Wylie ISD considers construction choice

The administration of the Wylie Independent School District will recommend the selection of Dallas-based W.B. Kibler Construction Company to build a new building for the fifth and sixth grades.

The district’s board will consider the hiring of a construction manager for the proposed building at its regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at the WISD administration building, 6249 Buffalo Gap Road.

Superintendent Joey Light has said the building of about 65,000 square feet on land west of the current junior high school building will include 30 classrooms and cost about $7 million.

According to the company’s website, construction of buildings for educational institutions is one of its specialties.

Current projects, according to the website, include buildings for schools in Robert Lee and Haskell and a church in Sweetwater.

Last month WISD officials advertised for bids for the new building and interviewed representatives from five contractors before the preliminary selection of W.B. Kibler.

Also on the agenda for today’s meeting are the superintendent’s contract, school calendar for 2012-13, transportation report, and board workshop next month.

Light’s current contract expires June 30, 2014, and it could be extended after an executive session during today’s meeting.

Blockbuster Vs. Family Video: Which Video Rental Store is Best?

Blockbuster Vs. Family Video: Which Video Rental Store is Best? Family Video now competes against Blockbuster in many markets. The best rental store depends on your likes and needs.

With the closing of Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, and many smaller independent stores, not many video rental shops still exist. In many markets, the only competition for Blockbuster is Family Video. The two stores share some similarities, but are quite different. The right rental store for your family might depend on exactly what each store offers.

Both Blockbuster and Family Video have similar prices in terms of movies. In Dayton, Blockbuster charges $2.99 for new releases, including releases yet to make it to the vault. The vault is the area reserved for older films. Movies in the vault area rent for $.99. Blockbuster offers some specials. For example, during Halloween, my local store rented horror movies for $.49-.99 on different days of the week.

Family Video rents new releases for $2.49. The company drops the prices, as the movie sits in the store. The Nearly New section is for movies that are still relatively new and the films rent for $1. The older releases rent $.50 or two movies for one dollar. The store also has some free rentals for children and free educational rentals.

The downside to Family Video is that the store has a special section for Prequels and Sequels. The movies on this shelf rent for higher than the other movies, but less than new releases. The odd thing in my local store is that the section has some surprising choices. Paranormal Activity sits in this section, while Paranormal Activity is “nearly new”. The Step Up movies are reserved for the older section.

In terms of renting TV shows, Family Video comes out ahead of Blockbuster. Blockbuster rents TV shows by the disc, charging $.99 for each disc. If you want to catch up on your show one disc at a time, this might work for you. Family Video also charges $1 per disc, but if the show runs for three discs or more, the store only charges $3 for the entire rental. I caught up on Fringe, Mad Men, Supernatural, and other shows, while discovering new TV shows just from that section.

When it comes to rental length, Family Video also wins. Blockbuster claims in store-wide advertising that customers wanted cheaper rental prices, so it dropped the prices. It also reduced the rental length. I was surprised when I rented four older movies a few months ago and discovered that all four were due by closing time the next day.

Family Video limits new releases to one day rentals, but also gives you the option of renting for five days for an additional fee. The older movies rent for a five-day period. Imagine renting two movies for $1 plus tax and getting to keep those movies for almost a week.

• Free and Low Cost Movie DVD Online Rentals
• Bankruptcy in the Future for Blockbuster
• How to Watch Movies Online

Blockbuster rents video games by the night, unless you have a Pass. I frequently rented games in the past because the store charged $15 for two games for five nights each. The new system charges $1.99 for both old and new games. You only get the game for one night and must pay $1.99 if you do not return the game by closing.

Family Video rents video games for around $2 per game for a one-night rental, but you also have the option of a five-night rental. A five-night video game rental costs a little under $6. Many of the older games have a rent one-get one special, where you pay one price for two games.

If you are still renting from Blockbuster, take a look at some of the incentives offered for new members by Family Video. The store offers half-price rentals for the first month after signing up. The store also gives you coupons for use, after your first month. Family Video does not automatically charge your card for late fees, but adds it to your account.

While it might seem that I fully support Family Video, I am not happy with one policy. If you are a new member, you cannot rent newer video games unless you pay a deposit. According to my local store, the policy ensures that people do not take video games by charging a $20 fee upfront. Blockbuster lets you rent games and if you do not bring one back, the company charges your credit card.

Family Video requires that you spend $150 in the store before it lifts the restriction. As a member for the last three weeks, I am nowhere close to that threshold. I have yet to spend more than $10 in the store, even when I rented a video game, two TV shows, and several movies.

