Laker Nation News

The Lake Land College nursing department received continuing accreditation for both the associate degree and practical nursing programs with the next scheduled evaluation visit taking place in Fall 2028.

“Maintaining continued accreditation is an outstanding achievement,” Nursing Instructor/Director of Nursing Programs Cheryl Beam said. “It demonstrates a commitment to quality nursing education.”

Lake Land College received formal notification in April 2021 of this action taken by the Board of Commissioners for the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) at its March 2021 meeting.

ACEN Board members evaluated materials from the accreditation review process and the recommendation for accreditation proposed by the peer evaluators on the site visit team and the Evaluation Review Panel.

Providing specialized accreditation for programs of nursing education, the ACEN supports the interests of nursing education, nursing practice and the public.

The ACEN commended the flexibility, courage and resiliency demonstrated by the college’s nursing program faculty and leaders as well as their institutional colleagues during the global pandemic.

“We are very proud to have earned this continuing accreditation for our nursing programs,” Division Chair of Allied Health/Nursing Instructor Erin Swingler said. “Everyone involved in these programs demonstrates a commitment to excellence and to the values of the college. Our Lake Land College nursing programs have a strong tradition of preparing knowledgeable and skilled nurses to meet the needs of employers and to provide caring, quality healthcare to patients.”

Accreditation is a voluntary, peer-review, self-regulatory process by which non-governmental associations recognize educational institutions or programs that meet or exceed standards and criteria for educational quality.

To learn more about the nursing programs at Lake Land College, visit lakelandcollege.edu/guided-pathways or contact Beam at 217-234-5452 or cbeam@lakelandcollege.edu.

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Motivational speaker and former NFL player Harvie Herrington spoke to members of TRIO Destination College June 2 and 3 at Lake Land College. TRIO Destination College provides academic, career and financial counseling to participants and encourages them to graduate from high school and continue on to complete college.

Herrington offered words of advice to the attendees based on personal experiences from his own life.

“You’ve got time, go find out what you want,” Herrington said. “To achieve success you have to have a dream, goals, education, you’ve got to be willing to work and you can’t be afraid to fail.”

Encouraging the participants to actively work toward their goals, Herrington also urged the attendees to practice self-care when doing so.

“No one knows what you can do, so it’s silly to say you can’t,” Herrington said. “Things happen to people. It’s up to you to change it. Be selfish enough to care about yourself.”

Herrington’s message especially resonated with TRIO DC member Aidan Blackburn, Mattoon, who said it was inspiring to hear what Herrington had to say.

“It was interesting to hear about his background and how he built his life up to be in the NFL,” Blackburn said. “It’s going to stick with me how he told us to just keep working toward our dreams and goals.”

Rylee Elmandorf, Mattoon, echoed Blackburn’s sentiments, saying Herrington’s background and outlook on life really moved her.

“It’s how he’s like ‘I’ve been there, and I don’t want to see anyone else go through that,’“ Elmandorf said. “I want to be that kind of person, the one who will just be there for you.”

Also acknowledging the inspiration in Herrington’s message, Logan Blackburn, Mattoon, said it was good to hear that Herrington was successful after overcoming so many obstacles in his life.

“With all his injuries he kept going and pushing through,” Logan Blackburn said. “I think a big thing he said was to just follow your dreams.”

One of the concepts Herrington discussed was personality types using the DiSC assessment, in which each letter stands for a different set of characteristics common in that category. Herrington shared that understanding which traits were more dominant and which were less, he was able to better interpret his own feelings and mentalities to benefit his lifestyle.

“When he started talking about the ‘I’ type, I said ‘That’s me.’” Lillian Baldwin, Paris, said. “It made me think about that in a new way.”

TRIO Destination College staff members work collaboratively with partner schools, parents, teachers, counselors and community outreach organizations to identify and assist junior high and high school students who meet eligibility criteria and have the potential to succeed in higher education.

