Community, College, and Business Committee

Guest speaker bureau

communities — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:29:37 +0000

The Business committee is building a speaker’s bureau for Westlake, including college educators, business professionals, and other speakers. The purpose is for students to be able to hear from the community outside the campus. If you would like to be a part of this, please contact the campus or post a response here.

We will also be implementing “power lunches” which will be a series of lunch speakers for students and staff.

Request for help

communities — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 02:22:28 +0000

I am reposting Landon’s comment from a previous post so that it will get the maximum attention here:

Landon said,

on March 7th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

Hello Friends,

The Research Subcommittee met yesterday, March 6, and agreed that we should pursue a process of expanding our research in our community. You all may know that I interviewed 17 successful persons about their ideas on skills that associate with success in today’s economy, with a view to perhaps evolving a Vision Statement that would include empowering our students with the skills they need to succeed at life. We would like to extend this process to include more persons. We could begin with small groups of 3 or 4 persons meeting at Starbucks or some similar location, move up to groups of 6 or 8 meeting in the board room of a bank, and then possibly groups of 10-15 meeting at Westbank Library, or some similar location. We would like to coordinate with you all, and I was commissioned to contact you, but I don’t actually know any names of persons on your subcommittee, so this blog seemed like a good place to start. Please contact me, either by return blog, or by phone (263-5368 or by email (lshultz@austin.rr.com) and we can plan together about how we can productively involve some more folks from our community in our conversations about a new vision for Westlake High School.

A course on true wisdom

communities — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 03:58:04 +0000

As for ideas, I wish schools would teach a one-year-long or at least semester-long class on Basic Wisdom Principles for Life. Emphasis could be on actions and consequences. For example:

ACTION CONSEQUENCE

Saving and investing diligently More freedom; ability to help others

Studying/applying oneself Better job; more choices in life

Being nice/courteous More friends; more success in job

Planning for future Better able to weather storm

Exercise/taking care of self Better health

The US school system does a good job of imparting KNOWLEDGE. I just wish that there were at least one class that introduced true WISDOM.

Porter Briggs

Honduras

The importance of learning to serve others

communities — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:26:35 +0000

From: LTC Scott Malcom, 33rd Commander, American Forces Network Europe

I would encourage your group to seek out service-oriented business and community contacts, and those colleges / institutions that are willing and able to support future students who are seeking to begin their post-education period in a service-oriented vocation. Of course I would put service to the nation at the top of the list. I think that serving in the nations military, your state’s government or your local law-enforcement are all good ways to gain experience, serve others and establish a perspective that is 180 out from the me-first generation we’re cranking out at present. Ever wonder why China, Japan and India are grabbing more and more of global commerce and credibility? It’s because of their perspective; one that is born from compulsory service early in their professional lives. I know it’s dangerous to send your children into some of these areas, but protecting the greatness of the nation is a noble calling, indeed. Our nation, in my opinion, is no longer hungry. Instead, we’re fat, dumb, happy and self-centered—all variables in the equation of doom. It takes commitment. One example of this commitment is that 75% of the General Officers in the U.S. Army have children serving in the military and deployed in harms way. These are people that know the dangers, but also know the value of serving and the value of sacrifice and commitment. They have weighed the options with their children and accepted the risk; it’s simply worth it to them.

Welcome

communities — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:05:40 +0000

This is our Community, Business, and College Blog. Some fresh content will be coming soon.