The bottom line is that Family Video is a better buy. If you have one in your area, stop by and sign up for an account. You must have a photo ID and two phone numbers attached to the account, but the store does not require a credit card.

Finding a Job After Graduating from Everest

If you’re planning to enroll at Everest, we’ll help you prepare for the workforce while in school and after you graduate from your program.

Your training is industry-specific. This means you receive the kind of training that many employers seek when hiring entry-level positions in your field. Your training is also hands-on, which means you can get valuable hands-on experience with equipment you may find on the job.

At Everest, we can increase your chances of finding a job by:

• Helping you write an effective resumé and cover letter
• Helping you develop strong interviewing techniques
• Helping you find job leads
• Helping you search industry websites that employers use to hire people with your skills and training
• Providing networking tips
• And more

While no one can promise how another person’s job-search efforts will turn out, the right kind of training combined with the right kind of job-search efforts can often produce favorable results.

Looking to enroll? Contact Everest today and ask about our programs, training and if there’s a campus located near you.

Productive Teams Built on Relationships, Not Just Skills

You can have all the best parts of a car but if you just throw the pieces together, you aren’t going to create an automobile. You need to fit the pieces together properly to create a working car.

And the same is true for certain types of work groups, too, according to Reuben McDaniel, professor of information management, and Luci Leykum, associate dean for clinical affairs in the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Hospital care teams with lower relationship rates had higher complication rates, and one team had a patient die from an unrecognized infection.McDaniel and Leykum presented their research on high knowledge temporary teams–teams of highly trained and educated people working together for a short time period–in a talk titled “Care Teams in Hospitals- How Making Sense and Improvising Can Keep You Alive.” The Nov. 8, 2011 talk was part of the Undergraduate Business Council’s Faculty Research Presentation Series.

Traditionally, in the business world, high knowledge temporary teams are thought of as entities that should run like machines in which each team member should know their role and do their job. However, McDaniel and Leykum did not think this was the best way to look at these teams, so they followed a group of hospital care teams, a good example of high knowledge temporary teams, in order to understand the association between team relationships and outcomes.

The pair’s hypothesis was that these teams are more than a collection of skill sets of the individuals and that there is something about the relationships within the teams that has a large effect on their outcome.

In order to research this hypothesis, McDaniel and Leykum attributed behaviors to different aspects of relationships, to be able to measure and monitor them within the group. For example, in order to see the level of trust between the group members, Leykum and McDaniel looked at how often the members portrayed themselves as vulnerable to each other.  Seeing an attending physician say “I don’t know” was very powerful because they are admitting to their team that there is something within their profession that they don’t understand. 

McDaniel and Leykum found that relationship qualities characterize how well a group works together, as well as how productive their outcome is. 

They discovered that hospital care teams with lower relationship rates had higher complication rates, and one team had a patient die from an unrecognized infection.

They also discovered that teams with similar skill sets vary greatly in terms of relationships, and that we need to pay attention to team level behaviors through reflection and conversation. It is important that team members take the opportunity to talk with each other so that each member becomes aware of how their actions affect the others, they said. Also, it is important to talk in general, not just during shift changes or about how the patients are doing.

The pair also found that teams need to eliminate role definition and instead create an entity where everybody is responsible for everything so that nothing falls through the cracks. While this can create redundancy, that redundancy brings vigilance. If everything is everyone’s responsibility, then everyone is paying attention to every detail.

It is important for team members to realize that there are multiple people involved in the care of a patient, or the outcome of a project. If team members don’t have a relationship that allows them to talk to each other, no one will recognize when something is going wrong. 

2011; the year that was …

2011 was an eventful year for the MBA world. There were new trends and the revival of old ones, with major B-schools making changes along the way. Business schools had to face the brunt of recession that brought down MBA applications to most full-time programs. Students and schools had to deal with higher tuition costs and reductions in state aid (especially in the U.S.). Full-time MBA programs of two-year duration were worst hit with two-thirds of them reporting a fall in the number of applications for 2011, according to a survey published by Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). The trend was observed at many top MBA programs in the U.S. including those in Harvard and Chicago Booth.

2011 also saw MBA graduates taking up unconventional career choices. A large proportion of the MBA students opted for start-ups, jobs in the non-profit sector, government agencies and social enterprise. The economy played a major role in establishing this new trend. The international B-school arena experienced change as well. Several schools noticed an increase in MBA applications from foreign applicants, especially from China. With east Asians preferring the U.S. for their business education, the Europeans chose B-schools closer to their homeland.

Along with these trends, 2011 saw some major events in the MBA arena which showed the world that business education is as global as other fields and social media savvy too.

