Jan Scruggs, decorated veteran and the driving force behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony for The Wall That Heals, at 10 a.m. on October 25 on the grounds of Ford Motor Company World Headquarters.

The traveling half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall will be available for viewing by the public around the clock from 10 a.m. on Thursday, October 25 till 8 a.m. on Monday, October 29. It is free.

“The Wall That Heals transcends the Vietnam War to help our great nation renew its relationship with veterans of all wars,” said Scruggs, founder and president of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF). “It helps veterans from all of America’s conflicts to find healing and a powerful connection through their common military experiences.”

Scruggs was a wounded and decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, having served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army.

In 1979, Scruggs conceived the idea to build a tribute to those who served during the Vietnam War.

He launched the effort with $2,800 of his own money, gained support from other veterans, and together persuaded Congress to provide a location on federal government property. The story of that effort is told in the book and movie To Heal a Nation.

Scruggs continues today as president of the VVMF, the nonprofit organization created to build and maintain the Memorial, now in its 30th year.

Scruggs will see the groundbreaking in November for a companion Education Center to be located near the Vietnam memorial.

A big part of bringing awareness of the men and women who were lost in the war is the display of the replica Wall coming to Dearborn.

 Oct. 25 Opening Ceremony in Dearborn

Tributes, including music, will be provided at the October 25 opening ceremony at Ford World Headquarters.

Also offering remarks will Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr. and Mike Bannister, chairman and chief executive officer for Ford Motor Credit Company and executive vice president of Ford. Bannister is an Army veteran and executive champion for the Ford Veterans Network.

The Dearborn Allied War Veterans Council (DAWVC), with new Commander Phil Smith, will lead the service.

Organizers are encouraging representatives from nearby communities to attend and lay a wreath in honor of their residents who never came home from Vietnam.

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Mark your calendars for this Tuesday to learn more about the candidates running for Dearborn School Board.

The League of Women Voters of Dearborn – Dearborn Heights is hosting the forum at Dearborn City Hall in the Council Chambers. The forum begins at 7 p.m. on Oct. 2.

There are three candidates running for two open seats. Incumbents Aimee Blackburn (first elected in 2000 and serving her third term) and Mary Lane (serving her third term) are working to keep their positions, while Mary K. Petlichkoff is throwing her hat back in the race after being defeated in 2011.

The groundbreaking for “The Union at Dearborn” at the University of Michigan-Dearborn is Monday, Sept. 24, 2012.

Construction on a new $44 million student housing project that will serve students attending the University of Michigan-Dearborn officially begins today with a groundbreaking ceremony set for 3 p.m. at the future site.

The groundbreaking for what will officially be called “The Union at Dearborn” will be held at 760 Town Center Drive, directly across from UM-Dearborn’s central campus entrance on Evergreen Road.

Those expected to speak at today’s event include:

• Larry Winokur, managing partner, Urban Campus Communities. UCC is a developer of student housing and responsible for Wayne State University’s Union at Midtown.
• Daniel Little, chancellor, University of Michigan-­Dearborn
• Donna Inch, chairman and CEO, Ford Land
• John B. O’Reilly, Jr., mayor, City of Dearborn

Officials had hoped to begin construction a year ago and open this past August but financing challenges delayed the project. The new campus housing project now is expected to open in August 2013.

The student housing project calls for 521 beds by using two existing buildings and three other structures. The first existing building will be renovated into a student union – The Union at Dearborn – with eight student apartments. The second existing building will be modified for additional student apartments. The primary apartments will consist of three attached buildings.

Earlier plans indicated that leases for the apartments would be eight months, with the buildings closed for the summer semester. But that could change if interest in summer classes at UM-Dearborn increases.

There are also plans for a sand volleyball court, exercise facility, meeting rooms and a theater.

To connect the apartments to the UM-Dearborn campus, a walkway will eventually be constructed over Evergreen Road. In the interim, a stoplight will be installed so students can cross.

While UCC did secure the majority of the funding for the estimated $44 million project, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority did approve the project for a $2.34 million tax credit because it could bring “$7 million in new investments and up to 20 permanent full-time jobs.”

Hundreds of talented Dearborn students, ranging from kindergarten to high school, will perform, display, and demonstrate their arts during the 2012 Youth in Arts Festival and opening of the 2012 Dearborn Public Schools City Wide Art Show.

This free event is open to the public and will take place on Wednesday, April 25, from 4 to 8:30 pm, at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave., in Dearborn. The annual event is a cooperative project by the Dearborn Community Fund (DCF) and the Dearborn Public Schools. Honorary chairs for the evening are Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., DCF Chair Karen Nigosian, and Dearborn Public Schools Superintendent Brian Whiston.

