printable versionCardinal Chronicle
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Continuing Studies by the numbers: The program opened in 1988, and the average student is a 46-year-old female. Twenty percent of its students are alumni, another 20 percent are staff and the remainder are people in the community who simply see learning as a lifelong endeavor. Last Thursday, a reception at the alumni center honored individuals who have taken 10 or more courses, with GARY YOUNT topping all attendees with 76 courses. More than 300 active university faculty members teach courses, which works out to about three-fourths of the program's teachers. But the math was perhaps best summed up by CHARLES JUNKERMAN, associate provost and dean of Continuing Studies: "Where else can you offer a course on causality and get 25 people to sign up, or theoretical physics with calculus and get 80 per quarter, over and over for four years?"
La Raza Staff Association will host this year's first Big Lunch of Color, a quarterly staff-networking event that dates back to 1998. The lunch will be tomorrow, and ROSA GONZALEZ of the Diversity and Access Office will be the guest speaker. RSVP to vmadrigal@stanford.edu. On Oct. 3, the Asian Staff Forum will host a lunch to welcome new hires and rehires. KEITH COPELAND, director of recruitment and talent management in Human Resources, will speak at the event, and ASF will be selling the last of its cookbooks that day ($12 for 66 recipes). The lunch is open to all; send RSVPs—along with any questions for Copeland—to miyasato@stanford.edu by Friday. Both events will be held at noon in Tresidder Union's Oak West Room.
Now that the Training Opportunities Guide is distributed by ID Mail, instead of as an insert in Stanford Report, one sure way to get all the information on courses and workshops offered this fall is to log in to Axess at http://axess.stanford.edu/. After entering your SUNet ID and password, click on the Training tab at the top, and then click Browse Catalog or, if you already know the course title, Search Catalog, both to the upper left. The guide, produced by Training and Organizational Development, is online at http://hrweb.stanford.edu/training/. University employees who work at least half time may be eligible for up to $800 in reimbursements this year through the Staff Training Assistance Program (STAP) for job-related courses, activities and required texts.