,300 stocks
- Unlimited research reports on your favorite stocks
- A custom stock screener
- Upgrade/downgrade alerts
Stocks Under $10Try it NOW
David Peltier, uncovers low dollar stocks with extraordinary upside potential that are flying under Wall Street's radar.
Product Features:
- Model portfolio
- Stocks trading below $10
- Intraday trade alerts
- Weekly roundups
Dividend Stock AdvisorTry it NOW
Jim Cramer's protege, David Peltier, identifies the best of breed dividend stocks that will pay a reliable AND significant income stream.
Product Features:
- Diversified model portfolio of dividend stocks
- Alerts when market news affect the portfolio
- Bi-weekly updates with exact steps to take - BUY, HOLD, SELL
Real Money ProTry it NOW
All of Real Money, plus 15 more of Wall Street's sharpest minds delivering actionable trading ideas, a comprehensive look at the market, and fundamental and technical analysis.
Product Features:
- Real Money + Doug Kass Plus 15 more Wall Street Pros
- Intraday commentary & news
- Ultra-actionable trading ideas
Options ProfitsTry it NOW
Our options trading pros provide daily market commentary and over 100 monthly option trading ideas and strategies to help you become a well-seasoned trader.
Product Features:
- 100+ monthly options trading ideas
- Actionable options commentary & news
- Real-time trading community
- Options TV


text:
Top Browser Games in Germany
Posted on Apr 26,2011 03:04 , by EDWARD WONG
The trend -Video games playable via the Internet – has seen a remarkable growth in Germany. Such games are called Browsergames where players do not need to download game client and install it on their PC, but a simple registration redirects players into the fantasy gaming world.
From our research and follow-ups in German online gaming development, we found most of the players stick to such new sub-genre of Video game. Since the inception of OGame, and Travian, more and more browser games hit the German market and even Chinese webgame (equivalent of browsergame) targets German market.
Today, we just list some popular German browser-based games in the genre of RTS, RPG, and simulation.
1, Die Siedler Online (The Settlers Online)
Most of German browser games have been translated into multiple languages in a bid to attract millions of worldwide players. But Ubisoft's Die Siedler Online remain available for German Version, which appears biased for players from the rest of the world.
Rumors said this browser Strategy game will come into International Market this year. Perhaps this will pose a great threat to EA's Lord of Ultima.
2, Goal United
Online Manger game such as Soccer Manager, Hattrick, and 11×11 marks a past Era, thereby comes a new trend – Goal United. This is a simulation browser game that is very popular in Germany. Published by Travian Games GmbH, Goal United enjoys a much acclaimed reputation. Start your football Manager career Now!
3, Grepolis
Look at its Online concurrent number of players, you will know how much popular Grepolis is! The official open beta started in December, 2009, as times go by, Innogames keeps to update it with New version Grepolis 2.0 live in 2011. Around two million players are playing Grepolis!
4, War 2 Glory
If something is masked with fantasy, or European elements, the object in question may show something different, or even worse, the truth will be distorted. But Chinese guys, obviously, knows how to adopt them into the market.
War2 Glory is an example that attempts to lure European players with World war 2 setting, but it is a free browser game.
In fact, War 2 Glory had been released in China years ago under the name 二战风云,followed by its international localization, WW2 Warfare, and Dawn of Nations .
5, Travian
Needless to say, Travian remains robust thanks to its innovative gameplay as the vanguard browser game. With its freshest interface and ever updated expansion, Travian qualifies the best browser game of all time.
What US players frequently visited website is nothing but Facebook, while what is hot on Facebook? I should say Farmville, Cityville, and Simply Hospital. However, in Germany, browser simulation game that simulates hospital is Kapi Hospital, the most popular game that scores many awards since its release.
If it comes under an international title, it would be more lucrative for the dev team.
7, Farmerama
Farmerama is a free online farming simulation game where players can grow and harvest crops and raise animals, which is similar to Cityville and Frontierville.
In Germany, Farmerama is just a substitute of Farmville.
A Mystical Land is a 3D browser-based online game that is available at browser, facebook and mobile devices. A mystical Land combines traditional MMORPG, Minigame and quest-solving elements.
9, Urban Rivals
10, Battlestar Galactica Online
12, Seven lands
13, Terra Militaris
- Comments
0 Comments on Top Browser Games in Germany
top games
Odin Quest
The brand new Fantasy game RIFT features massive batting and daily login rewards...
Legend Warrior
Strategy online game Batheo opens new servers ever week with multiplayer and social options...
War of Legends
Be legend, be warlord, be legendary strategist. Dive into browser MMO War of Legends...
Evony, the first online mmo on browser. It's constantly updated with new heroes and contents...
War 2 Glory
The Second World War game with hero levelup, city building, item trading and city conquering...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Review: Premium *Conquest* Theme For BlackBerry Tour
I know I just announced *Conquest*v.1 by Cocky Culture, but I was able to really take a good look at it and install it on my BlackBerry Tour and it's stunning. The theme encapsules professional with style, enhancing your Tour and creating a dreamy regal look. It's different and unlike any theme I've ever installed.
I installed the *Conquest* on my BlackBerry Tour and did the battery pull. After the phone started back up this is what I noticed. The first screen has a shield, some vintage design and crown that sits on a silver and gold background that looks like aged metal or an old painting. The first nine icons are the ones displayed in a square in the middle. Scrolling down the square hides the square leaving just the front screen displaying time in black on the top right corner and a white alarm symbol. In the center the date is displayed in black. There is also some lines that look like half moons. Here's the neat part, the inner half circle is the signal and the outer half circle is the battery life. You can actually watch them slowly move.
The options button brings up all the icons, done in vintage looking style. battery life and time are displayed in the top left corner and coverage and bars in the top right. The background is gold and silver with vintage design. As you scroll over each icon, a metal circle surrounds each icon.
When going into your messages, clicking the options button brings up a dark smokey colored option display that is transparent. The theme is easy to navigate and smooth. I really like the way it is professional and adult geared, giving the vintage and European feel to it, noble and aged. It states wisdom and is stylish.
I can see this theme appealing to professionals, adults who want a distinguished and adult feel theme, something appropriate for home and the work place. If you have put off getting a theme because you were wanting something different that has nothing to do with movies, cartoons, fun and corny, or simple or ordinary, this is the theme you've waited for. This theme feels as natural in your hand as an antique ornament or heirloom, and feels as timeless.
This premium theme *Conquest* v1.0 by Cocky Culture sells for $4.95 regularly but is on sale for half off until August 21st in the BlackBerry Sync Store. This is one theme you're going to want in your themes. Cocky Culture has other themes as well, and while I hadn't really noticed them, I'm very taken by this theme and will have to check the others out.
You can purchase your copy of *Conquest*v1.0 from the BlackBerry Sync Store for $2.48 till Aug 21st here >
Compatible with OS: 4.7
Compatible with the Tour
[rating: 5/5]
Pingback: Review: Rocker Chic Premium Theme By Cocky Culture » BlackBerry Sync – BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…()
Pingback: nyc home theater picture()
Pingback: lawsuits settlement()


text:
Interloc Print
Product Information
Interloc edgers provide the finishing touches to any landscaped area by separating and protecting mulch or rock from grass edges to keep your yard neat and clean.
Approximate Size: 3-3/8"H x 3-3/8"W x 11"D
Approximate Weight: 10 lbs.
Online ToolsRequest a Quote
Click a picture for a larger view Additional Images
Click a style for a larger view Additional Styles
Featured Products
Landscaping LiteratureLiterature Page
Photo Gallery
Find the inspiration for your next project as you flip through our collection of beautiful, completed projects.View Full Gallery


text:
Tarik Dervish
| Yoga Classes in London London
|Tarik Dervish Website
|Yoga Style: Hatha Yoga with an Ayurvedic approach
24 Queens Rd
London, London N11 2QU
|020 8292 7659
|Contact:Tarik Dervish
|Send Message
I teach general Hatha classes, small groups and one to one. I generally help students develop a sound physical discipline as a preparation for more subtle energetic work. My work is underpinned by Ayurvedic principles.
|Update listing
|You also might be interested in...
England Yoga Workshops
England Yoga Retreats
England Yoga Teacher Training Centers
England Yoga Advanced Training


