Bert's Alerts - February 20, 2015
In the Spotlight
College of Western Idaho (CWI) is excited to partner with the Idaho Stampede, Saturday (Feb. 28), for the second annual CWI Night at the Stampede. The professional basketball team is hosting the promotion to help fundraise for CWI student scholarships. Support the cause by purchasing discounted $10 tickets, of which the Stampede will donate 100 percent of the ticket price back to the CWI Foundation for student scholarships. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at CenturyLink Arena. For more information, including how to purchase tickets, view the CWI Night at the Stampede flyer.
News Highlights
New CWI Welding Course Providing Employment Opportunities
College of Western Idaho’s (CWI) Workforce Development division is celebrating the first graduates from a new workplace welding course that was created in collaboration with Multiquip Inc. Since completion of the eight-week course on Jan. 29, the partnership has shown great promise as two Multiquip employees that completed the course have already achieved promotions.
Multiquip, a global manufacturer and supplier of industrial products and solutions approached CWI last year to fill a skills gap in their workforce. The company expressed a need to train their current employees for advancement opportunities while also creating a bridge for recruiting new skilled workers. The collaboration resulted in the creation of a targeted welding course to address the specific industry skills needed. In total six Multiquip employees enrolled in the inaugural course, along with two students sponsored by the Idaho Department of Labor and three employees from other local companies.
“CWI’s Workforce Development program was formed to support the continued training needs for evolving industries throughout western Idaho,” notes Christine Rood, Executive Director for CWI Workforce Development. “The collaboration with Multiquip ensured our course was directly filling the welding skills gap and provided opportunities for our students to gain marketable job skills.”
The class focused solely on Metal Inert Gas (MIG), or Gas Metal Arc Welding, technique. Curriculum covered blueprints, welding symbology, machine safety, and set-up. The primary goal is to train students to weld in a fast-paced production environment.
“This is a great example of how business, education, and Labor can work together to create a talent pipeline of welders,” said Idaho Department of Labor Director Ken Edmunds. “The workforce needs of industry get filled and Idahoans gain new skills and higher wages.”
Phil D’Amato, Multiquip’s Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Compliance Officer, further commented, “This serves as a perfect example of how a private employer, an educational institution, and a state agency worked together. The hiring of qualified welders has been a challenge at Multiquip, and we were going to ‘grow our own’ with an in-house welder certification program. Through this unique collaborative effort, we were able to formalize the program and create a model for future classes thereby increasing the labor pool of qualified welders. This is truly a win-win-win opportunity”.
CWI will continue offering the course in its regular rotation of non-credit welding classes. The next class starts Feb. 23 and will run through April 15. For more information on CWI’s Workforce Development programs visit cwi.edu/wd.
Fast-Track Healthcare Training Event Coming to CWI
On Feb 24, College of Western Idaho (CWI) Workforce Development (WD) will invite the community to campus to explore the healthcare career opportunities that are available through WD’s fast-track training programs and classes. Instructors and students will be on-hand to talk with attendees and help answer questions about the programs and careers. The event will take place:
Tuesday, Feb. 24
6-8 p.m.
Ada County Campus Quail Court, Room 2210
1450 S. Eagle Flight Way, Boise – View Map
Programs and classes through WD Healthcare and Emergency Medical Services can be completed in as little as eight hours, and up to eleven months. Classes are taught throughout southwestern Idaho, from Donnelly to Fruitland and Boise to Caldwell. For even more flexibility, some classes are offered online and via distance learning.
CWI WD offers a variety of fast-track healthcare programs and classes:
- Medical Assistant
- Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)
- Medical Coding and Billing
- Pharmacy Technician
- Phlebotomy
- Emergency Medical Technician (EMT)
- Paramedic
- CPR
For more information about the event or questions, call 208.562.2700.
Ceramic Artist Featured in CWI’s Visiting Artist Series
College of Western Idaho (CWI) is excited to welcome ceramic artist Alison Reintjes to campus, March 12-14, as the next guest in its Visiting Artist Series. On Thursday, March 12, Reintjes will give a public lecture beginning at 6 p.m. with a reception planned immediately following her presentation. She will also lead a hands-on workshop Friday and Saturday (March 13-14). Materials will be provided and the workshop is free to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. All events will be held in room 206 of CWI’s Nampa Campus Academic Building.
Reintjes lives in Missoula, Mont. Her work includes functional objects, wall based sculpture, and design concepts. She first moved to Montana in 2001 for a residency at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. Reintjes studied at Kent State University, the Canberra School of Art in Australia, and Northern Michigan University. She has completed numerous residencies, taught widely, and exhibited both nationally and internationally.
For more information please contact Goran Fazil at goranfazil@cwi.edu or Brenda Fisher at brendafisher@cwi.edu.
Tech Talk: Reminders on Phishing and Office 365 Migration
The College of Western Idaho (CWI) Information Technology (IT) Department presents this series of Bert’s Alerts articles intended to share updates at CWI as well as relevant technology topics.
Spear Phishing
CWI received several spam emails this week which unfortunately led some recipients to click on a link causing their email accounts to be compromised. Once compromised, the attackers sent additional emails with more targeted information, making the communication appear more legitimate while still promoting the phishing link.
Because of these numerous spam and spear phishing attacks CWI was blacklisted with many email relay hosts, due to the larger volume of emails being sent out in short periods of time. IT has worked with these hosts to clear up the issue but it did cause delays and in some cases blocking of email sent to outside parties.
Please remember IT will never send an email asking employees to click on any link, nor will they ask for account or personal information. All emails received that request clicking on a link should be deleted immediately.
Once IT is made aware of a compromised account they can secure the account to stop the flow of email. If they can determine the account was accessed on a computer at CWI, they will retrieve that machine and re-image it to remove the possibility of any malware that could potentially cause harm.
Office 365 Migration
IT has begun the email migration and have migrated over 200 email accounts already. There have been a few issues that IT was able to work through and continue migrating accounts. IT appreciates patience with this process.