Bergen Community College Tution rate OCC Still there,

Bergen Community College Tution rate OCC Still there :With Ocean County College leaders resisting a tuition hike in their recent restructuring plan to bridge a $1.58 million budget gap, how does the tuition OCC students pay compare with what other community colleges are charging?

First the bad news, tuition went up this year at all 19 community colleges in the state. At OCC the increase was $2 a credit, to $94, an increase of 2.2 percent. Only Atlantic Cape Community College increased its tuition less, 1.9 percent, a $1.80 per credit hike.

The largest increase, 7 percent, or $6 a credit, was at Burlington County Community College, followed by 6.4 percent, also $6 a credit at Union County Community College.

According to the NJ Council of County Colleges, the $94 a credit charged at OCC is the third lowest in the state this year. The average among the 19 colleges is $101.15 a credit. Gloucester County Community College students are paying $85 a credit and those at Burlington County Community College $92 a credit.

Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County charges the most, $118.50 a credit, just 20 cents a credit more than second place Bergen County Community College.

In other community college news, the council praised a nursing program that partners community colleges with Kean, a four-year school.

The Kean@Ocean partnership that gives students the ability to earn a 4-year Kean University nursing degree at Ocean County College is spreading, according to Dr. Lawrence Nespoli, president of the New Jersey Council of County Colleges.

Along with OCC, Bergen Community College and Raritan Valley Community College have created frameworks to allow students at the 2-year colleges to transfer their work for credit in Kean's nursing degree program.

Two other schools, Essex County College and Middlesex County College, are still reviewing the program, according to Nespoli.

"This is another example of New Jersey's community colleges coming together in a statewide way to solve a statewide challenge,'' Nespoli said in a prepared statement. "Health care providers are in need of more nurses with bachelor of science in nursing degrees and many of our community college nursing students, past and present, want to earn this credential. We are grateful to Kean University for partnering with us to provide this degree completion program on our community college campuses.''

"We have had a tremendously successful partnership with Kean University for a number of years now. Kean already offers several bachelor's and master's degree completion programs at our institution, and these programs make higher education more accessible to students,'' said OCC President Dr. Jon Larson, in a prepared statement.

A contract for a $30 million Gateway Building, to be shared by OCC and Kean,  has been awarded by the OCC trustees. Kean will pay half the cost of that building.

In the spring semester, students in the three participating community colleges with an associate degree in nursing, a grade point average of at least 2.0 and a state registered nursing license will be able to enroll in the Kean program.

In some cases, Nespoli said community college professors could have a chance to work as Kean University adjuncts to teach upper-level nursing courses offered on the various campuses.

As many as 88 hours of community college credits can be accepted toward the 125-credit Kean University degree requirement. A minimum of 37 credits from Kean's upper division courses, with 31 of those credits in nursing, are required for the degree.

Gobekli tepe documentary| Bio| photos

Gobekli tepe documentary| Bio| photos: Gobekli Tepe ( Kurdish: Girê Navokê) is a hilltop sanctuary built on the highest point of an elongated mountain ridge about 15 km northeast of the Kurdish town of Urfa in northern Kurdistan. The site, currently undergoing excavation by German archaeologists,and was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (ca 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. . Göbekli Tepe is the oldest human-made place of worship yet discovered. Until excavations began, a complex on this scale was not thought possible for a community so ancient. The oldest occupation layer (stratum III) contains monolithic pillars linked by coarsely built walls to form circular or oval structures. So far, four such buildings, with diameters between 10 and 30m have been uncovered. Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures.Stratum II, dated to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (7500 – 6000 BC), has revealed several adjacent rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime, reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. The most recent layer consists of sediment deposited as the result of agricultural activity.The monoliths are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract pictograms. These signs cannot be classed as writing, but may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The very carefully carved reliefs depict lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids, and birds, particularly vultures and water fowl.

Vultures also feature in the iconography of the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük and Jericho; it is believed that in the early Neolithic culture of Kurdistan and the Near East the deceased were deliberately exposed in order to be excarnated by vultures and other birds of prey. (The head of the deceased was sometimes removed and preserved—possibly a sign of ancestor worship.) There are freestanding sculptures as well that may represent wild boars or foxes. As they are heavily encrusted with lime, it is sometimes difficult to tell. Comparable statues have been discovered at Neval? Çori and Nahal Hemar.The quarries for the statues are located on the plateau itself; some unfinished pillars have been found there in situ. The biggest unfinished pillar is still 6.9 m long; a length of 9m has been reconstructed. This is much larger than any of the finished pillars found so far. The stone was quarried with stone picks. Bowl-like depressions in the limestone rocks may already have served as mortars or fire-starting bowls in the epipalaeolithic.
While the structures are primarily temples, more recently smaller domestic buildings have been uncovered. Despite this, it is clear that the primary use of the site was cultic and not domestic. Schmidt believes this “cathedral on a hill” was a pilgrimage destination attracting worshipers up to a hundred miles distant. Butchered bones found in large numbers from local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese suggest that ritual feasting (and perhaps sacrifice) were regularly practiced here.Göbekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance, since it profoundly changes our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human societies. Apparently, the erection of monumental complexes was within the capacities of hunter-gatherers and not only of sedentary farming communities as had been previously assumed. In other words, as excavator Klaus Schmidt put it: “First came the temple, then the city.” This revolutionary hypothesis will have to be supported or modified by future research