This photograph has reached “iconic” status in my mind. Just days after the earthquake in Haiti, Ted and Tina Knox (family friends for many years) flew to Miami to meet a plane that brought their little girl Bethany home.

I just got to meet Bethany last Sunday at our church. She was adorable, giggling and shyly waving when I stroked her cheek and declared her “the cutest Knox ever.”

Now the Colfax Record has just run a beautiful front page story about Bethany, and how she is finally home with her forever family.

In the midst of devastating news following the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti stories of hope have emerged.

One of those miracles is 6-year-old Bethany, who has found a “forever family” with local residents Ted and Tina Knox.

The first step in the lengthy adoption process began a few years ago when the Knoxs’ 21-year-old daughter, Shanley, volunteered to spend a month working with Three Angels Children’s Relief in Haiti.

“While she was there she began writing about her experience and about the different kids,” said Tina Knox, who grew up in Newcastle.

What really pulled on Tina’s heart, though, was when her daughter wrote about the orphans longing to have a “forever family”…

“She literally came out of Haiti with the clothes on her back and a small ragged blanket,” explained Tina, who admits the arrival of a six-year- old is a big adjustment for their entire family.

“We got the call on Monday morning, took a red-eye flight to Florida on Monday night and landed in Florida on Tuesday morning,” recounted Tina. “When I got to the place where she was staying, I said, ‘I am here now. I am your mama.’ She just put her arms around my neck and wrapped herself around my waist and clung to me. She just hung on and hasn’t really let go.”

Enjoy this great piece of weekend reading!

UPDATE: Bethany’s sister Shanley is on the front page of Biola University’s student newspaper with her story about “Expecting Miracles from Haiti.”

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Huijskens (top), Colfax Record (middle)

A blogger named Brandon Prezepiorski, calling himself the “Placer County Republican Examiner”, recently posted a bit of a rant filled with “questions” about Sierra College’s budget. I commented that it was unfortunate he hadn’t reached out for answers to his questions, and offered to answer them. He took me up on that offer. Here’s the e-mail interview he just posted.

Q: What will happen to students currently pursuing degrees in the programs slated to be removed?

If students are pursuing a degree and we are forced to close the program, they would have to either change the degree they are pursuing, or fulfill the remainder of the classes they need for the degree at another college. That’s a very difficult problem and one we hope no student has to contemplate, but all of the “easy” options have been exhausted to solve the immense budget problem we find ourselves in.

Q: Won’t cutting said programs end up impacting current programs and make it harder for students to find classes adding to the current problems students face?

Theoretically possible. At the end of the day, the dysfunctional State Legislature is reducing the number of students it will fund to educate in the community college system. Do I agree with this policy choice? Heavens, no. But I’m not in the State Legislature – the Board of Trustees has to do the hard work of deciding how to implement these cuts in the way that protects the largest number of students possible.

Q: Are there any programs the Sierra offers that are not required to receive state funding such as (GED classes or ESL classes)?

Sierra receives state apportionment funding for all of its for-credit classes.

Q: If so, do these programs produce a profit or cause a deficit?

Very few of our classes “produce a profit” per se, but all of our lecture-type classes, from English to History to ESL, in effect subsidize the career and technical education like nursing, automotive and mechatronics, which have large equipment costs and are very expensive to deliver. These vocational programs are a critical part of powering our economy, so this dual focus of general AND career/technical education is very beneficial to our community.

Q: Is it possible to reduce the number of maintenance workers and replace them?

If you’re talking about groundskeepers and janitorial employees, I don’t think so. We’re barely staffed at the minimum levels to keep the campus clean and functional for our students and staff.

Q: Has Sierra thought about allowing corporate advertising (such as on campus billboards) as a way to increase revenue?

That we have. Local ordinances are a problem, but the other issue is that we could turn the Rocklin campus into the Las Vegas Strip and that still wouldn’t generate even a fraction of the revenue we’d need to solve these problems.

Q: Will work-study students be affected by the budget cuts and operating hours being cut?

Every student and every staff member will be affected by the budget cuts. When the state cuts $13 million out of a $96 million budget, there are no easy answers and there is no way that every single person at Sierra College won’t be affected.

One thing to remember is that the Board of Trustees made some big changes back in 2005 by balancing the budget and preparing for a rainy day. Little did we know there would be a fiscal hurricane – but as a result of our fiscal discipline, we were prepared. Had we not built those new reserves, these cuts would have happened last year, and this year’s cuts would have been even worse.

It’s sad to see the State Legislature force these difficult measures, but California’s mismanagement is finally coming home to roost. Sierra College is making the best decisions possible for its students given the choices that it has.

The Sacramento Bee covers the changes that state funding cuts are driving in our community colleges across California.

At the board meeting that drew 500 people last week, trustees voted to send preliminary layoff notices to all instructors in those programs. They asked college administrators to come back with alternative cuts to close the school’s $11.2 million deficit so they might be able to save the vocational classes.

But no matter what they cut in the end, board members acknowledged the school won’t be able to serve everyone it always has.

"This…stinks because if you’re going to cut the budget of a community college by $10 million, you are going to be impacting the mission," said Trustee Scott Leslie.

…

The Legislature and the chancellor of the state’s community colleges recognize that budget cuts mean the schools will be paring back what they do and whom they serve, but they want schools to keep teaching job skills, remedial academics and classes that prepare students to transfer to a four-year university.

"Now is the time to eliminate courses that are primarily avocational," Chancellor Jack Scott said at a community college convention in November. "It is not our job to provide physical exercise for adults who don’t want to pay the fees to join an athletic club or provide a course for those who want to learn quilting."