text:
Crush Doll: Alana
photog: shone
stylist: kendra (no pants)
fluffer: gcrush
view the behind the scenes love
view this gallery
And it's that time again! Time for our weekly boho. This week we share the magical Alana. We shot this shoot in a series of what we call get in bed with a crush doll. mmmmmmmmmmmmm we love the sound of that. We know you are going to love it. Her smile warms our hearts, and we know it's going to give you that warm and fuzzy sensation as well.
♥ What crush doll would you like to "get in bed with?" let us know so that we can let her know that she is kindly being requested to see her in these series.
Another beautiful week has brought so much love and adventure. It's all around: in the changes of the leaves, the greying of the skys, the cozy way we are feeling. Changes of nature are such a beautiful and desired dynamic. We truly love love love the ebbs and flows of living with planet earth. We've got a game plan for this winter, and it includes a lot of hot springs, homemade yummy soups, hot teas and chais, hot baths, lots of outdoor/indoor adventurous photo shoots, and of course lots of delicious and yummy sex! mmmmmmmmmmm
♥ What is your "game plan" for the city and season you are living in?
We hope you feel all wrapped up in our love, and if you are looking for some adventures today, look no further.
♥ we've got photo shoots on the books! you'll be seeing some behind the scenes photos this week. stay tuned.
♥ I've received a lot of amazing questions lately about our photo shoots. I'm in the process of writing up a more specific post about what our photo shoots entail. I'm going to write it in a FAQ format for easy navigating. I'll post a link to it in the photo shoots group on bohocrush. There we can use the forums to explore more specifics about any question or thought you may have. This helps me share all of this information with everybody, and that saves me a lot of time, and makes sure that I share accurate information. Win!
♥ as I am typing this I am watching shone build the boho boy galleries. Keep your eyes open for boys boys boys!
♥ we had a recent visit from Jeremy. One of our new boho photographers. You will all soon be enjoying his shoots on bohocrush. We are so excited. He has shown us a lot of his work and portfolio. We can hardly wait to share with you all. Amazing!
♥ we are an 18 and over community, which means that we can make a difference and our vote has a voice, thank you to matt aka salvo for sharing love and resources with our community. you can friend matt on bohocrush.
♥ Furry Fandom has landed on bohocrush; enjoy a journey with Kat the Leapardess and you can friend her on bohocrush.
♥ Nomadic Matt is in reno tomorrow with the bohos. If you would like to have an opportunity to meet and chat with him about travel and more, let us know. Can I tell you how awesome it is to meet somebody online, and not only that but have the opportunity to meet them in the real world. It's so fun! We are so looking forward to getting to know him. Rumor has it he might come to burning man with us next year. )'( we would love to pop his cherry. We'll be rocking it with him tomorrow night at bassnectar in reno. you can friend him on bohocrush
♥ catch the black rock city allstars at SF Decom 10-10-2010: Heat the Street FaIRE! This Sunday, Oct. 10 at the Mariposa Stage. Set Time: 1:40 – 2:25pm.
♥ Have you met Freddy and Eddy yet? We highly recommend you check them out. A super dynamic couple rocking the burner and adult worlds. Not too mention holding down kids camp at burning man and lightning in a bottle. We love community! They recently posted this video and I had to share. Such a great example of how fun and silly they are. You will soon be able to friend them on bohocrush. We'll be attending a SOLD OUT bassnectar show in reno tomorrow night with "Freddy". Hope to see some of you there.
♥ check out this great article by Destin the erotic rock star: Helping your man overcome premature ejaculation you can also friend him on bohocrush
♥ I love this making out article by Bren Ryder. I've had a few online interactions with her. I love the care and effort she puts into her dyke porn. I am hoping to make more connection and offer her a home on bohocrush. stay tuned.
Learning how to shine love even in the face of opposition, creates sustainability in our lives. Philip shares some awesome insight into how we can keep a smile on our face and continue moving forward. Regardless of the lifestyle that we choose to live.
♥ You can friend Philip on bohocrush.
♥ are you aware how important bees are? a great article that brings some truth to the table.
Thank you croshane for sharing with me! I love this video, it made me smile so much. Did you know that Jonsi is from Iceland.
Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.
♥ check out this art work by ryan johnson, music by auditory canvas.
Painting Lightning in a Bottle 2010 from Ryan Johnson on Vimeo.
♥ ♥ Friend some artists on bohocrush: ryan johnson, jacob miller, patafunk, kraddy, metaphysical, and auditory canvas
♥ Metaphysical and Tampa keep seeing there Wolf Pack song show up in more media. It's so cool!
♥ a great article by Dr. Tory Clark:: The Fear of Sexual Variation, you can friend her on bohocrush
♥ Gala Darling always brightens my day, and always inspires me.
♥ Never forgetting the love that is John Lennon
♥ did you all see Ali's article in the RGJ? The Fur Girl has been busy. Selling her line at Whole Foods. You might have noticed it while you were grocery shopping. You can friend her on bohocrush.
♥ I am loving evernote. It has an application for my iphone, my ipad, and my mac. It is helping me stay so organized! Anybody else using it? What features do you just love about it. I'm still learning, and I will share more. I do love how it takes an image of the website you store in your notes. Makes for easy referencing.
♥ more nude beaches
and that's all for now bohos! hope you have a spectacular week.
to the pursuit
georgette and (shone)


text:
Apple's new OS X, Mavericks, is available for download now, for free.
The newest desktop operating system from Apple, OS X 10.9 or "Mavericks," will be available to download Tuesday — for free.
Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president for software engineering, announced the details at an Apple special event on Tuesday.
Apple first showed off "Mavericks," its latest version of OS X (and the first to be named after a killer waverather than a killer cat) at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The OS has a few new security and power-saving and energy efficiency features, but the big change is how the system blends the edges between the iOS and OS X experience, porting in apps like Maps and iBooks.
Apple says there are 200 new features crammed into this update. Here are a few you can look forward to:
Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and science. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.


text:
Raymond "Musky Ray" J. Soik, 67, a Custer native, died Monday, Oct. 9, 2000, in West Allis.
Services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, at Holy Assumption Catholic Church in West Allis. Interment will be in St. Bartholomew Cemetery in Mill Creek.
Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Skubal-Slattery-Koelsch-Larson Funeral Home in West Allis and from 10 to 10:45 a.m. Friday at the funeral home.
Mr. Soik was born in the Custer area on Oct. 20, 1932, a son of the late John and Anna (Eron) Soik. He lived here until 1955.
He was married to Dolores A. Pientka on Jan. 28, 1936, at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Mill Creek.
He worked at Amco Metal in West Allis until retiring in 1997.
Survivors include his wife; four daughters, Suzette (John) Lemanski, Catherine (David) Pawlicki and Janice (James) Wolfe, all of West Allis, and Doreen Soik, Stevens Point; three sons, Charles, Schofield, and Mark (Amanda) and Robert, both of Waupaca; four brothers, Henry (Theresa) and Leonard (Gertrude), both of Stevens Point, Steven (Florence), West Allis, and David (Audrey), Muskego; and 12 grandchildren.
He was also preceded in death by one brother, Richard; and two sisters, Theresa Rozek and Evelyn Stuczynski.


text:
If you received an award letter with the following federal, state, and private grants, your tuition and fees will be charged to these grant amounts. State grants require you to be enrolled in a minimum of 6 financial aid eligible credits.
Federal Grants
State Grants
Private Grants
If you would like to charge tuition and fees to loans listed on your award letter, you must complete the Loan Borrowing Requirements page and be enrolled in a minimum of 6 financial aid eligible credits.
You are responsible for paying the difference if your account balance is greater than your available financial aid.
You may view your current balance, including estimated financial aid, by logging into My CVTC two business days after registering. Once logged in, click on SIS, Student, and Cashier Connection.
© 2014 Chippewa Valley Technical College
620 W Clairemont Ave Eau Claire, WI 54701
1-800-547-CVTC or 715-833-6200 | Fax: 715-833-6470
Equal Opportunity College


text:
I'm posting this to keep myself in check. I am not going to let this summer pass away without getting my studio done. We've been in this house for almost two years – it is WAY past time to get it organized, so I can actually WORK IN IT. So – here are some before pictures:
There are many people I know that can relate to this I'm sure!!
I am hoping to document my progress start to finish, and all of the products I intend to use for the studio – names of paint, brands, techniques, etc. Because I like to know the stuff that people use when they do those beautiful things on Pinterest. And maybe, just maybe, someone will be inspired buy this project and pin it!! I also intend to fully document it with photographs. And maybe a few posts of frustration along the way. The ugly dark brown shelf is going to get a chalk paint treatment (just bought it today – I'm a chalk paint virgin), the walls of the studio are now 3/4 done (more on that in my next post) and I'm adding two shelves to the closet, and painting that a darker gray. I went with a neutral color because I have all kinds of crazy art that I want to hang on the walls.
Plus I pay for this dang blog and it's about time that I use it!!


text:
Max 6 (Max/MSP, Jitter & GEN) - Student/Teacher Single - Download Only
In Stock
Education orders can only be processed once we have received proof of status. A fully functioning version of this program can be downloaded and used for 30 days. When ordered you will receive a serial number to authorise the software either via a challenge and response, or for iLok.
Technical Specifications
System Requirements
Mac: OS 10.4 or later, 1GB RAM
Windows: Vista or XP, minimum 1 Ghz Intel/AMD processor, 1GB RAM. An ASIO-compatible sound card is recommended for optimum audio performance. Jitter requires QT7.1 or later, OpenGL-compatible graphics card, and OpenGL 1.4 or later.


text:
Bret's first public statement after suffering stroke on 6/24/02
This is the hardest column I've ever written.
I'm doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.
I made the stupid mistake of riding my bike without a helmet. My chin strap broke and I'd put off getting it fixed.
Bike riding has long been one of my passions, especially here in Calgary on the bike paths along the Bow river.
I hit a pot hole in the grass and crash landed on my head. As best as can be determined I suffered a stroke on impact.
Unable to move the left side of my body I used my cell phone to call for help. I thought I wasn't hurt too badly but boy was I wrong.
I very much want to thank the anonymous roller blader who rushed off to show the ambulance where to find me. His effort will never be forgotten.
Since having my stroke I've more than ever come to appreciate my fans around the world who came through by e-mailing me thousands of best wishes that buoyed my spirit at this difficult and challenging time. I'm touched that they wrote from as far away as Russia, even Pakistan and I would like to deeply thank everyone who has kept me in their prayers.
If I ever doubted that there are real angels in the world I never will again after the loving care I've received from the nursing staff at Foothills hospital. The doctors have been outstanding too.
As for me, I'm dealing with all this by reminding myself that I've been far too blessed in this lifetime to feel sorry for myself.
My wife and kids have been great and strong, as have my close friends, all tirelessly standing by me since this horrible accident happened.
I've been fortunate enough to have been regarded as a hero by children around the world and it is from them that I now find the inner strength to fight by far my biggest battle ever. I remind myself of the incredible courage shown to me by the Make A Wish kids that I've been privileged to meet and it is their light that shines to show me the way to recovery. I hope I can be as brave as them.
Fans have written telling me to summon up the courage to be the Champion that they remember. I promise you all that I will.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night ...
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.
-The Beatles


