Cannon School to host panel

Cannon School will host a community forum and parent panel, “Helping Our Children Make Sense in a World that Makes Less Sense,” on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in the Cannon Performing Arts Center on the campus at 5801 Poplar Tent Road in Concord. We are living in an interesting time with a contentious political landscape as well as a portentous social one. Our children are being bombarded with issues that touch on values, race and religion, just to name a few. The hope is to open a parent-to-parent dialogue in order to gain a better understanding of how to best talk to our children about these issues. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.cannonschool.org/parentpanel.

Local organizations awarded grant

For the second year, Carolina Farm Credit distributed grants from its Corporate Mission Fund. $140,000 was donated to 27 local organizations and eight college students in 2016, an increase from last year’s $100,000.

“Our Corporate Mission Fund allows us an opportunity to support grass roots organizations that are making a difference in their rural communities.  We are also thrilled to be able to support these college students further their education with the scholarships.” Vance Dalton, CEO, Carolina Farm Credit

Local recipients are:

Carolina Antique Power Association Inc. for Country Life Museum at Sloan Park — Grant money will be used to complete construction of a 60’x 80’ metal-sided building that will house the museum. When completed, the museum will be open to both school groups and the general public.

West Rowan High School Future Farmers of America – Funds will be used to purchase a small equine stall barn and tack area. This area will provide students interested in equine science education the opportunity to learn more about equine medicine and care.

UNC Charlotte professor to speak on coal ash cleanup at Center for Environment

“Coal Ash Cleanup: An Opportunity for Environmental Sustainability and Stewardship” will be the topic for a presentation Thursday, Nov. 17, at the Center for the Environment at Catawba College.

The speaker, Dr. John Daniels, chairs the National Ash Management Advisory Board for Duke Energy. He is a professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNC Charlotte.

Previously Daniels was a program director in the Directorate for Engineering at the U.S. National Science Foundation where he was responsible for funding research in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering as well as engineering research centers.

While at UNC Charlotte, Daniels has led numerical, laboratory and field-based projects for utilities and consultants, as well as state, national and foreign agencies. Much of this work has focused on physical and chemical controls on soils and industrial byproducts, with a focus on coal fly ash.

His textbook, co-authored with Hsai-Yang Fang, entitled “Introductory Geotechnical Engineering: An Environmental Perspective,” was released in 2006, and he has over 80 publications in various journals, conference proceedings and technical reports.

Daniels has worked for TRC Environmental Corporation in Lowell, Mass., as a project engineer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Lehigh University and a master’s degree and doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

The presentation, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. in room 300 of the Center for the Environment facility, is free and open to the public but registration is required. To register, visit centerfortheenvironment.org or call 704-637-4791.
Catawba College English professor attends and presents at conference

Dr. Kerstin Rudolph, an assistant professor of English at Catawba College, recently attended the annual conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Carter G. Woodson. This association’s 101st meeting took place in Richmond, Va., in early October.

Rudolph presented a conference paper as part of a panel titled “Struggles in Black Gotham” that looked at various sites of New York City through the lens of black progress and political development. Her paper, titled “The Spatial Politics of Race and Ethnicity: The White Rose Mission and Social Reform Work in Turn-of-the-Century New York,” examined the working friendship between the mission’s founder Victoria Earle Matthews and novelist Alice Dunbar-Nelson as part of black clubwomen’s efforts to do racial uplift work while also navigating African American identity against a larger backdrop of New York’s diverse ethnic make-up.

Rudolph shared that “together with my panelists’ presentations, we were able to span a full century from 1897 to the present, but also cover a range of topics, from my focus on reform work to the black-owned Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartment Complex and Bank in 1930s Harlem, and contemporary mayoral politics regarding police violence against African Americans as well as a paper on the connections between black poverty and NYC’s HIV crisis.”

Although the conference was large, Rudolph noted that “the diversity of panels, roundtables, and keynotes made ASAHL a stimulating and nurturing event.” She also cited “an invigorating plenary session on the role of museums in African American life and history, and another highlight that was a luncheon featuring a moderated discussion with cultural critic Ta-Nehasi Coates.”

Free FAFSA Day event to help students prepare financial aid forms

On Saturday, Oct. 29, Davidson County Community College (DCCC) will assist students and families with the completion and submission of the electronic Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Financial aid professionals and other representatives will be on hand from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. at the B.E. Mendenhall Jr. Building. DCCC is the only site offering FAFSA Day in Davidson County. This service is free of charge and available to anyone planning to attend any college and is not exclusive to DCCC students.

Organized by the College Foundation of North Carolina, the North Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the State Employees’ Credit Union, FAFSA Day helps students access available financial aid. Students must complete the FAFSA form to be considered for any federal and most state financial aid for college, including scholarships and grants. Prior to FAFSA Day, it is suggested that students and parents apply for an FSA ID, needed to complete the form, at fsaid.ed.gov. On October 29, students and families will need to bring information from their 2015 tax filing in order to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool for the income section of the FAFSA. Participants should also bring social security numbers for the student and parents, if the student is a dependent, and the student’s driver’s license number, if applicable.

For more information about FAFSA Day at DCCC, contact Yvette Canty at 336-249-8186, ext. 6389 or email FinAid@DavidsonCCC.edu. Additional information can also be found at www.cfnc.org/fafsaday.