Housed at Lake Land College, TRIO Destination College is a grant funded by the United States Department of Education to serve high schools and middle schools in Brownstown, Casey-Westfield, Cowden-Herrick, Mattoon, Pana, Paris, Ramsey and St. Elmo. For more information visit lakelandcollege.edu/triodc.

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Lake Land College will host a court reporting First Steps class on July 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Webb Hall, room 081. The class is a free three-hour introductory course and is open to anyone interested in learning about the court reporting profession.

Attendees will learn about the career opportunities available to court reporters, as well as have the opportunity to gain experience on the industry-standard steno machine.

The class will also allow attendees to ask questions and explore the possibility of pursuing a career in court reporting.

“One-third of our court reporters are already eligible for retirement, which means we will likely have to replace more than 400 employees in the next 10-15 years,” Tammy Bumgarner, the director of court reporting services in Springfield, said.

Those interested in attending the First Steps class are asked to register at ilcrs.com/firststeps.

This class will also help to prepare students for the new Court Reporting Technology Degree special admission program at Lake Land College. The introduction of the program follows the increased high demand for court reporting and closed-captioning professionals throughout the nation.

The program will train students for careers in the judicial setting as either official or freelance court reporters. The program also provides students with the option to attain a captioning specialization, which prepares students for careers providing captioning for broadcast television and internet programs and working with the deaf or hard-of-hearing population by providing an accurate word-for-word text translation in education, civic and corporate settings.

Lake Land College will be hosting a virtual information session for this program September 1. Instructors for the program will be available to answer questions, and all are welcome to attend. To register, visit lakelandcollege.edu/visit/.

Requirements for application to the program include admission to Lake Land College and completion of an interest survey, English and grammar exam and a timed typing exam. Those interested must complete a Laker Profile at lakelandcollege.edu/enroll/ and submit an intent to enroll at Lake Land College indicating the Academic Program (major) as AAS.CRT.TRK. The next cohort of students will begin in Spring 2022.

Interested students may begin the program with a typing speed of 40 words per minute. Keeping up with the pace of regular speech, the program is designed to train students on a specialized 24-key shorthand keyboard used by court reporters and captioners called a steno machine. Rather than typing out each word, letter for letter, as on a traditional keyboard, stenographers spell out syllables phonetically on a steno machine. This form of specialized shorthand allows court reporters and captioners to capture speech with near complete accuracy.

Students will purchase or rent-to-own a steno machine.

Upon graduation, students will be prepared to sit for the Illinois Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR) or the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) Registered Skilled Reporter (RSR) and Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) certification exams.

For more information about the special admission Court Reporting Technology Degree program, contact Lisa Earp, business instructor/director of court reporting/program coordinator office professionals, at learp@lakelandcollege.edu.

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The Lake Land College Center for Business and Industry will be hosting Camp Invention’s 2021 children’s camp program “Recharge!” July 12 through 15 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The program offers children entering grades kindergarten through sixth grade the opportunity to experience innovative and hands-on STEM activities.

In the confidence-building activities, campers will be able to discover sound waves in action via reverse engineering as well as marketing inventions of their own designs as creative entrepreneurs

Throughout the high-energy persistence activities, participants will build and test a launching device to navigate challenges while exploring physics concepts such as trajectory and velocity.

Campers will experiment with circuits and energy in the creativity activities, creating a robotic, solar-powered cricket inspired by biomimicry. The campers will then learn how to utilize empathy and creative problem solving to create customized habitats.

During the problem-solving activities, campers will learn about how to adapt to surroundings by designing and prototyping a nature-inspired morphing vehicle to submerge, soar or sprint in the Super Road Rally.

The cost to attend is $240 per child. For questions or to register, visit invent.org/camp or call 800-968-4332.

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The Lake Land College Board of Trustees awarded the 2021 ICCTA Pacesetter Award to alumna Megan McQueen at the March board of trustees meeting.