text:
Browse by Topic
Sign In
More than 40,000 members value HFMA's thought leadership and practical strategies. HFMA is where you need to be.
Get acquainted with the
healthcare finance industry's leading professional association. Find out why our
members rely on HFMA as their go-to source for insight and
Members have many
options for helping them advance their careers. Conferences, seminars,
eLearning, certification, and more -- our education and events will keep you
Real-time presentations with nationally recognized experts, networking opportunities, and industry solutions—no travel required!
This Jan. 22 webinar shares how a care management strategy empowers physicians to work smarter using population analysis, risk stratification, and proactive care management workflow.
Get the latest, practical education in key areas of healthcare finance over 1, 2, or 3 days. Choose Essentials Programs or Master Sessions in Chicago, DC, or Seattle. Register early and save $100.
If you're a subscriber to any of our three newsletters, you have access to online education that awards CPEs. Learn more or subscribe.
Get the perspectives of leading healthcare finance professionals on today's hottest issues.
Information about leading vendors helps your buying decisions.
Forum members can network during live webinars or access a library of past webinars on topics such as bundled payment, charity care, and ICD-10.
An ever-expanding collection of spreadsheets, policies, job
descriptions, checklists, and more that you can adopt and adapt.
Forum members can submit vexing questions to a panel of experts
using our Ask the Expert service.
Your source for employment solutions.
Find new employment opportunities or
reach out to qualified candidates.
Distinguish yourself as a
leader among your peers and advance your career by earning certification in our
healthcare finance programs.
Get an objective third-party evaluation of products and services used in the healthcare finance workplace.
MAP App is a web-based application that helps organizations improve revenue cycle performance based on industry-standard metrics called MAP Keys.
Find suppliers and products in this comprehensive vendor directory for healthcare finance professionals.
Improve your revenue cycle performance through standard metrics, peer comparison, and successful practices.
Guidance for understanding and communicating about the price of health care.
Guidelines on how to make it easier for consumers to get information about healthcare prices.
In 1991, Robert M. Shelton, FHFMA, CAE, wrote a history of HFMA, which HFMA published to honor its 45th anniversary. That history, From Acorn to Oak, captured the energy and vision of HFMA's founders, as well as its growth from, as Shelton stated, "a small company of hospital accountants" to a leader in the complex and crucial field of healthcare finance.
To celebrate HFMA's 60th anniversary, HFMA has released From Acorn to Oak and Beyond, a history of HFMA covering 1991-2006.
Download From Acorn to Oak and Beyond (1MB file)
Download the original book, From Acorn to Oak (12MB file)
In many respects, HFMA is not the same organization it was in 1991, when the first edition of From Acorn to Oak rolled off the presses. HFMA has a larger membership. It speaks in a more authoritative voice to a more sophisticated group of professionals. It addresses issues that were barely blips on the radar in 1991, such as consumerism, electronic health records, the capital crunch, and transparency.
However, in some respects HFMA today is the same as it was at its inception. HFMA members express the same dedication, enthusiasm, spirit of caring, and resolve that animated HFMA's founders 60 years ago. Ask today's members why they work in health care and most will say, "It gives me an opportunity to make a difference."
Scott Schmidt, vice president, Cerner RevWorks, LLC, shares insights on best practices for maximizing a revenue cycle management partnership.
Amy Amick, president, revenue cycle management, and William Davis, vice president, revenue cycle advisory solutions, both with MedAssets, share insights on the industry and techniques to drive sustainable performance improvement.
Eric Ward, president and CEO, Parallon Revenue Cycle Services, discusses key trends in revenue cycle management and factors providers should consider when partnering to advance their revenue cycle performance.
Dale Hockel, senior vice president of operations, and Jim Fanelli, CFO, TriMedx, share strategies for elevating clinical engineering through innovative management programs.
Rick Heise, senior vice president, revenue cycle, at Cerner Corporation, discusses the importance of integrating clinical and financial data to excel in health care's changing payment environment.
HFMA's print, email, online, and mobile opportunities provide you maximum reach and impact. We will work with you to build a plan that meets your needs. Contact a sales rep.
HFMA's Buyer's Resource Guide is a comprehensive vendor directory that helps healthcare finance professionals find products and services.
Access all the tools and resources you need to develop your personal skills. Organized into distinct career levels, this tool creates a career plan specific to your career goals.
...with HFMA's Certified Healthcare Financial Professional (CHFP).
©2014 Copyright Healthcare Financial Management Association
HFMA.org is best viewed using IE9 or the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Join HFMA today and enjoy:


text:
IzzoNet: Create Your Own Shop Easily
- By Cameron Chapman
- Posted in Business Online, eCommerce
- 5 comments
Selling things online is something I think a lot of us have considered doing. And even if you haven't considered selling things yourself, it's likely that you've had clients who were interested in doing so. But getting an ecommerce site setup, even for designers and developers, can be a pain. It's often time-consuming, frustrating, and requires a lot of administrative-type work that's not very much fun. Instead, a service like IzzoNet can really make it simple to get your online store up and running in just a few easy steps.Read more


text:
Let our knowledgeable service staff and friendly sales team help with all your
plowing, towing, and hauling needs.
We offer:
D.O.T. Inspection Station
Trailer Sales & Service
Hitch Sales & Installation
Snowplow Sales & Service
Bottom Unloading Center
Electric Brake Installation & Service
Agri-Tech also provides Authorized Repair Center for both Laidig and
Harvestore bottom unloading silio unloaders.
Ask about our silo roof
replacements too!


