Category: Faculty insight

SC4 releases schedule for upcoming health sciences program info sessions

Throughout the coming months, St. Clair County Community College will hold free information sessions on main campus for a number of its in-demand health sciences programs.

Attending an info session is the first step for anyone interested in earning a health sciences degree from SC4. For those interested in nursing programs, attending a session is mandatory.

Schedule:

Group informational meeting

  • Meet with representatives from SC4’s medical assisting, paramedic/EMT, respiratory therapy and health information technology programs
  • 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 11 – Health Sciences Building, Room 106

Health Information Technology

  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18 – Health Sciences Building, Room 106
  • Noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3 – College Center, Room 100A

The health information technology program prepares students for a variety of careers in the health care field. Students learn the process of acquiring, analyzing, and protecting digital and traditional medical information, which is vital to providing quality patient care, supporting medical education and research, and more. Graduates are eligible to take the nationally recognized Registered Health Information Technician Exam.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/hit.

Medical Assisting

  • 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 1 – Applied Technology Center, Room 119
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9 – Health Sciences Building, Room 138
  • 6 to 7 p.m.  Monday, Oct. 14 – Health Sciences Building, Room 138
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18 – Health Sciences Building, Room 138

The medical assisting program is a 12-month certificate program that prepares students to perform various clinical and administrative duties in a variety of health care settings. Graduates gain the knowledge and skills necessary for further health sciences education and are eligible to take the national credentialing exam.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/medical-assisting.

Radiologic Technology

  • 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 1 – Welcome Center, Room 206
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10 – Welcome Center, Room 206
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20 – Welcome Center, Room 206

The radiologic technology program prepares students to become radiologic technologists by combining imaging technology with patient care skills to create quality radiography images. It has a five-year, 100 percent first-time passage rate on the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) Exam, a national registry exam that grants certification in radiologic technology.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/radtech.

Respiratory Therapy

  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9 – Health Sciences Building, Room 105
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14 – Health Sciences Building, Room 105
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18 – Health Sciences Building, Room 105

The respiratory therapy program prepares students to become respiratory therapists through the assessment and treatment of patients with acute and chronic lung and cardiovascular disorders and diseases. Respiratory therapists have demanding responsibilities related to patient care and are a vital component of the health care team. Students graduating from the program will obtain an Associate in Applied Arts and Science degree, and become eligible to take the National Board of Respiratory Care (NBRC) credentialing examination.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/respiratory-therapy.

Nursing programs

Practical Nursing

  • 1 to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6 – Main Building, Room 312
  • 9 to 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 21 – Health Sciences Building, Room 203

The Practical Nursing program prepares graduates to take the state exam to become a licensed practical nurse. This program prepares students to work within the interdisciplinary team under the direct supervision of an RN in a variety of settings such as long-term care facilities, rehabilitation facilities, doctor’s offices and home health care.

Nursing Transition Program

  • 9 to 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6 – Main Building, Room 312
  • 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17 – Health Sciences Building, Room 106
  • 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21 – Health Sciences Building, Room 203

The ADN transition program is designed for licensed health care professionals who want to become registered nurses. The program is an accelerated course of study designed to expand upon previous education and experience.

Associate Degree Nursing

  • 2 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6 – Main Building, Room 312
  • 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17 – Health Sciences Building, Room 106
  • 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 21 – Health Sciences Building, Room 203

The Associate Degree Nursing program prepares students for work with an interdisciplinary team in health care with multiple areas of entry such as surgery, mental health, obstetrical nursing and other adult and child areas of care. Graduates are eligible to take the national licensure examination to become a registered nurse.

For detailed information on all of SC4’s nursing programs, visit sc4.edu/nursing.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

  • 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3 – Health Sciences Building, Room 136.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, procedures play an important role in diagnosing diseases and injuries. An MRI uses magnetic field and radio waves to produce images of the inside of the human body. MRI technologies are mostly employed by hospitals but increasingly, jobs are becoming available in physician offices and imaging centers.

The MRI program is offered through a partnership with other Michigan Community Colleges in the Michigan Radiologic and Imaging Science (MiRIS) Consortium. It prepares students to meet the established objectives and eligibility requirements of the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) and to complete the MRI certification exam.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/mri.

Paramedic

  • Information session to be hosted in November 2019. More information to follow.

This 12-month certificate program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs to prepare students for exciting careers saving lives on ambulances, fire department advanced life support units or in hospital emergency rooms. Graduates are eligible to take the national registry paramedic exam and apply for the Michigan Paramedic License.

For more information about info sessions and additional program details, visit sc4.edu/paramedic.

Professor Laurie Lamont receives SC4 Distinguished Faculty Award.

Laurie Lamont, professor of associate degree nursing at St. Clair County Community College, was honored as the SC4 Distinguished Faculty Award winner during a faculty professional development session Thursday, Jan. 3. The award is based on a faculty member’s personal and professional impact with students and colleagues and in the community. Also nominated for the award were Paul Bedard, professor of mathematics, and Chris Hiebert, professor of engineering graphics.​​​​​

In a first for the region, sturgeon exhibit to be feature of SC4 Super Science Day and new Experience Center

St. Clair County Community College’s new Experience Center soon will be home to a sturgeon exhibit as part of a unique environmental education program created for K-12 schools by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

20181019_193751(1)The Sturgeon in the Classroom program is facilitated in Southeast Michigan by Sturgeon for Tomorrow, a nonprofit group that works to preserve and protect the future of lake sturgeon in the Huron-Erie corridor. Plans to develop the program for SC4 came out of a collaboration between the group’s St. Clair-Detroit River chapter and another nonprofit organization, Friends of the St. Clair River, which works to protect the St. Clair Watershed and educate the public about its importance.