January 2011

• INSEAD becomes the latest business school to put material on iTunes U, Apple’s dedicated education podcast channel. The school joins leading institutions including Harvard and Wharton in this endeavour
• MIT Sloan School of management announces that it will tie up with Turkey’s Sabanci University for the exchange of students and faculty

February 2011

• Following Wharton’s footsteps, University of California, Berkeley says it will give future MBAs two free days on one of the school’s executive education programs

March 2011

• Vanderbilt University announces its launch of an Americas MBA, jointly offered with Brazil’s FIA Business School, ITAM in Mexico and Simon Fraser University in California

April 2011

• Belgium’s Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School launches an English language executive MBA program in Moscow

May 2011

• GMAC launches an iPod app which includes sample questions and explanations of answers

June 2011

• A group of students from George Washington University Business School say they will fly to South Africa for the football world cup – not to watch matches – but to study the tournament’s social and economic effects first hand

• Glasgow Caledonian University announce the launch of a one-year MBA program in luxury brand marketing – the first of its kind in the UK

July 2011

• The George Washington University B-school announces a new executive MBA program called the Star MBA, designed for individuals with strong personal brands such as athletes and musicians

September 2011

• Wharton’s MBA Class of 2011 shows impressive gains in job placement. As of the end of the month, 96 percent of students from the most recent graduating class had 86 percent offers as opposed to only 86 percent at the same time in 2010

October 2011

• Cuba opens its first MBA program which is an initiative of the Roman Catholic Church

November 2011

·         When the biennial executive MBA ranking was released by Financial Times this month, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management wasn’t at the top for the first time since the ranking’s inception in 1992

      About the author: Sue is a freelance writer based in India and writes regularly for Gurome.

Three to vie for Edison State interim

Edison State Colleges three candidates for interim school president wont have a chance to get the job permanently.

Former state Rep. Dudley Goodlette, former Brevard Community College President Mike Kaliszeski and former Miami Dade College Provost Kathie Sigler wont be considered for the full-time position to permanently replace President Kenneth Walker, Edison board Chairwoman Ann Berlam said Wednesday.

Randy Hanna, chancellor of the Division of Florida Colleges, recommended the three candidates to the board.

Edison trustees, who will discuss the three candidates Friday, want to have an interim president in place by end of January so the college can start a search for a full-time president. The board, which learned longtime trustee and Walker supporter Washington Baquero resigned for undisclosed reasons Wednesday, hopes to hire a president by next fall.

The intention of the board and the three individuals I talked to is they are interested in serving in an interim capacity while we do a search, said Berlam, who interviewed the three candidates and will report her findings to the board Friday.

Edison started searching for an interim president Nov. 29 when trustees placed Walker on leave pending an investigation into whether he can be terminated with cause.

Relations between Walker and faculty turned icy this year as he, under direction of trustees, proposed a 2 percent pay increase for professors. He also recommended firings of two administrators and did not immediately disclose concerns about staff issuing hundreds of improper course substitutions to students and did not notify trustees Edison’s baccalaureate nursing program wasn’t nationally accredited.

Charlotte Campus President Patricia Land is now acting as district president. With decades of work in higher education and public service, Berlam said all three candidates are qualified for the interim position.

The candidates also fill another board suggestion: They are all Edison outsiders.

I think the board wanted someone who has the experience but who did not necessarily have specific ties to the college, Berlam said. Were looking for a fresh face.

Goodlette, a Naples native who served in the Florida House from 1998 to 2006, said Wednesday he could be that fresh face. Goodlette, 63, served on FGCUs presidential search committee in 2008 and on Hodges Universitys board of directors from 2007 to 2009.

I dont know how the interim role will be defined, said Goodlette, who doesnt plan on attending Fridays meeting. If that role is defined in a way that I think I could add value, Id be interested in becoming interim president.

Goodlette, who does private consultant work, is not interested in the full-time presidency.

Sigler, 67, and Kaliszeski, 61, offer boatloads of higher-education experience. Sigler held positions at Miami Dade College for 37 years. She was president of the campus from 2007 to April 2008, when she retired.

I dont think it would be appropriate to comment, Sigler said Wednesday. I think the board should ask their questions first.

Kaliszeski, meanwhile, held various positions for 31 years at Brevard Community College in Cocoa. He served as president of Brevards Melbourne campus from 1999 to 2008. Kaliszeski didnt return a message Wednesday.

Baquero will be one trustee who wont be studying Kaliszeskis resume. Baquero, a Fort Myers-based family practitioner, resigned after 15 years as a trustee.

(Baqueros) dedication to the mission of the college is exemplary, and he will be missed, Land said in a statement.