Those attending the Youth in Arts Festival will enjoy the artwork of students participating in the all-school City Wide Art Show exhibit in the Padzieski Art Gallery. The Art Show runs from April 25 through May 28, 2012.

Two and three dimensional art will not be the only evidence of artistic ability on display. The Elementary Honors Choir, directed by Jim Walters, the Secondary Honors Choir, directed by Jennifer Pegouske, and the Dearborn High School Choir, directed by Carmelle Atkins will provide guests with outstanding vocal entertainment. In addition, the Henry Ford Community College Blue Fusion Vocal Jazz Ensemble under the direction of G. Kevin Dewey will take part in the evening’s showcase of local talent.

Rounding out this celebration of the arts will be instrumental performances by the Fordson Jazz Band conducted by Scott Guthre, the Edsel Ford High School Chamber Group conducted by Mike Kalasz, and the Maples Music Ensemble conducted by Catherine Odam-Prowse. Dearborn Youth Symphony ensemble will also perform in the theater lobby.

As a special treat, Dearborn High School Theater students will add a dramatic element to the program under the direction of Greg Viscomi, the 2011 winner of the Mayor’s Arts Award.

In this rendering, all three buildings for University of Michigan-Dearborn student housing can be seen.

Construction is set to begin this June on a new student housing project that will serve students attending the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

However, the plan to actually open the housing project has been delayed a year and now will not open until August 2013. The campus housing project was originally set to open in August of this year. See earlier story HERE.

“It is going to take a little longer because of financing (challenges),” said Ed Bagale, Vice Chancellor for government relations at the UM-Dearborn.

The good news is that the project is moving forward very quickly. The plan now calls for 521 beds by using two existing buildings and three other structures. The first existing building will be renovated into a student union with eight student apartments. The second existing building will be modified for additional student apartments. The primary apartments will consist of three attached buildings.

To connect the apartments to the UM-Dearborn campus, a walkway will eventually be constructed over Evergreen Road. In the interim, a stoplight will be installed so students can cross.

One of the more interesting options to students who move to this new campus will be the availability of a nutritionist. Bagale tells Deepsaidwhat.com that when students move to UM-Dearborn the focus will be on their health. One of the first people students will meet with is a nutritionist who will map out a plan for healthy eating and living for the rest of their lives.

“It won’t just be a cool place to live,” Bagale said. “It will be place to improve the lives of students,  body, mind and spirit.”

After years of study and debate, Dearborn schools will launch a trial this fall allowing 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-graders to start the school day an hour later if they choose, at 8:25 a.m. rather than 7:20. It’s one of the first school districts in Metro Detroit to take such an approach.

The change for upperclassmen could improve attendance and boost grades. Classes now get out at 2:15 p.m.; under the new trial, students would get out at 3:20.

The new flexible start time was approved by the school board in late February. It was proposed by a group of parents who said research shows teens are biologically programmed to go to bed later and wake up later.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.  Proponents of the trial plan still say it doesn’t go far enough because it’s optional. Not all parents in the district wanted the change.

In an article today in The Detroit News, Dearborn parent Ernest Oz, who was on a committee that studied start times, told the paper that children need sleep for safety, health and academic reasons. He said the flexible start trial “is not what it should be, but it’s a start.”

The new start time will be tested for one year before it is assessed. Freshmen aren’t eligible, nor are students behind on credits. Students will have to provide their own transportation.

Another parent, Helena Thornton, told The News that the trial is “a poor excuse of a plan.” She said the committee proposed several more ambitious options the district could have pursued, such as flip-flopping the middle school start time with the high schools, meaning younger students would start earlier.

“The trouble in Dearborn is politics,”  said Thornton, an industrial engineer who has a son, 17, who graduates this spring, and a daughter, 13. “Nobody wants to rock the boat.”

About 10 teachers at each high school have volunteered to start later and work later, though scheduling will need to be ironed out.

Henry Ford Community College will officially open its new Welcome Center in April.

Henry Ford Community College will open a new welcome and enrollment center for incoming students next month in a renovated building purchased from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers organization.

New signage on the building was recently installed and renovations to the interior of the building are nearly complete.

HFCC purchased the building from SME back in 2008. SME consolidated its business operations into one building on the 10-acre parcel of property at Ford Road and Evergreen, which is also owned by HFCC and located just behind the new community college welcome center. SME rents back about two-thirds of the building space from the college.

HFCC has been enjoying record enrollment thanks to the changing economy. Enrollment this fall was just over 18,000 students, up from 13,700 in 2006.

Parents living in the Dearborn Public School district interested in enrolling their child in the Montessori program at Howe School can now pick up application forms.

The forms can be obtained from the Student Services Office in the Administrative Service Center or can be downloaded from the Student Services section of the district website HERE.

Howe School is located at 18000 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn 48124, and the Administrative Service Center is located at 18700 Audette, Dearborn 48124. Registration will continue through the end of the day on April 2, 2012.