text:
INTERVIEW: Robert Morgan— The Tarheel Wordsmith
Robert Morgan is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Terroir. He has also published eight volumes of fiction, including Gap Creek, a New York Times bestseller, and three books of nonfiction. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2010, the year that a special issue of Southern Quarterly, edited by Jesse Graves, was devoted to essays about his work.
William Wright: Even though you have written eight books of fiction with a ninth forthcoming in the fall of 2013, The Road From Gap Creek, you've stated in the past that poetry remains your favorite genre in which to write. Can you speak to why this is the case?
Robert Morgan: For me poetry has been the essential verbal art. No one has ever found a language or a culture that did not include poetry. Poetry is about the cadence of sentences and the textures of words and phrases. Poetry is about repetition, heartbeat and pulse and breath, the rhythm of walking. Through poetry, we engage with the sound of words, with language at its most elemental and complex levels. Poetry seems born in our blood and bone and in the synapses of our brains. The truth is we don't know exactly how poetry works, but we recognize it when we experience it. As Yeats famously said, no one can refute "The Song of Sixpence." Once you hear poetry you remember it, and want to say it. Poetry must be in our DNA, and we find it like a treasure buried in our everyday speech, waiting to be rediscovered and said. Poetry is a privilege and a legacy; it connects us to all people and all times. It can be both celebration and lament, for those who have gone before, for the passing of the seasons, for the discovery of the things we had forgotten that we know.
W. W.: Though you started out in college to be a fiction writer, your early books were all poetry collections. You still often identify as a poet specifically, as opposed to a writer—why is this?
R.M.: Yes, my first publications as an undergraduate were short stories. But something happened to me in the summer and fall of 1964, as I began my senior year at UNC-Chapel Hill. I started to become aware of words in a new, intimate way. I was fascinated by matching words to things, to emotions, to experience. One day I was working on the loading dock at the GE plant near Hendersonville, North Carolina–a summer job before returning to school–and after a powerful thunderstorm the sun broke through the clouds with a great shaft of light that seemed to be bracing the sky. I wrote a little haiku-like verse about that, and I knew those words had an authenticity of a new kind for me, however modest. It was a small step, but satisfying because it seemed both real and with imaginative reach toward the unexpected.
When I returned to Chapel Hill I kept writing lines and little poems. I was fascinated by compression and economy of language, with implicit metaphors found in the natural world, and with the way words can evoke surprise. I loved translations of Greek epigrams, and Chinese and Japanese poetry.
Two important things happened to me that fall of 1964. I fell in with a group of students, all from the Northeast, who had gone to the finest prep schools in New England and been kicked out for various reasons. They had come to Chapel Hill to be beatniks and poets. They knew far more about poetry than I did. They could talk about metaphor and line breaks, French poetry, and William Butler Yeats. Every day we met and talked about poetry, read poetry aloud, lived and breathed poetry. I read Robert Lowell and Robert Bly, James Wright and Gary Snyder. Because my friends were so much more sophisticated than me, I was reluctant to show them the poems I was trying to write. But the best poet among them, Dudley Carroll, insisted that I show him some of my stuff. One day I gave him a sheaf of the things I'd done, with little confidence in their reception. That night around 2:00 am there was a knock on my door. Dudley and his friend Tim Perkins stood there holding my poems. Dudley said my work was so good, so exciting, he had to come tell me. I don't think any review, any award, any honor I've ever received since has been more thrilling than that. Dudley's praise gave me a new confidence—an energy—that reinforced the momentum already building in me. I wrote a few more short stories, but my real concentration from then on was poetry.
Another definitive experience that fall occurred while I was reading T. S. Eliot's "Burnt Norton." I read those flowing lines aloud again and again and suddenly I saw that lines of poetry were made up of firm sentences broken into increments that formed patterns. That may seem an obvious insight, but to me it was a revelation. I had wondered what a line of poetry was and I saw that lines were just fragments of the perceptual energy of sentences. I incorporated that insight into my own writing and never looked back.
W. W.: Your Northeastern college friends served as catalysts to your confidence in writing, but you have said several times many of the finest contemporary poets are associated with the American South. How so?
R.M.: I know that many of the contemporary poets I read and reread most live in the South or write about the South. As someone who grew up in the Appalachian South, I am probably biased. But I believe that Southern poetry is cut from the same cloth as Southern fiction. Southern poets write about history, about family, about the natural world, about work and struggle. They use the arts of storytelling, the oral tradition, and some of the Gothic tendencies of the fiction writers. Both white and African-American poets of the region incorporate a good deal of our vexed history in their work.
Eudora Welty was once asked why there are so many great writers from Mississippi. After a pause she said, "Perhaps we have more to explain." I suspect her insight applies to the whole region. We have a tradition of frontier humor, of comedy and Gothic spectacle. But our legacy also includes tragedy, cruel human imperfection, as well as a passionate quest for spirituality.
W. W.: Much of your fiction is narrated by women characters and focuses on women's lives, yet few women appear in your poems. Do you have any explanation for that difference?
R.M.: To tell the truth, I am mystified by this discrepancy myself. My greatest breakthrough as fiction writer occurred in the spring of 1989, when I discovered that I could write fiction in the voice of a woman character. That was when I wrote The Mountains Won't Remember Us. I found that fiction is not about me and my experience and opinions, but about my characters, their voices, their world. Since then most of my novels have been narrated by women characters, and I have been surprised and pleased by the response to my fiction by women readers. I can only speculate on why so few women appear in my poems. For one thing, many of my poems are about natural process, about trees, about time, about tools and instruments. There are not all that many men in the poems either. But a number of my poems have been about my father, grandfather, uncles. It has been said that there is only one plot in fiction: nothing is what it seems. Fiction is rarely heroic in a poetic sense. Fiction is about struggles and intimacy, conflicts of loyalty. One of my teachers used to say poetry is about the heights and fiction about the morass.
Perhaps I unconsciously seek out the heroic in poetry, connecting the humble and everyday with the larger and more lasting, the temporary with the universal, connecting the moment with the everlasting, the near with the far. That is what I call the "reach" in poetry: To see the large in the small, the infinite in the finite, the earthly with the heavenly, the ordinary with the eternal. In his great essay "The Poet" Emerson says, "The ideal shall be real to thee."
But the most honest answer to your question is I don't know why I am privileged to write about women characters in fiction but do so rarely in poetry. Perhaps we just write what we are given to write.
W. W.: More than one reviewer has compared your poetry to the work of William Blake. How does that comparison strike you?
R.M.: Of course I am flattered and humbled to be compared to one of our greatest poets, and one of my favorites. I was astonished when a critic first made that comparison.
I like to think there is something elemental and dramatic in my poems that may echo some of the drama, the struggle, the contraries, the surprise, in Blake's short poems. I don't know his larger, prophetic poems all that well. Both Blake and myself are deeply influenced by hymns and the language of the King James Bible. And, like him, I aspire to evoke the natural as a way of seeing beyond the natural. I love rhyme and meter, as he did.
W. W.: If you had to pick one book that influenced you most as a poet what would you choose?
R.M.: There are so many books that have influenced me over the years that I could get lost in the list. It would be easy to say The Bible, which was read to me every day when I was a kid. Those cadences of the King James Version still ring in my head. And in school we had to memorize poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Sidney Lanier, Wordsworth, and Bryant, and recite them in front of the class. The first book I ever bought with my own money was Doctor Zhivago and I loved the poems at the end of that novel. When my sister Evangeline came home from college after her first year she brought her English text, and in that anthology I read Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Wallace Stevens's "Domination of Black." But if I had to pick only one volume it would be Robert Payne's paperback, The White Pony, an anthology of Chinese poems in translation from Confucius to Mao. Those poems had a profound effect on me in college. Their compression and concreteness, the surface simplicity with subtle depths, the color and Taoist irony, the implicitness and wisdom, gave me exciting ideas about the nature and possibilities of poetry. I still love the poems and go back to read them in that and other translations from time to time.
W. W.: Your childhood was spent on a small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Are there advantages to a writer to come from such a background? Disadvantages?
R.M.: A reporter who once interviewed me on the farm asked me how I could ever have made it to Cornell University from such a humble place. I told him I understood the gist of his question, since we were poor and my parents didn't have a lot of formal education. But in fact I had some distinct advantages for a future writer. My parents, my grandpa, my uncles and neighbors were all great storytellers. They would sit by the fire, or on the porch in summer, and tell yarn after yarn, tale after tale, about the old days, about the Confederate War, about panthers trying to come down chimneys, about maddogs, giant rattlesnakes, bears, ghosts, outlaws, floods, corrupt preachers, witches, babies marked in the womb. When I began writing later I wondered what I had to write about. And little by little I discovered I had this enormous hoard of stories and voices to draw on and choose from. But equally important to me, perhaps, was the freedom I had as a kid to roam in the woods and pastures, and along the creeks and rivers. I climbed trees on the mountaintop, and found arrowheads and pieces of Native American pottery in the bottomlands. I felt a close connection to the Native Americans who had lived there on the square mile of land my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Pace, had bought in 1838. I built ponds on the pasture branch and played cowboys and outlaws with my cousins in the gullies of the lower pasture. We dug caves in the walls of the gullies. We used boards to sled down the mountainside on leaves and pine needles.
Besides readings from the Bible and singing hymns, I was exposed every week to dynamic preaching. Those preachers could take a verse from the Bible and spin an hour's sermon from it.
The disadvantages of such a rural background are probably obvious. I never traveled farther than Asheville or Greenville, South Carolina. I was not exposed to diverse cultures. And I felt a little afraid of the larger world out there. Watching the big tourist Cadillacs on the highway in summer I felt my poverty and difference. Until I was almost nine, my family did not have a car or truck. We had to depend on others to take us to town or to the doctor, or carry our produce to the market in summer. We didn't have television. We got our first telephone when I was about ten. I felt a little alien, even in the Green River community. In compensation, the larger world was all new to me. It was there to be discovered. I had never seen a movie in a movie theater until I went away to college at the age of sixteen. Believe it or not, the first movie I ever saw in a theater was La Dolce Vita at the Peachtree Theater near Georgia Tech, Fall 1961. Freeways, fine clothes, educated people, affluent people, restaurants, big libraries, concerts, were all new to me. I was learning fast, and hopefully still learning. The world out here still astonishes me.
Robert Morgan (far left), North Carolina.
W. W.: Why did you choose a French word, terroir, as the title of your most recent book of poems?
R.M.: I like to pick titles that get attention. Perhaps the best title I've ever used for a book of poems is Sigodlin, one word with an unusual texture and sound. Terroir is a French word literally meaning soil, but used by food writers and wine experts to denote the unique quality of a particular vintage or dish, the combination of properties—of soil, sun, rain, cultivation, climate—that make a specific harvest. Terroir is closely tied to a sense of place, a specific place, and specific time. For my poems it seemed a relevant term. The fact that the word looks almost like "terror" is interesting too, for we know that terror is an important component of the sublime. I like the combination of the earthiness, the local, and the exotic and refined in the word terroir. And in the title poem, I connect the concept of terroir with Gerard Manley Hopkins's term "inscape." Hopkins was very interested in the specific, the individual, the unique, as opposed to categories, types, definitions. He believed he had found confirmation of his idea of inscape in John Duns Scotus's concept of "thisness"—haecceitas in Latin—in contrast with the Thomist and Aristotelian quidditas or "whatness." So it seemed to me that Hopkins's inscape was very close to what we mean by terroir.
Inscape is the celebration of the individual fact. As Hopkins says, "I have often felt ... that nothing is so pregnant and straightforward to the truth as simple yes and is." It is communion with naked being. Thoreau once said that "prayer is the contemplation of facts from the highest point of view."
W. W.: Did your experience as a poet help you as a fiction writer?
