Community, Online Colleges Partner for Degree Programs

Howard Community College students now may earn a bachelor's degree in several academic areas without leaving the county, through an unusual online study arrangement.

Officials on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Excelsior College, a private, 36-year-old online institution in Albany, N.Y. Excelsior is nonprofit and accredited. It will offer online degree programs to Howard students in nursing, health sciences, business, technology and liberal arts.

The partnership allows Howard students to transfer as many as 90 credits -- equivalent to three years of a four-year degree -- to Excelsior ( http://https://www.excelsior.edu) . Students may complete the remaining 30 credits needed for a bachelor's degree through online courses and testing. Students pay $114 per credit hour for Howard courses and $250 per credit hour for Excelsior courses. After a series of information sessions, the college expects to begin enrolling students in the Excelsior program in November.

John F. Ebersole, Excelsior College's president and chief executive, said this is a unique arrangement for Excelsior, which counts many members of the military and working professionals among its 30,000 students.

"This is an innovation that addresses both access and affordability issues," said Ebersole, who visited the Howard campus Tuesday to formalize the arrangement with President Kathleen B. Hetherington.

With growth planned at Fort Meade, "I think this will be a significant opportunity for people coming into the area," Hetherington said.

The program has already attracted residents' attention. C. Alan Jefferson, a 1976 Wilde Lake High School graduate, Wachovia Bank vice president and father of two, aims to finish the course work for his bachelor's through Excelsior College. His daughter is a high school sophomore, he said, "and I would love to get my degree before she does."

Why Not Work Closer to Home?

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On Baltimore and Washington radio stations this week, there's a message about a sad little girl whose daddy is missing her soccer game because he is stuck in traffic -- again.

Richard W. Story, chief executive of the Howard County Economic Development Authority, hopes the radio spots resonate with residents who commute out of the county to their jobs.

There's a growing labor shortage in Howard, and Story wants to convince the county's 100,000 outbound commuters that there are good jobs waiting to be filled at home.

There are openings in information technology, management, finance, health care and mechanical work. The authority has created a Web site describing the job listings at http://www.howardjobs.com and will run radio spots over the next three months.

The labor shortage is part of the downside to living in one of the most affluent counties in the country, in the midst of a job boom fueled by steady government and information technology expansion.

"It's a gray lining on our silver cloud," he said.

Turf Valley Planners Address Soil Issues

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Developers of the Turf Valley Resort and Conference Center have voluntarily entered a state cleanup program to eradicate contaminated soil where housing is planned.

Developer Louis Mangione, whose family owns 809 acres west of Ellicott City, announced last week that the company is asking for oversight by the Maryland Department of the Environment on testing and cleanup of 40 acres. That's considerably more than the initial six-acre parcel where 2005 soil tests showed high arsenic and lead levels near a golf course maintenance shed.

The extra acreage includes two development areas close to the shed, said Gina Ellrich, a representative for the developer. Turf Valley has long planned an expansion that includes more than 1,600 housing units, retail space and offices, some of it on former golf course land.

"I have said all along that it has always been our intention to do the right thing in regard to developing Turf Valley," Mangione said. "From the start, we have recognized the importance of further testing of the soil and have pledged to solve any problems that are identified prior to development."

Howard County Health Department officials had talked to the Mangiones for several months about testing land for toxic residues from golf course pesticides.

In July, they learned about the 2005 soil tests that were conducted by a prospective builder. County officials then reported those results to state environmental officials.