A College Guarantees Job Offers — or Else a Refund

Money-back guarantees hardly seem to go with higher education. And offering them to prospective applicants during a recession sounds downright insane. But that’s the sweetheart deal a community college in Michigan has started dangling to try to increase its enrollment. Beginning in May, people who take six-week courses in certain subjects will be guaranteed a job within a year — or else they’ll be refunded their tuition money.

It’s a radical idea, particularly for a school located in Lansing, Mich., where unemployment sits at 11.7%. Lansing Community College, the third largest community college in the state, has 30,000 students a year but is looking for more. The new money-back guarantee will apply to the four most in-demand technical jobs in the area: call-center specialists, pharmacy technicians, quality inspectors and computer machinists. The average pay for these jobs in 2008 ranged from $12.10 an hour (call-center specialists) to $15.72 (computer machinists).

Full Time Article

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on A College Guarantees Job Offers — or Else a Refund

Bag of Randomness

  • A new element was added to the periodic table, which brings the total count to 117.  I wonder how many will be added before my death.
  • Hopefully my death is a ways off.
  • Another science article that caught my attention: First oxygen-free animals found
  • I have to attend a university workshop, while I enjoy these things, I just wish they weren’t held on a Friday night.
  • Our house is finally beginning to look somewhat normal.
  • It doesn’t matter if it’s Reagan or Obama, but when a nuclear treaty is signed I’m always a bit skeptical because I bet no country ever reveals just how many nuclear weapons they have on hand.
  • Man, the last couple of nights have been cold, just when I was adjusting to the warm weather.
  • For me, dying trapped in a mine is just as scary as downing.
  • When I had a new hot water heater installed a friend recommended that I spray paint the PVC drain pipe that runs outside, the spray paint will keep the pipe from deteriorating from the weather.
  • I don’t have any desire to watch another episode of The Marriage Ref.
  • Tiger performed better than I thought.  Heck, after being gone for so long, it appeared he was actually happy to be playing again.  Personally, when I watched him play over the past year or two, he may have been dominating, but he just didn’t look like he was enjoying it.  He had that look like he was being forced to be out there.  Yesterday, it looked like there was no other place he would rather be and that he was relishing it.
  • I find state and country boundaries quite interesting, and when they are divided by a river, I’m never quite sure (and either are they from what I hear) are sure exactly where the boundaries lie – rivers edge or bank, middle of the river?
  • I’ve only watched one Tyler Perry movie and his name wasn’t even in the title.  The movie was Star Trek.
  • I used my new, new weedeater the other day and it worked just fine, no battery problems this time.
  • I’m almost convinced that Taco Bueno’s muchacho bread is manna from dropped from the heavens.
  • Mike Modano may have played his last game, I wish I could have appreciate him more.
  • Interactive Unemployment Chart
  • Minimum Wage Machine
  • Sex offender with a sexy mug shot?
Posted in Personal | 4 Comments

Episcopal Priest Barbie High Church Edition

(RNS) With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest.

The 11.5-inch-tall fictional graduate of Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., has donned a cassock and surplice and is rector at St. Barbara’s-by-the-Sea in (where else?) Malibu, Calif.

She arrived at the church fully accessorized, as is Barbie’s custom. Her impeccably tailored ecclesiastical vestments include various colored chasubles (the sleeveless vestments worn at Mass) for every liturgical season, black clergy shirt with white collar, neat skirt and heels, a laptop with prepared sermon and a miniature, genuine Bible.

Apparently a devotee of the “smells and bells” of High Church tradition, the Rev. Barbie even has a tiny thurible, a metal vessel used for sending clouds of incense wafting toward heaven.

The Rev. Barbie, who in less than a week had drawn nearly 3,000 friends on her Facebook page, spends most of her time in the office of the Rev. Dena Cleaver-Bartholomew, rector of Christ (Episcopal) Church, in Manlius, N.Y., near Syracuse.

Full RNS Article

Posted in Pop Culture, Spiritual | Comments Off on Episcopal Priest Barbie High Church Edition