Marketing and Communications

When bales of hay and scarecrows appear in your neighbors’ yards, you know Christmas can’t be far away!

If you run yourself ragged during the holidays and want to reduce the stress but don’t know how, the Sanity Clause, a new one-day non-credit course offered by Pellissippi State Community College, will give you some solutions.

Marcia Walker and Annie Wills, both life coaches, will teach the class two times in October—on Saturday, Oct. 3, 9-10:30 a.m. and on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 6:30-8 p.m. The cost per class is $39.

“This isn’t just another ‘get organized and simplify kind of class,’” said Walker, who operates Step by Step Coaching. “It’s for people to get at what matters to them.”

Wills, owner of Full Circle Coaching, says she realized several years ago that Christmas had become about getting the right presents and getting the house decorated rather than about love, and she decided to make some changes.

Walker and Wills have collaborated to design a class to help people keep their balance, sanity, health and relationships intact during the holiday season. Everyone will leave with specific plans for how to make the holidays more sane, more enjoyable and more meaningful.

To register or learn more, call Pellissippi State’s Business and Community Services at (865) 539-7167.

“The whole Knoxville area is really gaining momentum for solar installation in homes and businesses,” said Brad Coburn, director of Business and Community Services’ Industrial and Contract Training at Pellissippi State Community College.

The college has begun offering solar installation and many other ‘green’ courses to meet the growing demand.

Solar Photovoltaics Technology, a series of four courses, begins Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Pellissippi Campus on Hardin Valley Road.

“Whether you’re a homeowner who is considering installing a solar panel system or you want to take the first step toward a green job, this class will help you make an informed decision,” Coburn said.

The first course, Introduction to Solar Photovoltaics ($399), helps explain how the sun’s energy is converted to electricity. The second is Math for Industry ($499), and the third is Basic Electricity ($499). The fourth course is Photovoltaic System Design and Installation ($1,499).

“This final course will prepare you for a career in solar photovoltaic technology,” Coburn said.

In the four-part series, students will install a solar panel on a simulated rooftop, do a site survey at Pellissippi State’s new green teaching facility, explore solar power relationships with local power providers and develop quantitative data to show how solar power saves money.

The first three classes are prerequisites for Photovoltaic System Design and Installation, but individuals may take a test in lieu of attending Math for Industry and Basic Electricity.

The four-week series will be repeated on a regular basis. For more information, call Business and Community Services at (865) 539-7167.

Ever picked up peanuts with chopsticks?

Doug and Rebecca Myers picked up peanuts and some key phrases too in Conversational Chinese for Beginners at Pellissippi State Community College.

Doug, a transcript specialist at the college, and his wife had a mission: they needed to prepare for two weeks in China, where they would be meeting their baby daughter for the first time.

The couple had heard that Chinese was very difficult to learn, but the two weren’t deterred. They took the non-credit class, offered through the Business and Community Services area, in the fall of 2006, thinking adoption was eminent. But because of changes in regulations, the adoption process dragged out for two and a half years.

Instructor Mei-Ling Cheng focused on speaking skills during the five-week course, helping students learn basic Chinese vocabulary, phrases, useful expressions and culture (hence, the chopsticks). Cheng, who has taught Chinese in the Knoxville area for 15 years, wanted students to be able to introduce themselves in Chinese, understand sentence structure and recognize and write some simple Chinese characters. The course focused on Mandarin, or Standard Chinese.

The couple considered the $95 class fee a bargain.

“Mei-Ling made it enjoyable,” Doug said.

Finally, in March of this year, Doug and Rebecca Myers joined four other adopting families in Chicago and flew to China. For two days, they toured: the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Olympic Park. Then the baby was in their arms.

“She was abandoned at a hospital at 1 day old because of a cleft lip and palette,” said Rebecca, a special education teacher in Knox County.

“Her Chinese name was Futong, which means ‘happiness and red,’” said Doug. “We named her Emilee Rose. She was responding to her English name in a week.”

Five months later, he says, “We couldn’t imagine life without her.”

“We want Emilee to learn Chinese. More people in the world speak Chinese than any other language,” Rebecca said.

The next Conversational Chinese class will be on Thursday evenings, Sept. 17-Oct. 22. The class fee is still $95.

For more information, call Business and Community Services at (865) 539-7167.

If you love photography, Introduction to Photoshop CS4 will help you perfect your images.

Pellissippi State Community College’s Business and Community Services is offering the new non-credit, online course through a partnership with Education to Go, or ed2go. The college and ed2go make hundreds of online, instructor-facilitated courses available jointly.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 is a popular graphics-editing software, and in this hands-on, project-oriented course, students will master editing photos, creating basic paintings and preparing images for printing. Students need no artistic ability or prior Photoshop experience.

The $99 course is part of Pellissippi State’s growing catalog of more than 300 instructor-facilitated online offerings.

Classes are entirely Web-based, with comprehensive lessons, quizzes and assignments. Students study at their own pace and can access the “classroom” 24/7 from anywhere with an internet connection. An instructor facilitates, paces learners, answers questions, gives feedback and moderates discussions.

New sessions are available at the beginning of each month and last six weeks. Two new lessons are released weekly, for a total of 12.

To register for Introduction to Photoshop CS4 or other BCS online courses, call (865) 539-7008 or visit www.pstcc.edu/bcs.

