EICC News
Job Driven Training
Preparing Apprentices for the Future Here at Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, helping students achieve their dreams is what we do. If you’ve read this magazine before, you’ve seen countless stories about students realizing their potential or landing their ideal job. What may come as a surprise are the many ways in which we help students…
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Timeless Tavern
Since the beginning of our society, few things have remained the same. The way we talk, dress, travel and work all look drastically different than they did 100 years ago. But there is one thing that has been a mainstay and it comes in the form of an open room with a tall countertop, serving…
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Building Community, One Small Business at a Time
Joel Youngs is a man always on the go. As the Regional Director of the Eastern Iowa Small Business Development Center (SBDC), SBDC’s National Conference and Education Chair, and a Venture School Instructor, he spends the majority of his time counseling small business owners. Roughly 350 a year to be exact. In fact, he was…
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Addy Awards
You can’t blame students from Clinton Community College’s (CCC) Graphic Arts Technology program for feeling as if they were on the red carpets of Hollywood as they attended the annual American Advertising Awards gala in Cedar Rapids this spring.
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Home brewed
By day, Clinton Community College (CCC) Instructor Ryan Welch teaches students the ins and outs of biology, plant biology and environmental science. By night, he takes that knowledge and applies it to his favorite pastime: craft brewing. The two, he said, really go hand in hand and can often provide inspiration for teaching. “It relates…
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Training sparks a new life
In the Scott Community College (SCC) welding lab, sparks fly overhead as an instructor strikes an arc, cutting into a thick piece of metal. Within a few minutes the red and blue flashes of flame and light subside. The instructor lifts their helmet to inspect the work, revealing long brown hair underneath. For some, the…
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Higher learning for a higher cause
Sometimes a chance meeting is all someone needs to change their life. For Claudy Pierre-Charles, that moment came during a shared coke on a Haitian beach. From that single conversation blossomed an opportunity the second-year Scott Community College Auto Tech student never could have imagined. “It sounds a little crazy, even watching movies or TV,…
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From tragedy to tears of joy
A little self-belief can go a long way. At least that’s the way Jennifer Zamora sees it. “One of our greatest battles is within our own minds. Try to change the way you think about yourself, you’re wrong if you think you’re not good enough.” Zamora, a recent Muscatine Community College graduate, knows a thing…
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Finishing what I started
In between working 48 plus hours a week at Exelon and fulfilling his role as dad and husband to his wife and two daughters, Marvin Christiansen spends his free time at the Blong Technology Center working toward an Associate’s Degree in Engineering Technology. While maintaining the grueling schedule isn’t easy, Christiansen is no stranger to…
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Light the Lights
Even in the quietest of places, the world is still full of noise. The stroke of a keyboard, whistle of a bird, or soft pitter-patter of footsteps, are all sounds that make their way into our daily lives without so much as an afterthought. Now imagine a place where those very sounds can mean the…
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