Highline Community College

MEDIA RELEASE

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATELY
DATE: February 2, 2009

CONTACT: Erik Tingelstad: (206) 878-3710, ext. 3599, etingels@highline.edu

Lisa Skari: (206) 870-3705, lskari@highline.edu

Egyptian educators share experiences from Highline Community College

Fellows will respond to questions during panel discussion

DES MOINES, Wash. — Four Egyptian educators will share their experiences from their time at Highline Community College and discuss the differences between U.S. and Egyptian education systems during a panel discussion on the college’s main campus.

“There are full-time and part-time students at Highline, but in Egypt we have only full-time students,” said Samy Osman, an engineering instructor at El Mahala El Kobra Technical College in Egypt. Osman also noticed differences in class sizes, use of technology in the classroom and tutoring services for students.

The panel discussion begins at 11 a.m. Feb. 23 in the Highline Student Union (Building 8), Mt. Olympus Room. The event is free and open to the public.

The educators are on Highline’s campus observing classes and learning new teaching methods through March 2009 as part of the Fellowship in Technical Education, a professional-development program for Egyptian vocational school teachers and administrators.

”The goal of the project is for Egyptian educators to observe teaching and learning methods used at U.S. community colleges that can be adapted to technical colleges in their home country,” said Mary Beth Hartenstine, a program manager at Highline for Community Colleges for International Development (CCID), a national group that administers the Egyptian fellowship program.

In summer 2008, 17 Egyptian fellows spent eight weeks taking intensive English language courses and observing classes on Highline’s campus before 13 of the educators left to continue their fellowships at different community colleges around the country.

Four fellows stayed at Highline and have been taking classes according to their interests and background. They have observed advisory committee meetings for some of Highline’s professional-technical programs, attended regional conferences and participated in faculty training and workshops.

The Fellowship in Technical Education is part of the Egyptian Community College Initiative, a national program funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in cooperation with the Fulbright Commission and the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

As a part of the CCID, Highline is also hosting the Community College Initiative (CCI) program, formerly known as the Community College Summit Initiative Program, for a second year. The goal of the CCI program is to help international students learn skills that will make them more employable in their home countries. Students come from Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil.

Eighteen students in the CCI program have been on Highline’s campus since summer 2008 and are taking courses in the computer science or hospitality and tourism programs.

Highline Community College was founded in 1961 as the first community college in King County. With approximately 10,000 students and 350,000 alumni, it is one of the state’s largest institutions of higher education. The college offers a wide range of academic transfer and professional-technical education programs, with day, evening, online and weekend classes.

With the most diverse population of any college in Washington state, Highline takes a multicultural approach to education for the success of all its students and the prosperity of its surrounding communities. Alumni include former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, entrepreneur Junki Yoshida and Washington state poet laureate Sam Green.

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