An admissions meeting will be held on April 16, 2012, in the Board Room at the Administrative Service Center to identify which applicants will be enrolled for the 2012-13 school year. Interested parents can contact the Student Services office at 827-3005 for additional information or questions.

Parents have been selecting the free Montessori program in Dearborn since the mid 1990s. The program serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade and is one of many programs that are part of the elementary experience in Dearborn Public Schools. District-wide all day kindergarten, foreign language, music, art, a curriculum aligned with state benchmarks and standards, and full implementation of the Daily 5 and CAFÉ reading framework are all part of the elementary education offered to students attending Dearborn schools.

Almost 20 years ago the Dearborn Public Schools began offering senior citizens free admission to school events and other special discounts via the Golden Ager card. The district is pleased to announce a new commitment to this program with new offerings and a new name.

On Feb. 14 (Valentines Day), Dearborn Public Schools residents over the age of 60 can stop in to any Dearborn Public School or the Administration Building to pick up the new Premier Citizen Discount Card. There will be free cookies for anyone stopping by to pick up a card and as a special bonus the first person to visit a school on the 14th to pick up a card will receive a Target gift card.

“We are proud that many residents in the over 60 crowd are alumni and we welcome them back to enjoy the events and activities that occur in our schools,” said Dearborn Public Schools Supt. Brian Whiston.

The Premier Citizen Discount Card is free and offers all the same great discounts as the Golden Ager card but with a new look and a new offer on school merchandise:

• Free admission to all school-sponsored activities* including concerts and athletic events. (*Due to fees charged to schools for licensing of performance rights, plays are not included.)

• Discounts on select Community Education classes.

• 10% discount on merchandise sold at school stores. (limit 4 items per year)

• Participation in school lunch programs at reduced prices. Reduced price is 10% discount on the total purchase. (must contact school in advance to participate)

“Our students have plenty to offer and community members will be proud of the accomplishments of the young people in their neighborhood. We hope that everyone over the age of 60 will pick up a Premier Citizen Discount Card and take advantage of the free admission and discounts,” Whiston said.

Morris Goodman, a Dearborn attorney, past president of the Dearborn Democratic Club, a longtime political activist and observer and regular reader of Deepsaidwhat.com now adds “education snob” to his list.

Goodman says education issues should take center stage in the 2012 Presidential election.

“ . . . it is mind boggling to realize that just at the time that the nation is coming to grips with the importance of an educated workforce in a global economy, we are cutting funding at the national, state, and local levels for publicly supported K-12 and higher education. This is even more pronounced in Michigan,” Goodman says.

“ Teacher salaries and benefits are going down and class sizes are going up. Moreover, public university tuition for those who want to teach is going up and aid to these students is going down. Also, the interest on federally insured student loans is now immediately payable, rather being deferred for some time as previously was the case, and these loans must be paid back sooner. Let’s see, our prospective teachers have to pay more to earn less. Hmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?”

His column begins below:

Morris Goodman

I am an education snob. Among my wife two sons, daughter-in-law, and me, there are 5 Masters degrees and one law degree (yup, that’s mine). It turns out that this snobbishness is also an important employment indicator. While this is not a surprising fact, the extent of the advantage a good education provides is. Presently there are radio ads for a local college touting the fact that a person with a college degree will earn on average $1.3 million over a lifetime more than someone with only a high school degree. Quite a difference.

At the beginning of December the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the United States added 120,000 new jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6%, the lowest since March 2009. In the mass of data released at the same time by the BLS, several facts leaped out at me. First of all, the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 4.4% and for those with only a high school degree the rate was 8.8% – precisely double. For those with no high school degree the rate was 13.2% or three times the rate for those with a college degree.

We all know that most new jobs being created in the U S today, even at the entry level, require more than a high school education. The auto industry used to employ just about anyone who could read and was willing to work. Recent articles about auto manufacturing jobs stress that almost all positions on the car assembly line or at parts plants require workers who have fairly sophisticated computer skills to operate the all pervasive robotic machines.

In our economic recovery, both nationally and particularly in Michigan, everything points to added employment in the next few years in auto related work. So clearly we, as a nation and state, need to put resources into preparing our student population for those kinds of jobs. Thus, it is mind boggling to realize that just at the time that the nation is coming to grips with the importance of an educated workforce in a global economy, we are cutting funding at the national, state, and local levels for publicly supported K-12 and higher education. This is even more pronounced in Michigan.

Teacher salaries and benefits are going down and class sizes are going up. Moreover, public university tuition for those who want to teach is going up and aid to these students is going down. Also, the interest on federally insured student loans is now immediately payable, rather being deferred for some time as previously was the case, and these loans must be paid back sooner. Let’s see, our prospective teachers have to pay more to earn less. Hmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?

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