Viva en Espana with CMC’s Study Abroad trip to Spain! Theatre professor/director Tom Cochran leads this semester abroad adventure Jan. 10 – April 25, 2004. The trip will include six weeks in Salamanca, six weeks in Granada, plus two weeks in Madrid and a three-day excursion to Morocco. The trip is open to the public; call Tom at 947-8252 for an application. The deadline is Nov 17.

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“Education is my love, my niche,” says new CMC interim director of nursing Sally Smalley. She taught nursing at Oklahoma State University Tech and at Northwestern State University in Oklahoma. Then she switched gears to work with the elderly as Heritage Park assistant director of nursing in Carbondale. Now she is happiest back with students again. She says her main goal is to work towards National League Nursing Accreditation standards, which must be in place prior to 2008. She will serve until a permanent director is chosen, as will interim associate professor Cindy Tatsumi, who has taught clinical nursing at the Vail-Eagle CMC Campus and previously worked at the Vail Valley Medical Center.

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Did you know? CMC’s learning sites are spread across 12,000 square miles separated by no less than 24 14,000-foot mountain peaks and 14 mountain passes? But CMC sites are so easily accessible that in any given year 12 percent of the people living in our district are enrolled at the college, compared with 2.5 percent at other community colleges in Colorado. Nationally, only 5 percent of people living in the communities served by a community college take classes each year.

We caught up with George Stricker, one of CMC’s pioneers. George was CMC’s director of continuing education in the early ’70s, when the college was still brand new. He is amazed at CMC today, saying, “Our early efforts were worthwhile and launched in a lasting direction, though I could not have imagined at the start how well it has developed.” George hired CMC associate dean of developmental education Shirley Bowen, who has now worked for the college for 33 years. Shirley said, “It was our first job with major responsibility, and George said, whatever you can imagine, give it a try, and we did!” George now works as a consultant for wind energy applications in Truckee, Calif.

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CMC’s Glenwood Center exceeded summer enrollment projections, and Assistant Roaring Fork Campus Dean Jan Shugart says she is confident fall enrollment will do the same. She said this fall the Glenwood Center doesn’t have an empty room any night of the week. That’s partly because Bridges High School meets there through a partnership with RE-1 School District.

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Thanks to support from local businesses, community volunteers and CMC Student Services staffers, this year’s Make-A-Wish softball tournament raised $2,766. Interestingly enough, as play continued at Two Rivers and Sayre parks in Glenwood Springs, 19-year old leukemia patient Joe Suarez of Grand Junction, this year’s tournament honoree, was on his dream trip to Disney World and the Florida beaches.