R.M.: I'm not sure I would ever have been able to write prose fiction if I had not spent those years from 1964 to 1980 working primarily on poetry. It was writing poetry that taught me about economy, precision, compression of language. It was poetry that taught me to listen to words and phrases and sentences. Writing poetry gave me the confidence to try to write prose. As I said before, poetry is the essential verbal art. All other writing derives from it. What poetry did not do was teach me to think like a storyteller. For that I had to go back to the voices and narratives of my childhood, especially the women of my childhood, who relished telling of terrible things, scandals, awful storms, the pains of childbirth, the stubbornness of men, snake bites, things that happened a long time ago.
When I began writing stories again in the 1980s, I promised myself I would not write "poetic" prose with pretty description. I would strip language down to the essential to dramatize, create dynamic action, and reveal character. I would try to grab the attention of the reader in the first paragraph and not let go until the last sentence. Stories always have to have a surprise. If they just go where you expect they are not satisfying stories. Stories are usually about people in trouble, often with serious conflicts within themselves. Stories are about struggle. Hardest for me was to write dialogue, for good dialogue has to reveal character and move the story forward. I found I could usually cut away about two-thirds of the dialogue I had written, keeping only the lines that were absolutely significant.
W. W.: What is it about Southern Appalachia, and indeed the South in general, that has inspired so many good writers in the past two decades?
R.M.: The old joke is that when asked why there are so many good writers from the South, the Southern writer answers, "Because there ain't nothing else to do down here." And as Eudora Welty said, perhaps we have a lot more to explain, about our history, about our contradictory selves. But I believe a culture and region going through rapid change inspire writers. In Shakespeare's time insular England was exploding into a world power, absorbing the Renaissance, exploring the New World. In Hawthorne's time traditional New England was disappearing into the industrial age, and he again and again tried to recapture and reveal the Puritan past. So many Southern writers of our time have struggled both to understand the past and the extraordinary changes in our region, affected not only by industrialization, then the loss of those industrial jobs overseas, but the mass immigration of Hispanics, and now Asians, and the millions of retirees, the gated communities, the loss of agriculture, the homogenization of culture in general. I grew up in a culture where all the men did physical work, and hunted in the fall. Now few under the age of sixty will take a rifle and wait in the cold woods for a deer.
My feeling is that the uncertainty about who we are and where we are going stimulates the urge to capture a sense of the past, and to portray the dramatic changes around us. Writing is a way to connect with others, to reassure ourselves we are not alone. And of course we have the great legacy of Southern writing, of Thomas Wolfe, Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, Warren, etc., to draw on also. When I was a student, I felt my teachers, Guy Owen at NC State, Jessie Rehder at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Fred Chappell at UNC-Greensboro, expected me to be a writer. I have always been afraid of letting them down.
W. W.: Do you have any thoughts about how electronic publishing might affect writing in the future?
R.M.: Well, I have never been a doomsayer. When I was in college "the death of the novel" was discussed all the time. The feeling then seemed to be that the novel was an obsolete literary form. Now fifty years later we've had a golden age of fiction writing. When people talk about the end of publishing and reading, it ain't necessarily so. What is changing is the way many people read. My impression is that because e-books can be downloaded so easily, anywhere, any time, people may actually be reading more, at least more fiction and nonfiction. But that doesn't mean that printed books will go away any time soon. Older readers like myself still like to buy books, to hold books and read them, turning pages, and put them on the shelf to read again from time to time. But we seniors are going to have to get used to the idea that a lot of magazines and books will be available primarily online or in digital form. It's mostly a matter of habit, what we are used to. Some of us are lazy about changing our habits. Good writing will always be good writing, whether read on paper or parchment or a clay tablet or computer screen. And for poetry it's still the sound of the words that is most important.
W. W.: In all your writing, poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, there has always been a special awareness of history and place. What might have inspired those interests?
R.M.: Though my dad had only gone to the sixth grade, he loved to read history and talk about history. He subscribed to the The National Geographic Magazine and had a surprising grasp of American history and world history, as well as geography. So even though I grew up on a small farm in the mountains, I was exposed to discussions from my earliest memory of figures such as George Washington and Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Napoleon, and the World Wars, even Romans such as Julius Caesar and Cicero. History is storytelling, and my dad was a great storyteller. His knowledge of the Bible could make the stories of David and the Apostle Paul come alive for an eager listener.
Also, his knowledge of the history of the Southern mountains and the Cherokee Indians inspired me. I knew the Indians had lived and hunted right where we lived. My great-grandpa Pace's black hair and dark skin were explained by saying that the family had "Italian Blood." But that great-grandpa was a well-known herb doctor, and he took his children when they were gravely ill to an Indian doctor in South Carolina. He was invited to Washington, D. C. by the Bureau of Indian Affairs around 1900 to give a deposition on the Treaty of Hopewell, between the government and the Cherokees. He was almost certainly part Indian, though the family would never admit it. As I grew older, I loved to read both novels and biographies. I read lives of Bismarck and Lincoln, Jack London, and George Washington Goethals, the engineer who built the Panama Canal.
In the 11th grade I had a wonderful teacher of American History named Elizabeth Rogers. She made history vivid by describing places she had visited such as Valley Forge and the Gettysburg battlefield.
I suspect it was my intimacy with the ground where I grew up that gave me a special sense of place. Until I was sixteen that was the only place I really knew, the streams and gullies, the fields and pine thickets, the riverbank, the mountaintops, and the pits dug by ancestors looking for zircons.
W. W.: What advice do you give to young fiction writers? To young poets?
R.M.: Since everyone learns to write in their own way it's hard to give general advice that is useful. Like any art, writing is only learned in the act of doing it, not from any theory or textbook. A good creative writing teacher is more a coach than a teacher in the usual sense of the term. A writer learns to write the way an athlete learns a sport, by doing it and doing it. There is only one word of advice that applies to all aspiring writers: Persistence. Those who succeed at any art are those who try and try and try again. Many of the most talented students I have taught over the years have never developed as writers. They were gifted, but the lacked the fire in the belly, the drive, the demon, that would sustain them and enable them to grow in the craft, whatever the setbacks and rejections. Others who have seemed initially less promising have had the tenacity--maybe the madness--that compelled them to keep writing and rewriting until things clicked.
My advice for young poets is pretty much the same as for fiction writers, and I usually say that poets learn a lot from writing prose that can be applied to verse writing, including critical prose. It is no accident that most of the best writing about poetry has been done by the poets themselves. And a class in geology or history or a foreign language may be of more use to a poet than another writing workshop. Everything a poet knows will find a way into what he or she writes. Most important, learn to listen to language, read poetry aloud and feel it on the tongue.
Read whatever you write aloud. The ear is the best editor and critic.
REVIEWED: Morgan's Terroir
Terroir, loosely translated from the French as "a sense of place," is a peculiar title for Robert Morgan's fourteenth poetry collection, but aside from the obvious correlation to Morgan's dedication to nature and landscape, the word is an apt label, as it implies more than just place or nature poetry. Indeed, in the book's title poem, Morgan acknowledges the phenomenon of terroir, a kind of land-borne epiphany:
That quality that seems unique,
as thriving from a special spot
of soil, air flow and light specific,
and also frost and winter sleep,
conditions of a particular year,
as every instance comes just once
with a mix of mineral and grease. . .
But Morgan goes deeper than the literal definition. After pairing the concept of terroir with Gerard Manley Hopkins's "inscape"—the distinctive essence of a thing, or the "individuation" of something—Morgan describes how it feels:
a hint of fear or pain, the sting
and shiver of revulsion with
the savor of the earth and sun,
of this once, not returning, sung
for this one ear, on this one tongue.
The "fear or pain" paired with the "savor" illuminates the mystery at the heart of Morgan's poetry: There is such clarity of vision in these poems that they must be relished; simultaneously, the poems' pure language belies an eerie and complicated depth in which the natural and man-made objects in Morgan's imagination speak themselves, endowed as they are with an alien and beautiful sentience.
Even forces naturally undetectable to human senses shine in this book, as in "Background Radiation":
In…the beginning was light that gave birth to
dark energy and fluctuations in
the very fabric of space-time recessing
and decaying. But once the sun is gone, all
the other stars wink on, wink on, and show
the strange and far topology of night,
geometry of sky and darker ridge.
In this poem, as in others, Morgan grounds his cosmic vision with landscape elements. His treatment of the galactic—the immeasurably vast—is sharpened by the "darker ridge" he perceives in the distance, but his speaker embodies part of the "dark energy," the "fluctuations."
Morgan's attention to the delicate and ephemeral is treated with the same dynamism, the same energy that suffuses the entire book. "Dew," for example, reflects the poet's understanding of the life force that inhabits even the most transitory:
…you don't know when it came except
at dusk the grass is suddenly wet,
a visitation from the air,
precipitant from spirit world
of whitest incarnation or
reverse transfiguration, herald
of river, swamp, and ocean breath
sent heavenward, released to earth…
Here, dew exists as scattered and ghostly visitations, and the plants in the poem "Fern Glade" transfigure into language-makers themselves: "green feathers long as plumes on peacocks write/in pools of sunlight," and "what they scribble must be dank as earth/with ink of roots and alphabet of worms." The words "syllables," "illuminated," and "scriptorium" help to reinforce the sense of a nonhuman, wholly botanical monasticism, a sacrosanct poetry written in a language translatable only through the poet's witness.
Nature is a vatic force throughout Terroir, especially in "Prophet," one of the most beautiful pieces in the collection:
The weathered trunk of bristlecone
that twists in ancient whirlwind torque
on highest ridge of continent
and leans in the prevailing roar
is reaching for the distant plains,
a relic of momentous war,
persisting since the glacier.
Now it's outlived all things that grow
upon the planet. See, it holds
out like a torch of sparkling green
the needles on one withered arm
to pass on to the next eon,
a word still spoken from the root
of knotty elder burning heart,
the history that is also prophet.
In a way that recalls Hopkins's famous words from "God's Grandeur"—"nature is never spent"—here Morgan's narrator sees beyond humanity's future; this view, although expansive and distant, comforts, as it anticipates that new life will pass "to the next eon," and that the "burning heart," the legacy of organic existence, is already foreseeable via the outstretched "arm" of an ancient tree.
Storytelling lies at the crux of many of these poems, different portrayals of a history closer to our own. In "Apple Howling," for example, Morgan brings us back to the poetry and vegetative myths of his ancestors:
Way back in Anglo-Saxon times,
the young men of the countryside
would gather New Year's Day in groves
of apple trees to shout a rhyme
and blast a horn and rap the trunks
with sticks, saluting dormant trees
in what was called a wassailing.
The tribute to the orchard begged
the trees to bring a richer yield,
a harvest weighing boughs of gold…
Like many of the other poems in Terroir, "Apple Howling" acknowledges history and place while reminding readers of the universal and immutable forces that orbit these motifs. The poems are at once expansive and infinitesimal in their considerations, inhalations of context followed by powerful exhalations of imagery, sonic vibrancy, and metaphor.
"Smells of a Closet" reveals Morgan's ability to sublimate even the most mundane of olfactory imagery—the dusty and dank smell of closets—into epiphanic, literally astronomical considerations:
At first you notice chemicals, the soaps,
detergents stored, and maybe kerosene,
and under those the scent of mothballs, mold,
old rubber of galoshes burned by age.
Behind the obvious smells rise fumes of wood
dried out for centuries, the resin cured
by many winters, stillness, locked in core
of amber of the heartwood honey. But
the farthest back of all, like smells from first
beginnings of the world, come whispering airs
that rose from crash and flash of the first fire
when darkness wept the stars and time began.
Morgan remains one of our keenest poets of lucidity and attention and makes sacred the peripheral, the often unsung. He stares deeply into that which we rarely consider, as all good poets do. However, the sheer intensity of his attention elucidates and distills, and everything he contemplates—poison oak, wind on a hill, ironweed, even squirt guns and milk shakes—brims with life, with a pulse. All the while, the poetry remains a "music of stillness": attuned, entrancing, wise.


