A 21-year-old Kirkwood Community College student, Chris VanSpeybroeck, of Colona, Ill., died Monday at St. Luke's Hospital "due to complication of bacterial meningitis," according to Michael Van Hoe, of the Van Hoe Funeral Home Ltd. in East Moline, Ill. According to the online obituary VanSpeybroeck was attending Kirkwood pursuing his Associate of Science degree in fire science.
Kirkwood Community College is teaming up with Linn County Public Health to hold an H1N1 vaccination clinic for people at a high risk of infection. The clinic will be on Dec. 1 and Dec. 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Iowa Hall Room 125. Clinic availability will be by appointment only.
Students aren't the only ones who will benefit from The Hotel at Kirkwood Center when it opens on July 1, 2010. According to Lee Belfield, the hotel's general manager, the teaching hotel will provide students with a learning experience and also create 75 employment opportunities for the community.
The National Disaster Life Support Foundation has approved the new Kirkwood Healthcare Simulation Center as an advanced training center, allowing Kirkwood Community College to offer basic and advanced disaster life support courses to health care providers.
Volunteers are sometimes hard to find, especially when they are in such a high demand. Kirkwood Community College's Student Senate is doing its part by encouraging students to become more active in volunteering. It has started a program that will help match volunteers with those in need.
Deciding to transfer to another college is a very important decision. Since Kirkwood Community College is a two-year school, many students intend to transfer to a four-year school. For them, planning is key. Having your application and transcript sent in on time assures students the earliest chance for orientation and housing, which are the two biggest concerns for students who are moving on, according to Laura Riley, Kirkwood coordinator of the Advising and Transfer Center.
Education is learning from new experiences, said Dawn Wood, International Programs director at Kirkwood Community College. And new experiences are what Kirkwood's Study Abroad programs are all about. There are 14 to choose from, studying for up to a semester in locations like Denmark, Italy, Singapore and Japan.
Spring semester starts Jan. 11, 2010 but students shouldn't hesitate to begin the process of registration. Laura Riley, coordinator of the Advising and Transfer Center on Kirkwood's main campus, said students who wait to sign up for classes at the last minute don't always get the classes they want when they want them.
Nursing students from Kirkwood Community College gave the community a few hours of their time Nov. 6 when they helped Linn County Public Health at the H1N1 flu clinic at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids. "We told the students they could help at the clinic instead of having a clinical day.
What more can you do? That question was posed at a meeting last fall in the wake of the worst flood/natural disaster in Iowa's recorded history. Lucky for Cedar Rapids that Robby Marvin, a 25-year-old AEGON USA employee, was at that meeting and was inspired to do more.