The Tennessee State Handgun Safety Course has been so popular that participants in the non-credit class at Pellissippi State Community College requested a sequel. In response, the college’s Business and Community Services Division is now offering Advanced Firearm Safety.

In the seven-hour course, students will learn how to apply the knowledge, skills and attitude required for the use of a firearm, both at home and in real-life situations.
Classes are scheduled on Saturdays, Aug. 8, Sept. 12, Oct. 10, Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. All sessions are 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

Students will meet at the Pellissippi Campus on Hardin Valley Road for five hours, then spend two hours of range time increasing their defensive and tactical skills. The cost is $119, with a range fee of $6.

The course emphasizes the importance of following the legal standards set forth for civilians with a carry permit. Students will learn how to develop a process that enables them to maintain a high level of personal safety, yet conform to Tennessee law in the event a self-defense situation would occur.

Highlights will include fundamentals of personal safety, choice of firearms, elements of armed confrontation, methods of draw, sight alignment and hit placement. The safety and defense of office buildings and churches will be covered.

Instructor Jerry Rogers has 35 years of experience teaching law enforcement officers and civilians how and when to use a firearm.

To register or find out more, contact BCS at (865) 539-7167.

Summer is under way, but it’s not too late to enroll in a summer camp (or two) at Pellissippi State Community College. Though many of the 2009 Summer Camps for Kids! offered through Business and Community Services filled early, space remains in a variety of July camps.

According to Nancy Corum, Pellissippi State’s coordinator of Community Services Programs, July openings include the following: bowling, golf, karate and intermediate tennis; keyboarding; art; “Photo-rrific” (digital photo manipulation and creation of a scrapbook/photo site); and “Science America” (experimentation and the always popular remote control car racing tests).

To see a more complete listing of all available July camps, visit www.pstcc.edu/bcs or call the BCS office at (865) 539-7167 or (865) 539-7166.

“What did you do over the summer?” It’s the ubiquitous question students ask one another when they return to school every August.

Not many children can answer, “I made a movie!” but those fortunate enough to enroll in Pellissippi State Technical Community College’s “Claymation” summer camp will have created and produced a movie, complete with a CD to show their friends.

A testament to the camp’s popularity in previous years, four sessions of Claymation Camp are being offered this July through the 2009 Summer Camps for Kids program, sponsored by Pellissippi State’s Business and Community Services Division.

Instructor Megan Daniel returns for her third year of leading the camp, which is for youth ages 8-15. Daniel, an elementary education student at Pellissippi State, is a veteran camp counselor who began by assisting her mother, Micki Daniel. Micki Daniel previously led summer art camps in the same program.

Camp participants will work in groups to write a script, create clay figures and backgrounds and take photographs. They will complete short animated movies on the computer, and the final productions will be burned to a CD and given to students. Each camp concludes with a movie premiere.

Claymation Camp dates and times are as follows: July 13-17, 9-noon or 1-4 p.m., and July 20-24, 9-noon or 1-4 p.m.

This month, youngsters interested in filmmaking can also attend “Lights, Camera, Action,” a camp designed to introduce students to the basic technologies used in broadcast/video production. Participants will shoot with mini digital-video cameras and complete a video project. The camp is open to children ages 11 and up; space is limited to 14. Two sessions are offered: June 8-12, 1-4 p.m., and June 22-26, 9-noon.

Both camps are at the Pellissippi Campus on Hardin Valley Road. For additional information and a complete listing of the 35-plus classes available at this year’s Summer Camps for Kids, visit www.pstcc.edu/bcs or call (865) 539-7167 or (865) 539-7166.

The Safe Kids USA statistics are compelling: Nearly 690 children are injured daily due to bicycle-related crashes. More than 70 percent of children ages 5 to 14 ride a bicycle regularly, and emergency room visits for that age group involve injuries related to biking more than any other sport.

One local resource sure to provide some peace of mind to parents concerned about bicycle safety is Pellissippi State Technical Community College. The college’s Business and Community Services is offering “Nonstop Action Bikes” as part of its 2009 Summer Camps for Kids.

Children ages 5 and up can spend a week at summer camp learning safety techniques and critical handling skills, including bike setup and repair. The class is for all skill levels; participants also will have the opportunity to learn how to perform safely tricks such as the fakie and bunny hop. Students must provide their own bicycle (BMX or mountain) and be able to ride without training wheels.

Camps are divided by age group: ages 11-15, June 15-19, 1-4 p.m.; ages 5-10, June 22-26, 1-4 p.m.; and ages 16 and up, July 27-31, 1-4 p.m.

Pellissippi State also offers a general safety-themed camp, “Safety-Smart Kids,” for youth ages 10-14. The four-day camp covers topics such as home and fire safety, internet safety and basic skills in first aid and CPR.

Campers will learn how to respond to a variety of emergency situations–the training is especially helpful for babysitters. “Safety-Smart Kids” is July 6-9, 8:30-11:30 a.m.

In “Self-Defense for Teens,” youth 12 and older will learn strategies to protect themselves using basic karate and kick-boxing techniques. Instructor Carol Pederson teaches blocks, punches, kicks and other self-defense moves. The camp is June 15-19, 9-11 a.m.

All camps take place at the Pellissippi Campus, 10915 Hardin Valley Road. For additional information about the safety camps and a complete listing of the more than 35 2009 Summer Camps for Kids, visit www.pstcc.edu/bcs or call (865) 539-7167 or 539-7166.