text:
The U.S. government has launched a new website – DigitalLiteracy.gov – that provides resources to practitioners who are delivering digital literacy training and services in their communities. The portal will give libraries, community colleges, schools, and workforce training centers the tools – many of which were created by MacArthur grantees – to teach computer and digital literacy skills.
Related Program
Digital Media & Learning
Exploring how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. The goal is to make education more powerful for all students by creating more opportunities for more youth to engage in learning that is relevant to their lives and prepares them for success in school, the workplace, and their community.


text:
Aquasana Leads The Fight Against Chloramines
AUSTIN, Texas, March 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Aquasana will make a splash at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago March 2-5 with the introduction of two groundbreaking filtration products. Both represent industry leadership for chloramine contamination reduction.
Aquasana is the first consumer water filtration brand to alert consumers about the need to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the mixture of chlorine and ammonia, known as chloramines. Many states have begun to use chloramines to treat water, as it is a cost-effective method and more stable than pure chlorine.
To combat this threat, Aquasana is unveiling a groundbreaking filter pitcher system and an under-the counter system. The pitcher represents a game-changer in the water filtration industry. Not only is it the fastest pitcher on the market, it also features the industry's only NSF certification to remove harmful chloramines and reduces 10 times the contaminants of the leading drip pitcher filter
"This pitcher is the result of years of research into the proliferation of chloramines in the United States," said Aquasana CEO Todd Bartee. "We are pleased to offer a full line of chloramine-reducing products for the home."Consumers will no longer wait for water to drip through a filter. The system can filter one half-gallon in about one minute. The system fits on the countertop and can be stored in the refrigerator once filtered. Aquasana's sleek design means contaminants stay in the filter, so consumers only see healthy, clean water. Aquasana's under-the-counter system, the AQ-5300, is the brand's most powerful water filter. What the brand calls the most cost-effective, filtration system in the D-I-Y segment is NSF-certified to remove 97 percent of chloramines and 99 percent of chlorine. The eco-friendly cartridge exchange system features filters that reduce more than 60 contaminants for up to six months. This system has also been independently tested to reduce pharmaceuticals.
Select the service that is right for you!COMPARE ALL SERVICES
Action Alerts PLUSTry it NOW
Jim Cramer and Stephanie Link actively manage a real portfolio and reveal their money management tactics while giving advanced notice before every trade.
Product Features:
- $2.5+ million portfolio
- Large-cap and dividend focus
- Intraday trade alerts from Cramer
- Weekly roundups
TheStreet Quant RatingsTry it NOW
Only $49.95/yr
Access the tool that DOMINATES the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500.
Product Features:
- Buy, hold, or sell recommendations for over 4,300 stocks
- Unlimited research reports on your favorite stocks
- A custom stock screener
- Upgrade/downgrade alerts
Stocks Under $10Try it NOW
David Peltier, uncovers low dollar stocks with extraordinary upside potential that are flying under Wall Street's radar.
Product Features:
- Model portfolio
- Stocks trading below $10
- Intraday trade alerts
- Weekly roundups
Dividend Stock AdvisorTry it NOW
Jim Cramer's protege, David Peltier, identifies the best of breed dividend stocks that will pay a reliable AND significant income stream.
Product Features:
- Diversified model portfolio of dividend stocks
- Alerts when market news affect the portfolio
- Bi-weekly updates with exact steps to take - BUY, HOLD, SELL
Real Money ProTry it NOW
All of Real Money, plus 15 more of Wall Street's sharpest minds delivering actionable trading ideas, a comprehensive look at the market, and fundamental and technical analysis.
Product Features:
- Real Money + Doug Kass Plus 15 more Wall Street Pros
- Intraday commentary & news
- Ultra-actionable trading ideas
Options ProfitsTry it NOW
Our options trading pros provide daily market commentary and over 100 monthly option trading ideas and strategies to help you become a well-seasoned trader.
Product Features:
- 100+ monthly options trading ideas
- Actionable options commentary & news
- Real-time trading community
- Options TV


text:
Memory Monitoring
Avoid Network Problems by Monitoring Memory Usage
PRTG Network Monitor is a powerful bandwidth, availability, CPU and memory monitoring tool. This powerful software solution helps you to keep on top of your network issues and to detect possible issues such as bandwidth congestion or server overloads at an early stage.
The software features powerful memory monitoring capabilites, which are not only ideal for monitoring memory readings on Windows machines, but can also be used for monitoring memory on Linux and Mac OS X computers.
How Does PRTG Monitor Memory and CPU Usage?
PRTG uses SNMP and WMI for memory monitoring on Windows servers and computers. But PRTG is not only a Windows monitor: Linux operating systems can be monitored using an SNMP Daemon, or one of the native Linux sensors. You can set thresholds and configure alarms to notify you if the memory load on one or more servers is getting too high. This is especially important to servers which are accessed by many users: sometimes even the most basic applications, such as web browsers, can use up a lot of memory, which affects the overall server performance. Using the PRTG memory monitoring tool, you will be informed before memory bottlenecks occur. This way, you can take appropriate steps to ensure good network performance and avoid outages and data loss.
PRTG - More Than a Memory monitoring tool
In addition to memory monitoring, PRTG uses SNMP and WMI to monitor CPU usage, free disk space, disk health, file changes, etc. An advanced PING sensors checks the availability and uptime of network devices, and packet capture and NetFlow can be used for advanced bandwidth utilization, router, and switch monitoring.
Download PRTG Now and Start Monitoring CPU and Memory Usage!
PRTG is available in two editions. If you are looking for a free CPU, memory, and disk monitor, you can download and use the Freeware Edition for personal and commercial use completely free of charge. For more advanced needs, licenses for the Commercial Editions start at $440 / €330.


text:
Happy one year anniversary! :) Keep those posts coming - I can't get enough!
Happy Birthday "Lost in Laundry"...are you like a 'grandblog' to some?
Happy birthday blog!
Happy 1 Year! I love it. Keep them coming
Awww yes, we are still here and reading every night. Love it!! They make my night so enjoyable.
Happy first year...You have a gift of sharing the little things in life that really are important...Your family continues to bless mine!!
blessings on a great 2nd year...
Starr - You'd probably be amazed how many faithful readers you have out here that don't comment! I enjoy it tremendously -- Keep up the good work!
You have several faithful readers in Calico Rock, Arkansas too! I love you! Mom / Granny
I hope your New Year's Resolution is to continue to post amazing stories about you and your family because my is to faithfully read your blog whenever I get a chance.
Happy 1st Year!!! Regina:^)
congrats on the year anniversary.. I stumbled on the blog a few months ago and have enjoyed it since
Hi Starr,
My name is Mary Beth Loewen. I have been faithfully reading your blog for several months. (but have been on vacation and so am just now replying to this). Your blog has been a great encouragement to me. I have had lots of changes this year. I got married in May and my husband is full time on a church staff. (I really identified with your post awhile back with being glad to sit in church with your husband once in awhile :) I moved to my hubands home town, Calgary, Alberta away from my family in CA. so I have appreciated the thoughts you have shared about making friends in a new place. My husband and I both love the stories you post about the funny things your kids say. We look forward to starting a family in the next year. So there my first comment on your blog is a novel :) Thanks for writing! Congradulations on a year of blogging. Mary Beth
Oh I found your blog through Daja's. I'm the "best friend" she occcasionally references.
thanks MaryBeth!!!
I'm Starr Cliff. A domestically-challenged mom, climbing over mountains of laundry to bring you my stray observations and amusing stories about my kids. (more)


