New USCG Learning Center

[sfga6970]

This sounds like a good idea.

Coast Guard Island Learning Center
U.S. Coast Guard | Mariana O'Leary | January 06, 2006
Alameda, CA - The nearby screech of a drywall nail and an overhead banging loud enough to make a machinist mate flinch doesn't seem to phase Michael Franceschina, Coast Guard Island's new Education services officer. He pauses to patiently and loudly explain to a young-looking seaman the intricate mysteries of obtaining a transcript, while proudly showing off the construction project.

Housed in a historic white building, shared with the base security office, the 3,000 square feet of space will soon be home to the largest learning center in the Coast Guard and unprecedented learning and outreach programs. Coast Guard Island Learning Center will be dedicated to providing Coast Guard members, dependents, and civilian employees with a place to plan their careers, enhance their education, and as Franceschina explains it, maybe even improve their quality of life.
"Ultimately our goal is to provide the Coast Guard and its personnel with quality products and services to support its mission through enhanced education, training, professional development and personal achievement," said Franceschina.
The center plans to be a centralized place for members to do a variety of activities. Tutoring will be available for math, with retired Army Lt. Col. Dan Lufkin volunteering his time to the program. English and reading tutoring will also be available, along with guidance toward improving test scores, or helping a member pass an end-of-course test.
"Other programs such as "A" and "C" School modules and annual Coast Guard training will be able to be completed online," said Chief Petty Officer Brian Westerman, the project manager and career development advisor.
The learning center also brings a new program onboard that offers study hall until 10 p.m., and lunchtime classes. An innovative outreach program for cutter crews offers courses with materials that are downloaded to personal data assistants, and tests proctored by a certified person onboard.
"Now they won't have to try to vie for time on the ship's Internet to take courses," said Franceschina. "We're going to do everything we can to bring it to them."
Due to an aggressive completion schedule, and the hard work of Integrated Support Command Alameda's Facilities and Industrial Engineering Division and Electronic Systems Support Unit (ESU), the learning center's testing room, conference center, and study hall are completed with new computers, tables, and couches that help create a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere to study or test in. The ESU is presently completing an installation of 25 networked computers in the classroom and establishing necessary connections for 15 computers provided by Columbia College.
Along with Columbia College, which already offers classes on base, advisors from Excelsior College, Thomas Edison College, Coast Line Community College, and Vincennes University of Indiana, will be available at regularly scheduled times to assist students with distance learning courses.
The learning center's goal is to have a historical theme. The lobby is being designed as a ship's quarterdeck, and the rooms will be dedicated with names such as the Cutter Room, the Aviation Room, the Freedom Room and the Nathan Bruckenthal Library, which will include the commandant's suggested reading list, and the Freedom Room.
Even with all this already set in motion, plans are in the works to create an opportunity for Coast Guard members, dependents, and other members of the community, to take classes at the Coast Guard housing complexes in Concord and Novato through future collaborative efforts with community colleges. Franceschina said that perhaps someone who could not previously attend college, because of time and family constraints, could more easily earn a degree if night classes were offered just down the street from their house.
"We're just getting started," said Franceschina. "You increase quality of life through quality of learning. It's a chain reaction, and it's starting right here."

[Woodmonkey]

I agree!

[Bluehawk]

Great idea!

Alameda is an amazing little haven in the Bay Area... a real USCG/USN town if there ever was one.

[sfga6970]

Here's the reason why the library is called the Nathan Bruckenthal library. He was the first Coast Guardsman killed in war since Vietnam. Another one of our young heroes. This is from the USCG magazine.

DC3 Bruckenthal: DC3 Nathan Bruckenthal gave the ultimate sacrifice while serving the Coast Guard in Iraq. His valor will always be remembered, and his memory eternally honored
Jonathan Martin

From his remote Coast Guard post at Neah Bay, Nathan Bruckenthal, a transplanted New Yorker, took 9/11 personally. He flew home three times to help bury the dead and feed rescuers. On his final trip, he stripped off his Coast Guard T-shirt and left it on the rubble.
Then Bruckenthal cut short his tour of duty at Neah Bay to get more intense law-enforcement training. He wanted to fulfill what his commanding officer, CWO Mike Tumulty, called Bruckenthal's mission to be a "patriot, warrior and hero."
"When those twin towers were destroyed, he was very passionate to fight the war on terrorism," said Tumulty. "His sacred ground was forever ruined."
On April 24, Bruckenthal, 24, died along with two Navy servicemen when suicide bombers attacked a pumping station they were guarding in the Persian Gulf. He was the first Coast Guard member to die in combat since the Vietnam War.
The son of a police chief in a New York suburb, Bruckenthal was known as a tireless volunteer during the two years he spent at Neah Bay, from 2001 to 2003. Bruckenthal worked as a reserve police officer, firefighter, emergency-services responder, assistant football coach and mentor to young Makah Indians.
The Makah responded with a memorial ceremony that incorporated all of Bruckenthal's roles. Tribal chairman Ben Johnson presented gifts to Coast Guard members to deliver to Bruckenthal's wife, Patti, who was three months pregnant: a hand-painted oar and a traditional wool blanket symbolic of the tribe's protecting embrace.
"He freely gave of his time and didn't ask anything for it," said T.J. Green, chief of the tribal police. "He gave unconditionally to this community."
Bruckenthal's older sister, NoaBeth Bruckenthal, said her brother's time among the Makah was formative. He defended the Makah's controversial decision to renew their traditional whale hunts, for example, and he made an oar for a family friend as a wedding gift.
"I know he was grateful for the things he grew to know out there--to open your heart to new people and cultures," said his sister, of Ashburn, Va. "He had tremendous respect and wanted to help out in any way you could."
Nate and Patti Bruckenthal most recently lived near the Coast Guard Air Station in Opa-Locka, Fla., but the couple was considering returning to the waters and mountains of the Pacific Northwest that he loved, his sister said.
Bruckenthal, served as a damage-control officer, requiring him to use his skills as a carpenter and welder to fix boats in the heat of combat.
But he hungered for more action, volunteering for a hazardous rescue on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and responding to 50 emergency-services calls as volunteer, Tumulty said.
"Nate was everybody's humanitarian," said Tumulty. "He was into the mission and going out to rescue people."
Bruckenthal and his wife also were both active in the Makah community, though neither was a tribal member. When they first met, she was working in a Makah special-education program through her college. He proposed on scenic Bowman Beach near the reservation. They married at the Space Needle on St. Patrick's Day, 2002.
He first served in Iraq in 2003 and decided to return for a second three month tour in March. Despite his enthusiasm for his mission, he had e-mailed a family friend to say he was growing anxious. "He basically said he was scared, not knowing if this was going to be his last day," friend Robert Engelbert told New York's Newsday newspaper.
Bruckenthal's remains were transported to Dover Air Force base in Delaware before burial, which occurred May 7 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Other survivors include his father, Eric, of Northport, N.Y.; and his mother, Laurie Bullock of Ashburn, Va.