New president named at Haywood Community College

After more than six months spent searching, the Haywood Community College Board of Trustees announced on Sept. 19 that it had identified a successor to retiring President Dr. Barbara Parker. Parker will leave the school in December after six years, but not before spending her remaining days working with the school’s next president, Dr. Shelley White. 

Schooled in ag: School gives students a hands-on education

With a new school year just begun, the 300 students who participate in Waynesville Middle School’s robust agriculture program now have an array of new woodshop equipment at their disposal. 

“In two weeks this will be like Santa’s little helper’s woodshop,” Noal Castater, agriculture teacher at WMS since 2010, said in an interview the Friday before the first day of school. 

Leading Catamount Nation: WCU’s new chancellor discusses her path to Cullowhee and vision for the university

Western Carolina University’s newest chancellor is fairly certain that, of the teachers and students she knew years ago while pursuing her undergraduate degree, none would have guessed that she’d one day end up leading a thriving campus of 11,000 students. 

Teachers just don’t get enough credit

Summer is ending and schools are opening. It’s the time year when I remember the teachers.

These days, teachers are too often scapegoats for the shortcomings of parents, politicians and society at large. Truth be told, what they do each day in the classroom changes lives and changes the world. 

Macon County raises taxes to fund public education

The property tax rate in Macon County will be increasing by half a cent after commissioners approved a 2019-20 budget that puts additional funding toward public education. 

2005: State passes education lottery system

Nearly 15 years after the North Carolina General Assembly narrowly passed a bill establishing an education lottery system, state legislators and local school districts are still arguing over how the revenue should be spent. 

WCU’s ‘Lead the Way’ fundraising campaign total surpasses $60 million goal

More than 12,000 donors contributed over a five-year period to raise over $60 million for scholarships at Western Carolina University.

NC educators will march again in Raleigh

Last May, more than 25,000 educators across the state took to the streets of Raleigh to march for additional public education funding, and they plan to do it again this May. 

Haywood Community College wants a new building

Despite proposed increases in nearly every major budget category, Haywood Community College is proposing a substantial new facility that could be hard to fund — and even harder not to fund. 

Smokies ranger earns national award

A National Park Service ranger who has focused on the scientific and educational significance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 20 years earned national praise in this year’s Public Lands Alliance awards ceremony, held Feb. 27 in Denver, Colorado.

Susan Sachs, education branch chief for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, received the 2019 PLA Agency Leadership Award for cultivating and leading partnerships, the result of a nomination from the Great Smoky Mountains Association.

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