text:
I've always thought the best way to experience poetry was on the page, in a book, examining how the poem comes to life from its own structure. Something about hearing a poem read aloud is far too fleeting, new lines coming at me too quick. I need to savour and pause at my own pace, turning to the next poem only when I'm ready.
Saturday may change all that.
House of Blue Skies, the RE:act Collective, filling Station magazine, and Poet Laureate Kris Deameanor have teamed up for 'The Poetry Shuffle'- a leisurely 5 km stroll down the banks of the Bow with poetry readings and pit stops along the way. From Kensington to Inglewood in the company of some our city's finest poets. Everyone is welcome to shuffle the whole way, or join up at any of the nine destinations:
A. 11:00 a.m.
Pages in Kensington (1135 Kensington Rd NW)
B. 11:30 a.m.
Poetic Park Plaza (at 4th Ave SW + 9th St SW)
C. 12:00 p.m.
Peace Bridge (Prince's Island Park)
D. 12:30 p.m.
Prince's Island Park (Festival Stage)
E. 1:00 p.m.
Sien Lok Park
F. 1:30 p.m.
Central Library (616 Macleod Trail SE)
G. 2:30 p.m.
East Village (in front of Simmons Mattress Factory, Confluence Way & 5th St SE)
H. 3:00 p.m.
Fort Calgary
I. 4:00 p.m.
Inglewood – Alexandra Writers' Centre Park (922 9th Ave SE)
**Times of arrival at each destination are estimated.
At some spots the Shuffle will stop just long enough for the poetry and at other spots there will be time to rest and recharge. The most exciting stop, of course, will be STOP F - the Central Library!! where we will welcome shufflers with refreshments. Don't forget to bring your library card and check out our vast collection of local poetry.
Join the Shuffle. Breathe in the river. Celebrate areas and businesses recovering from the flood. And get involved in an Invest YYC campaign for a forthcoming anthology, The Calgary Project - A City Map in Verse and Visual.
Keep up to date on this highly changeable event on its Facebook page.
Karma is biting this blogger big time. Last week I dissed the month of August whole-heartedly and now August is taking every chance it gets to tell me I was so wrong. This weekend is the third When Words Collide festival, known for bringing a wide variety of guest authors, publishers, and passionate fans together for "a sharing of information, for learning, and to build a sense of community."
The festival runs from August 9 – 11.
Get full details from the When Words Collide website, including the complete list of presenters & panelists. This list includes local author Axel Howerton, who will appear on the panels "Pushing the Limits of Traditional Mystery" and "Violence in Literature". This week's FFWD features an interview with Howerton. Read it.
You can find the books of this year's guest authors at your local library. Click the book covers to place a hold.
Calgary"s Book of the YearIt's been a rewarding spring for the author of Walls: Travels Along the Barricades. After receiving the 'Shaugnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing' in March, Marcello Di Cintio double-dipped into the Alberta Literary Awards, winning both the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction and the James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction. And then on June 12, as if there was any room left on the mantle, Walls was awarded The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize.
Established in 1996 in honour of renowned Calgary writer W.O. Mitchell to recognize literary achievement by Calgary authors, Di Cintio is the 17th writer to take home the prize. The two authors up against Walls were Theanna Bischoff, for her second novel, Swallow, and 2001 W.O. Mitchell Book prize winner Andrew Nikiforuk, for The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Solitude.
Click here for a complete list of all winners and nominees since 1996.
As for Walls, there's a UK edition set for release next month and a US edition coming out in the Fall, so it's really just beginning. You can keep up with all of Marcello's work, including some summer workshop opportunities, at his website Elsewhere.
Anyone looking for some fresh local talent to go crazy for must see these two new releases from Insomniac Press. Jani Krulc and Jason Christie have already taken The Jesus Year and Unknown Actor to the other side of Canada and now it is finally our turn to get in on the double launch fun. Pages Bookstore (1135 Kensington Rd NW) will host the event this Friday, June 7, at 7:30 pm. And tune in to Writer's Block on CJSW radio (90.9 FM) tonight at 8 pm for an interview with the 'launchers'.
When poetry meets theatre in the mind of Jason Christie, a smashing performance results! Then as the curtains close, Christie sneaks off the stage, through the scenery, and out into the wilds of the Internet — and straight into the footlights and teleprompters of human experience.
Like a method actor in character long after the credits have rolled, off-set, off his rocker, Christie runs wild from Goethe's Faust to Burton's, through 1984 and B-movies from the 80s and back again. Beneath his offerings to the actor — questionable acting lessons, dubious plot treatments — lurks a deep unease at our accepted practices of looking at each other, kid.
Get out the popcorn and turn on your mobile device. This is going to get dramatic.
The Jesus Year explores the space between joy and tragedy, happiness and despair, sincerity and absurdity.
A husband won't throw his wife a party for her thirty-third birthday; a woman becomes obsessed with re-decorating her familial cabin; a couple's west coast elopement turns dangerous; a father must talk his daughter out of cancelling her wedding; a mother meets her thirty-year-old daughter for the first time; three friends' lives collide at an annual Christmas party; and a downtown couple drive to a prairie church to plan the perfect wedding.
In these stories, the banal details of life crash against momentous occasions, revealing what is hidden, and re-casting what is already in plain sight.
book descriptions lifted off insomniacpress.com
Jason Christie grew up in Milton, Ontario. He studied at York University and the University of Calgary. In 2007, he joined the Kootenay School of Writing. His poetry has appeared in many journals and magazines, including filling Station, dANDelion, Poetry Is Dead, Action, YES!, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, and Interim. He edited, alongside a.rawlings and derek beaulieu, the anthology Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury 2005). His two previous collections of poetry are Canada Post (Snare 2006) and i-ROBOT (EDGE 2006).
Jani Krulc is a writer and editor; her fiction has appeared in filling Station and nOd. She holds an MA in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University and a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Calgary. The Jesus Year is her first book.
One comment we heard a lot following Writer's Weekend 2013, held this past February, was people wanted to hear a whole lot more from Sandra McIntyre, who took a barrage of questions during our 'Ask the Editor' session. We now have that chance with the launch of Everything Is So Political. Released in May, consisting of twenty short stories written by Canadian authors, this literary anthology explores "the intersection between politics and the contemporary short story".
"...This is one of the few Canadian anthologies that focuses on political fiction, and it does so in a very powerful and artful way, flying in the face of readers, writers and critics alike who claim that writing with a political agenda occurs at the expense of literary quality." - from Fernwood Press
The Calgary launch of Everything Is So Political will take place at Pages bookstore on Thursday, May 30, starting 7:30pm. Pages is located at 1135 Kensington Road NW.
To find out more about Sandra McIntyre's amazing work visit sandralit.com.
To place a hold on your library copy click the book cover to connect with our catalogue.
With more than 40 events throughout April it can be a bit daunting trying to choose which Calgary Spoken Word Festival events to go to, but the lineup for Thursday, April 18th's 'Hot Mix of Sizzling Poetry' is pretty much irresistable.
As well as a performer who somehow managed to win the title of Nerd Slam Champion AND Erotic Slam Champion in the same year!... Chris Gilpin. And rounding out the lineup is captain of the 2011 Edmonton Slam Team, Mary Pinkoski. It's hard to imagine a more diverse lineup of performers sharing the same stage for a single event, ever.
Almost all CSWF events are taking place in the intimate performace space of Festival Hall in Inglewood, located at 1215 10th Ave SE.
Next Thursday don't miss an opportunity to get up close and personal with a full handful of Calgary authors. It's Writing in the Works Spring 2013, where some of our city's finest wordsmiths will gather to share their work, whether from books-in-progress, books about to be published, and books looking for publishers.
Started in 2008 by Rona Altrows and Lori Hahnel, this event showcases Calgary writers at various stages in their process, presenting a wide assortment of literary flavours, providing several angles of inspiration and an all-round good time.
As you can probably gather from the bright, nearby poster, the Spring 2013 edition of 'In the Works will feature readings from Ken Cameron, Lori Hahnel, Steve Passey, Inge Trueman and Roberta Rees. Emceed by Susan Calder.
Thursday, Apr 11
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Memorial Park Library
1221 2nd Street SW
Get your zombie on this weekend in Inglewood!
It's a masquerade ball with Calgary Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor and the RE:act Collective. Other than promising a supremely great time at Inglewood's THE AREA, featuring FIRE PITS! BEER! WOOD OVEN PIZZA! LIVE ART! And prizes for best mask. And Best Mardi Gras themed zombie-esque costume...
Money raised will go towards RE:act's Calgary Anthology Project and youth literacy initiatives.
Click here for ticket information.
Speaking of the Calgary Anthology Project, RE:act is working with Frontenac House and House of Blue Skies to publish "a gorgeous coffee table anthology of poetry and visual art about the City of Calgary, created by Calgarian writers and artists". If you are a Calgary writer or artist, click here for the CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. Here's what they're looking for:
We are looking for works about, or inspired by, the City of Calgary. We hope to articulate the experience of the city through creative language and art. What stories is our city ready to tell us through our poets and artists? What sings in our green spaces? What thrives in the fast lane? What struggles in the margins? What chatters in the Plus 15s? What two-steps in the alleys? What surprises us, wounds us, heals us, makes us run, or woos us to stay?
The print anthology will be launched in April 2014.
House of Blue Skies is responsible these two beautiful anthologies, available at your local library:
I haven't yet had a chance to immerse myself in George Webber's new collection of photography, Prairie Gothic, so I've been scouring the library's digital photograph collection to see what we have to contribute to a sense of local 'gothicness'. Below are my two favourites. Both are from the Alison Jackson Collection.
My sense of gothic and your sense of gothic, like everybody's, probably differs. Especially since the only criteria for me seems to be a rolling sky over whatever object is pictured beneath it. Add an abandoned barn or creaky octopus ride and it's at the top of the list, automatic.
I clearly need some authority on the subject.
Luckily, two artists with a very strong sense for the meaning and pull of their prairie habitat have come together to produce the recently released PRAIRIE GOTHIC - a collection of photography by George Webber accompanied by the writing of Aritha Van Herk.
I'm kind of hoping it's full of the slow, beautiful wreckage of abandoned barns, but it's likely much more than that.
The photographer/author team will appear together this Sunday at Shelf Life Books for a photo presentation and reading. What better way to get to know this special collection than through the lens of the man who took the pictures and a writer who's been bringing our landscape to life for decades. The presentation starts at two pm. For complete details go the Shelf Life Books' event listings.
Click here to place a hold on your library copy of Prairie Gothic.
"George Webber's poignant black-and-white photographs transport us into the forgotten, unknowable communities of the Canadian prairies. Throughout the journey, we're confronted by the mysterious particulars of life, death, landscape and faith. Intimate portraits and the hard facts of the place are woven together to create a body of work that is by turns inspiring, consoling and sometimes achingly sad."
Gotta take a little break this week from the onslaught of preparations for Writers' Weekend 2013 to highlight Single Onion's first installment in a new season of their incredibly impressive lecture series.
The first event in the series is happening this Thursday, January 17. It is being curated by Calgary's Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor and he is bringing in the songwriting genius of Geoff Berner to tackle the topic of "Poet as Songwriter".
Where else could you possibly hear Sylvia Plath compared and contrasted to Jon Bon Jovi?
For complete details go the Single Onion website.
For Geoff Berner's music available at the library click the album cover below...