Chavez, the Sierra College president, said he’s trying to follow that advice by teasing out who’s taking classes and for what reasons. He said he recently talked to a woman who was angry she couldn’t get into an Italian class. When he found out she wasn’t working on a degree at Sierra but wanted to take the class because she and her husband were planning a trip to Italy, he decided that keeping her out of the class was fair.

At the end of the day, the State Legislature is sending a message with their budget cuts, and I think it’s likely that the community colleges will by necessity become much more focused on two core areas: career and technical education that leads straight to jobs in the private sector; and general education for students fulfilling degree requirements or transferring to four year universities.

Photo Credit: SacBee

The Republicans had four solid years of controlling the House and Senate (albeit, never 60 votes in the Senate) and I have been quite disappointed by President Bush’s record on spending. If conservatism doesn’t stand for sustainable fiscal practices, than what does it stand for?

This is a chart from the minority staff of the House Budget Committee. I get that the 2008 budget bar was for fiscal year 2009, but I’m still not sure I buy that you can count it as a “Democratic budget.” That being said, paint the 2008 line blue and it barely changes the effect of this chart.

President Obama can blame his predecessor all he wants for “leaving him a mess to clean up.” What nobody is buying is the idea that this is the medicine that will cure our ills.

The President’s budget is like saying you have a headache and you’re curing it by hitting yourself in the head with a baseball bat.

Am I missing something here? Fill me in using the comments below.

This is the question we confronted while traveling through Ethiopia, in the process of bringing our little girl home.

The words of a Steven Curtis Chapman song came to mind entitled “What Now” and it seemed to encapsulate our trip and the incredible opportunities to make a difference that we were seeing before our very eyes.

We can’t say it better than his words do.

I saw the face of Jesus / in a little orphan girl,
She was standing in the corner / on the other side of the world.
And I heard the voice of Jesus / gently whisper to my heart,
‘didn’t you say you wanted to find me? / Well, here I am, here you are.’
So what now? / What will you do, now that you found me?
What now? / What will you do with this treasure you found?
I know I may not look like what you expected,
but if you remember / this is right where I said I would be…
You found me / what now?

So the “What Now” video that I told you I was working on is finally here. And we also finished this year’s version of “Christmas cards” – our 2009 Letter – as well. Hope you enjoy it!

(Mobile, feed and e-mail readers: the embedded video is above.)

UPDATE: I should note that the photos in the video are all taken by Cacey and me, with the exception of the three amazing ones taken by Mandy Morello, who was there in the middle of the night at Sacramento International Airport!

I was thoroughly underwhelmed by most of the ads at this year’s Super Bowl. The Letterman/Leno ad was probably the funniest, with an honorable mention to Denny’s for the screaming chickens.

But the feel good ad of this Super Bowl – by a couple of touchdowns – was when University of Florida Quarterback Tim Tebow’s mom stole the show reminding people how precious every life is.

(If you don’t know the back story, Pam Tebow was overseas and had dysentery when she got pregnant. Doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy, but she refused to do that. And just a couple of decades later, Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy because of her decision.)

After seeing the ad, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the pro-abortion organizations who had so vehemently attacked the Tebows for their message were wishing they had done a little bit more thinking and a little bit less shrieking.

This can be an emotional issue for many, but ultimately, I think what this ad really illustrated is that there is nothing to celebrate about ending life. Nobody would put an ad on the Super Bowl applauding the termination of a pregnancy. And for those of us involved in the orphan care and adoption cause, that fact really does hit home: all human lives are precious and deserve our protection.

It’s a beautiful thing to celebrate family. It’s a beautiful thing to celebrate life.

Me: “Hey Spence, what do you want for your birthday?”

Spencer: “Uh…a puppy!”

Me: “Hmmm. Anything else you want for your birthday?”

Spencer: “Uh…an elephant too!”

Looks like we’re going to need to take a trip to a toy store to stoke his interest in things that do not involve buying large quantities of food or incurring vet bills.

Board Meeting Details:

• February 9, 2010 at 4:00PM
• Sierra College Rocklin Campus, Board Room, LRC-133
• Main agenda items begin at 4:00PM, public comment for items not on the agenda at 5:40PM
• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

This is the regularly scheduled board meeting for February. As you probably recall, we had a special board meeting earlier this week to discuss the proposed package of spending reductions, and seek public input on them. I still want to write a longer report on that meeting and will do so in the next few days.

During this meeting, we’ll be hearing reports on the outcome of employee group votes to ratify their portions of the plan (the across-the-board pay reductions and furlough days). We’ll also see a presentation on innovative teaching techniques and delivery methods, which I’m really looking forward to!

Use the comments below to answer the Question of the Month! (You can “log in” with your Facebook or Twitter account with a single click, or just fill in your name and e-mail address to leave a guest comment.)

What is your response to the budget cuts proposed by the college’s management team and governance groups, made up of faculty, classified and students? Did they cut too much, or not enough? What other ideas should be considered?

The Saints and Colts will be great to watch on Sunday, but with what I do in marketing, I’m equally looking forward to the ads.

Here’s one of my favorite Super Bowl ads ever, from 1994.

(Mobile, feed and e-mail readers: embedded video above.)

Question: What’s your favorite Super Bowl ad? (Post a YouTube link if you have one, otherwise, just describe it!)

I’m out the door quite early this morning on a business trip. I’ll try and update you with a more detailed post soon.

For now, here’s a quick update: the meeting went from 4 to 11:30. The board voted 6-1 to issue the layoff notices required to balance the budget, but instructed staff to prepare options for saving the automotive, construction and agriculture job training programs.

All in all, we had 85 public comment speakers and I cast four of the toughest votes I’ve ever had to cast. It was a long night, but we laid the foundation for a sustainable Sierra College budget.

More soon.