McQueen, Laker Nation Class of 2013, is a school counselor in the Eastern Illinois Area of Special Education at the Kansas Treatment and Learning Center. She said she was humbly appreciative of the award, and she now has it proudly displayed in her living room.

“I‘m happy, and I’m grateful,” McQueen said. “It makes me feel really good about myself to know I have made a difference. I don’t do my job for glory, I do it because I know in my heart it’s what I am meant to be doing. They say if you love your job you’ll never have to work a day in your life, and that is very true for me.”

Having now earned a master’s degree in school counseling, McQueen said she began her college journey at Lake Land College with no major in mind and no clear path to accomplishing her goals.

With hard work and determination as well as assistance from TRIO Student Support Services, McQueen worked her way through college, graduating with an associate degree in art and a 3.371 GPA.

As a nontraditional student, McQueen said her path was not always easy, but that attending Lake Land helped guide her toward her goals.

“Community college has so many options for people to explore,” McQueen said. “The level of attention the instructors give to their students and the different ways the college helps people are unmatched. Now I always recommend community college first.”

McQueen continued her education by earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology as well as a master’s degree in school counseling. She even completed an internship at Lake Land College while working toward earning a master’s degree. McQueen said it was during her time at Lake Land that she realized she wanted to pursue her dream of working with troubled children.

“I felt somewhat excluded as a kid,” McQueen said. “I knew I wanted to help others and children in particular.”

McQueen is now doing just that in her position at the Kansas Treatment and Learning Center. Often counseling children during difficult times, McQueen said she is glad she pursued her goal and is able to be in a position to help.

“I love my job,” McQueen said. “Sometimes I get hugs from students I have struggled to connect with all year or get asked to eat lunch with students who had never spoken to me before. It is those moments that make me so happy I can make a difference doing what I love.”

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Lake Land College will begin offering a new special admission Fire Science program in Fall 2021 designed exclusively for current firefighters and volunteers seeking career advancement. Those interested in applying must first receive a recommendation from their fire chief.

The program is approved by the state fire marshal and will assist these professionals in earning Fire Officer 1 and 2 certifications, allowing them to increase their knowledge and skills as well as advance their careers. One key advantage of Lake Land College’s new program is the flexible format.

“They do have programs like this across the state, but most of them are Monday through Friday,” Fire Science Management Adjunct Faculty Member Rob Plummer said. “For volunteers and folks who work during the week it can be hard to do that. They often have to take vacation time or make other schedule changes.”

Plummer, Laker Nation Class of 2000, completed an Officer 2 Certification three years ago, taking traditional Monday through Friday classes. During his time in the class, Plummer said he listened to his classmates’ concerns about the difficulty surrounding the availability of the classes, and that is what inspired him to get involved with the program.

The in-person classes in the program will take place only on the weekend, including Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with a schedule spanning several months to better accommodate the participants’ time frames. The schedule will also have a blended format, with elements of both in-person learning and online work.

“This is an effort to get training to volunteer fire departments and such for the officers’ side of things,” Plummer said. “During the hands-on portion, the program will have members of several different local departments working side by side, and I think it will be really beneficial to the community having so many local departments working together.”

Plummer said the course will cover the Illinois state objectives, as well as “experience and real-world scenarios” targeted toward local settings. Students will even be given the opportunity to train on the equipment in their respective stations, allowing them to gain knowledge and skills specific to their situations.

“This program is a great opportunity to further your education,” Plummer said. “As officers one of our goals should always be to stay up to par with new techniques and ways of doing things. This is another tool in that tool box. It may seem hard to give up those weekends, but this program really has a great value compared to some of the others throughout the state.”

For more information on the Fire Science program, visit lakelandcollege.edu/high-demand-programs/paramedical-services/ or contact Jasmine Ballard at jballard9365@lakelandcollege.edu or 217-234-5370.

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