text:
You have no items in your shopping cart.
Ground Blinds
Ameristep One Person Chair Blind$99.99MODEL #882 BLIND DETAILS: • Model #882 • Realtree® AP™ Camo • Spring Steel Construction • Backpack Carry Case • Packed: 15" x 36" Long • Weighs approx. 10½ lbs. (Blind & Chair) Learn More
Ameristep Gunner Blind Tangle 2.0$49.99Our Gunner Blind blends the ease of Spring Steel for quick set up and is ideal for Firearm Hunting. Learn More
Ameristep 3D Spur Blind$59.99Our 3-D SPUR BLIND is the ultimate in blending into any terrain. It is ideal for hunters who appreciate concealment and freedom of movement. The 3-D Spur is the ultimate in concealment giving hunters plenty of freedom of movement and mobility. It's tall Learn More
Ameristep Ground Blind Gear Stick$29.99Our Ground Blind Gear Stick is constructed of aluminum, extending from 25" to 72". Can be used as a Center Hub Support in one of our Hub-Style Ground Blinds for extra prevention roof collapse from snow and ice, steadies your shot, a camera mount and even Learn More
Ameristep Ground Blind Bow Holder$14.99Our Ground Blind Gear Bow Holder holds your bow in an upright position to free your hands. Learn More
Ameristep Bline Gun Rest$29.99Our NEW! Hub Blind Gun Rest easily attaches to window area in your Hub-Style Blind and steadies your shot. Learn More
Ameristep Blind Wall Shelf$29.99Our Ground Blind Gear Shelf fits on the side of your Blind, organizes your drink, equipment, gear, and more out of your hunting way. Learn More
Ameristep Die-Cut Blind$24.99The DIE-CUT BLIND is our newest addition to our WATERFOWL / FIELD BLINDS. Durable Weatherproof construction and camouflage duck blinds and more. Learn More
Ameristep Hunter's Blind Light LED$49.99Our NEW! Ground Blind Hunter's Light is our newest addition to our Ground Blind Gear Collection. Get the best of both with the bright white LED light in the center illuminates blind before and after hunt. The 18 surrounding green LED's will not spook ga Learn More
Ameristep Hunter's Blind Light/Fan Combo$24.99#1808 LED & FaN COMBO DETAILS: • Model #1808 • Durable, Compact Construction • 18 Green LED Lights on Outside • D-Ring to secure to top of Blind • Uses 2 "D" Size Batteries Learn More


text:
- About Us
- Press Room
- Pre-K-12
- Higher Ed
- Our Advocacy Agenda
- Resources
For Members of the Media
Our communications team is our primary point of contact for members of the media. We can connect you with experts and information on a variety of education issues, pre-K through college. All press inquiries should be directed to email@example.com; or call 202.293-1217, x. 373.
To help expedite your request, please include your name and affiliation, story topic and deadline, a telephone number where you may be reached, and any other details pertinent to the request. We know that reporters often face tight deadlines, and we will respond as quickly as possible. To be added to our press list, please send your name, affiliation, beat, and contact information to email@example.com. We look forward to working with you.
Message from Kati
Ed Trust is featured in the Arnold Giving Library. Please Give.
Midterm report of Access to Success Initiative shows increases in both enrollment figures and degrees conferred, driven largely by low-income and minority students
Printer-friendly version
Even as public investment in higher education dips dramatically in many states, the initiative's goals are within reach, though much work remains
Publication date:May 3 2012
WASHINGTON (May 3, 2012) — Even before concerns about the economy focused national attention on lackluster college-attainment rates, a cadre of state public higher education systems leaders came together in 2007 to form the Access to Success Initiative. These leaders — all members of the National Association of System Heads — set about to use the power of systems to leverage change in order to meet two ambitious goals: increase the number of college graduates in their states and ensure those college graduates reflect the demographic makeup of their states' high school graduates.
To meet these goals by the 2015-16 academic year, the 22 A2S participating systems have pledged to halve the gaps in both college-going and graduation that separate low-income students and students of color from others. The midterm report on A2S — "Replenishing Opportunity in America" — released today by The Education Trust, finds that, so far:
- Both enrollment figures and degrees conferred have increased, and improvements are driven largely by African-American, Latino, American-Indian and low-income students.
- At two-year colleges, there are no access gaps for low-income and minority students, relative to their representation among high school graduates in their states. At four-year institutions, the access gap for low-income freshmen has been cut in half, and it has closed for low-income transfer students. However, progress for students of color has not been as robust. Their access gaps at four-year campuses have narrowed by just one percentage point each for both freshmen and transfers.
- Success rates at two-year colleges remain low, and gaps persist. Four-year institutions have made gains, improving graduation rates for all students. But success among low-income students and students of color has not yet moved fast enough to begin closing the completion gaps.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to download the full report, three case studies, and the technical appendix.
To protect our democratic traditions, regain economic strength and meet the demands of our nation's employers in the context of America's rapidly changing demographics, we need to improve outcomes for low-income students and students of color. Unless we dramatically expand the pool of graduates, researchers estimate that the U.S. economy will be short about 3 million college-educated workers in 2018.
But we have a long way to go. By age 24, a student from a wealthy family is seven times more likely than the child of low-income parents to earn a bachelor's degree. And the gap in college attainment rates between white students and students of color is bigger now than it was in the 1970s.
"About half of our K-12 students are low-income, and nearly 40 percent are black, Latino or American Indian," said José Cruz, vice president of higher education policy and practice at The Education Trust. "We may tell ourselves that America is the 'land of opportunity,' but we've been rationing college opportunity for generations. This rationing feeds income inequality and hinders social mobility. So it's both an economic and a moral imperative for colleges themselves to take responsibility and play a role in reversing these trends."
Collectively, the 312 campuses in the A2S Initiative educate more than 3.5 million students, including 1 in 5 students attending America's public colleges and nearly 40 percent of low-income students and students of color enrolled in public four-year institutions. So how well they perform is critical, not only to their respective states, but to the entire nation.
"For too long, most public colleges and universities haven't served well the full range of young people in their states," said Jennifer Engle, director of higher education research and policy at The Education Trust, and co-author of the report. "The A2S participants have taken responsibility for getting more students from underserved populations into and through college. We'd hope that every public college would demonstrate the same sort of commitment to fairness, collective prosperity and the security of our nation's future that these systems have."
Through the A2S Initiative, systems work together with their campuses and with the other systems to identify and find ways to remove institutional barriers to student success and by holding themselves publicly accountable to their gap-closing goals by submitting data annually to The Education Trust for analysis. Importantly, the A2S metrics capture data about the college-going and completion rates for transfer, part-time and low-income students, whose progress is rarely measured by publicly reported data collections.
Even as public investment in higher education has dipped dramatically in many states, this midterm report demonstrates that — while much work remains — the initiative's goals are within reach, with participating systems better positioned to contribute to our national college attainment goals than other institutions that are only beginning to respond to the economic and civic demands for more college graduates. Several preliminary lessons have emerged from top-improving campuses in A2S:
- Data drives effective improvement efforts. Staff and faculty at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire examined their student data to better understand the factors they could influence that best correlate with on-time degree completion. For instance, students who earned at least 60 credits in their first two years were nearly four times more likely to graduate on time than those who did not. This process helped university leaders better target their intervention strategies, like providing additional support to students in courses with high failure, repeat and withdrawal rates. Since the initiative began, UW-Eau Claire has already halved its graduation rate gap between low-income freshmen and other students.
- Improved retention is not the sole purview of the student affairs staff. Instead, enhancing student learning is treated as key to increasing student success. San Diego State University began raising its expectations of students — force-registering them into remedial and gateway courses, advising those registered for less than a full load to increase the number of classes they are taking, and engaging faculty in the implementation of high-impact practices — while providing higher levels of support. Since 2005, graduation rates have improved for all students, but increased 22 percentage points among freshmen of color.
- Institutional habits of work, especially those related to shared governance, are harnessed to create change. Florida State University leverages a regular convening of representatives from departments across campus to review data, identify roadblocks to student retention and assign clear responsibility to team members for removing them. As former FSU provost Larry Abele said, "If you pay attention, you will see leadership emerge at all levels" to improve retention. Since the start of the A2S Initiative, FSU's six-year graduation rate for minority freshmen has increased by 8 percentage points.
"Public system leaders know that our country's economic and social future depends on our ability to get more low-income and minority students both to and through college. Educational leaders have a responsibility to lead this agenda, and to create the room for creative people to come together to find solutions," said NASH president Kevin Reilly, who also is president of the University of Wisconsin System. "The work isn't done, but this example shows that together we can learn how to do this, and that change is possible."
(Take a look at the report cards for each institution participating in the Access to Success Initiative.)
# # #
|Replenishing Opportunity in America
|Case Study: Florida
|Case Study: San Diego
|Case Study: Wisconsin
|Technical Appendix


text:
Mahogany and Stainless Steel BRUSH HOLDER/Washer WITH STAINLESS STEEL CANISTERS
Customer Reviews
Product Reviews
5 out of 5, Based on 1 Reviews.
Victory Studio
Ontario Canada
February 15, 2012
This is an exceptionally well built product. Made of 'earth' friendly products. Easy to clean
Copyright � 2002- Madison Art Shop� LLC. All Rights Reserved.


text:
domain name
Sort by:
Beginner's Guide to Selling Your Unused Domain Names
Many individuals have the habit of collecting attractive domain names but never using them. If so, why not get rid of unused domain names and in the process, make some cash? It is important to understand the whole process of selling domain names. On the outside, the process may look … Continue reading »