SC4’s sturgeon exhibit – currently scheduled to open to the public by the college’s Super Science Day on Nov. 3 – will be the first of its kind in St. Clair County.

“Lake sturgeon are an important species in the St. Clair River ecosystem,” says Carrie Dollar, professor of Biology at SC4 and a member of the Friends of the St. Clair River board of directors. “The northern end of the St. Clair River, just a few miles from the college, boasts one of the largest successful breeding grounds for lake sturgeon in the entire Great Lakes ecosystem.”

The sturgeon will be located within the Experience Center at SC4 and housed in a large tank. In April, it will be reclaimed by Sturgeon for Tomorrow and released back into its waters of origin in the Black River in Cheboygan County, Michigan.

“By being housed in our tank for the winter, we are significantly increasing the survival rate of this sturgeon once it’s released back into the wild,” says Dollar. “The hope is that its temporary stay increases its fitness and ability to one day become a successful, active breeding animal in the wild.”

IMG_1740The Experience Center’s sturgeon exhibit will provide a living complement to the unique items in the college’s Dr. Bassam H. Nasr Natural Science Museum, which is home the largest collection of fossil artifacts in the Michigan thumb region. Sturgeon fossils appear in rocks dating from 66 to 100 million years ago, meaning the fish was a contemporary of later dinosaurs like the Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus.

Beyond the biology, the program also provides a valuable opportunity to highlight the region’s Native American cultures. Lake sturgeon, known as Nmé to many of the area’s First Nation tribes, are the top fish clan and an important resource to Native Americans, including the Gun Lake Tribe, which reveres sturgeon as grandfathers and grandmothers whose clan members are “as long lived as the fish.”

Super Science Day will take place from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Nov. 3, in the Clara E. Mackenzie Building on SC4’s campus. The free event is open to the public and will give guests a sneak preview of the new Experience Center partnership with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, a partnership which will result in a multifaceted interactive STEAM center aimed at promoting exploration, education and inspiration in Southeast Michigan.

Learn more about Super Science Day and the Experience Center at SC4.

Hackers are getting smarter, but you can take steps to protect yourself

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, which means we’re paying more attention to things we should already be doing.

So much of our personal information lives online, and most of us don’t protect it as well as we should.

Thrive sat down with SC4 professor of computer information systems Rob Richardson to talk all about cyber security. His biggest piece of advice: change your passwords frequently, and use different passwords for different accounts.

Here’s the rest of the conversation.

Thrive: When we sign up for an email account, I think a lot of people assume that, say, Google, is keeping our information protected. Are they?

Rob Richardson: They do, but only to the extent that you cooperate. There’s been these big data breaches, and the big one over the summer that most people don’t realize happened was that Myspace got breached. They took 360 million user accounts. Which means for a lot of people, now those credentials are out there floating around.

People don’t cooperate because we’re lazy, so we re-use credentials. I guarantee that some significant fraction of those 360 million credentials are currently in use, same username, same password, that pair, in some other website – maybe in dozens of other websites. There are attack tools that specifically can import breach data and then create a config for some other website, say Amazon, then try to log into Amazon with every one of those 360 million accounts to see how many use those credentials. Or to Gmail, or to Yahoo, Outlook, whatever.

What you can do is go to a website called www.haveibeenpwned.com. What this website will do, is you give it an email address, and it will compare it against 140 of these big public breaches.

People are lazy, we don’t want to remember different accounts for different things; we don’t want to have to change passwords. When you ask me, does Google protect my security, they do if you cooperate. Google has no way to know that you use the same password for every single thing in the universe.

Thrive: Once they get in, what would they have access to?

Richardson: They’d have access to all of your saved mail. Don’t forget, with Gmail, your Gmail login gets you everything else in Google as well. That gets you Google Drive, Google Books, Google Hangouts, Google Plus. They could retrieve the documents even if those documents were confidential. They could take those documents, modify them and pass them on. They would have access to your contacts, and could send them an attachment under your name. Or they could send link recommendations.

Thrive: How do these breaches keep happening?

Richardson: Most of these companies are in business to do something else. That something else requires them to have users. The more difficult they make it for the user, the less users they’re going to have. It’s this counterintuitive thing, they know they need good security, but strong security is never convenient. If they enforce long passwords, frequent password changes, multi-factor authentication – where before you login you have to respond to a text that it sends to your phone in addition to typing in your password – or you have to do the captcha thing, all these other forms of authentication you have to use make it less and less convenient, which means their user base shrinks. It’s this kind of fight, if we make our security too strong, we drive away our user base.

Right now because of the reuse of passwords and the ease of which people can check these big data breaches against other sites, the two-factor authentication is really the way you need to go. But most places don’t do that yet.

Thrive: It’s becoming more and more important to secure stuff, but it’s also probably becoming more and more lucrative for hackers, right?

Richardson: It is. They’re getting very, very organized now. Some of the criminal syndicates that conduct cyber attacks really think about what they’re doing. They target things that they know they can get data from. They don’t target every person, only the people who are worth targeting.

Thrive: How much more sophisticated are these emails now? Are they getting better at them?

Richardson: My key here for people is skepticism. Be very, very, very skeptical online before you provide any information or take any action.

We definitely are too trusting. The people who actually make money doing the email fraud or online scams, the ones who survive, they learn – they get good.