Glanzer reappointed for three more years as Tabor president

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 27 November 2012 14:27

Glanzer

Jules Glanzer has received a new three-year appointment as president of Tabor College following an evaluation conducted under the direction of the Tabor College Board of Directors.

Glanzer became Tabor’s 13th president in 2008 after serving as dean of George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland, Ore.

Under his leadership, Tabor has set enrollment records for each of the past five years and met the annual Tabor Fund goal of $1 million for two consecutive years.

“The evaluation process has been very encouraging,” said Lyndon Vix, board chairman. “Dr. Glanzer received positive comments from all areas of the Tabor constituency, and it is clear that his leadership has been instrumental in the college’s recent growth and financial stability.”

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Hillsboro council approves ‘Youth Adventure’ concept

Written by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 27 November 2012 14:26

Sixth- and seventh-graders at Hillsboro Middle School may have an opportunity to participate in a local “adventure” this summer.

The Hillsboro City Council gave initial approval at its Nov. 20 meeting to proceed with the creation of Hillsboro Youth Adventure, a program that intends to use fun and food to teach students entering the seventh and eighth grades about the inner workings of their community.

The intent of the program, according to the three-person organizing committee, is to send an early message that Hillsboro will have a place for them when the students are ready to choose a place to live and work.

“We really want to be intentional in targeting our young families and developing an entrepreneurial mindset,” said Clint Seibel, Hillsboro’s economic development director and a member of the organizing committee.

“That begins with junior high and high school students,” he said. “That’s where you begin to plant a seed for our town and provide career opportunities and awareness. We’d like to do that specifically through our local city government.”

Based on Great Bend

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Grateful for ‘normal’ days

Written by Patty Decker Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:48

Six-year-old Lindsey Richert smiles as she waits in pre-op for surgery to remove her kidney. She has been in kidney failure since she was 6 weeks old. Parents Pete and Krista Richert anticipate a kidney transplant for her in the future.

Thanksgiving means different things to different families. But for Pete and Krista Richert of Hillsboro, seeing their daughter enjoy the holiday like most other children this year is reason for gratitude and celebration.

Their daughter, Lindsey, now 6, has been in kidney failure since she was 6 weeks old. About a year ago, her condition worsened.

“Lindsey’s kidney doctor said her labs were getting progressively worse, and last year around Christmastime is when her doctor said we needed to step up with dialysis or decide not to do treatment,” Krista said.

“But no treatment was not an option.”

Four surgeries later, their daughter is stable, for now, and looking forward to a traditional holiday with family.

“We have family coming here and we are going to see family,” Krista said. “(Pete and I) are so thankful that Lindsey can maybe have a normal Thanksgiving and Christmas with nothing in her stomach and not having to see any doctors.

“We are so ready for a normal time and are very grateful (this remission) came now. We were all so stressed and at our limit, but are ready to enjoy holidays, enjoy family and friends, and hopefully after the new year then take it day-by-day.”

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Local educators enlist digital tool to battle digital plagiarism

Written by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:47

Frank Johnson, vice president for academic affairs at Tabor College, has introduced the use of Turnitin.com as a tool to support academic integrity among students. The online program is in use at Hillsboro High School as well.

In these day, when writing a research paper is as easy as a Google search followed by a few cut-and-paste commands, local educators are turning to an Internet tool to help monitor the academic integrity of their students and improve their writing.

With a database of more than 20 billion Web pages, 220 million student papers and millions of articles, the sophisticated algorithms harnessed by Turnitin.com can indicate the percentage of “original work” in a student paper in mere seconds.

“You upload (the student project), it digitally reads it and then produces what it calls an origirnality report,” said Frank Johnson, vice president of academic affairs at Tabor College. “It will show with color coding exactly what in the parameters of the algorithms the similarities were of the paper and the source.”

Johnson became acquainted with the program several years ago as a classroom professor at a previous institution.

This is the first year the program is being used at Tabor. At Hillsboro High School, a few instructors have been using it to varying degrees the past five years.

“I use it for all of my English classes on essays and research papers,” said Darrel Knoll, an English instructor at HHS. “It helps me by identifying papers that have a high tendency toward plagiarized materials, which then allows me to do more investigation.”

Bob Woelk, another HHS English instructor, said he doesn’t use the program as much as he could—even though he largely was responsible for bringing it to the USD 410.

“I looked at it and thought it might be something that would help us because in the past we’d just have to go on a gut instinct: ‘This doesn’t feel right, it’s not really how a student should write,’” he said.

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