In June, Cuyahoga Community College received a $650,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation to help finance its One Door -- Many Options for Success initiative. The college-wide effort going into effect this year will expand Tri-C's service model, providing structured support services through student-centric college success teams and other programming.

Community college is a viable option for students seeking to save money while preparing to continue their studies at a four-year college. However, many undergraduates make costly and time-consuming mistakes before even getting to the transfer process. This potential nightmare can be avoided with careful planning done at the earliest stage of a student's academic career. Tri-C is not just streamlining this process to make transfer easier, it's promoting the importance of setting a direction the moment a student enters the institution.

Cuyahoga Community College's stated mission is to provide an affordable, high-quality learning experience for its diverse enrollment. Considering the amount of freshmen arriving on its doorstep each year, Tri-C has created an initiative to guide incoming students past the higher education threshold as painlessly as possible.
 
First Year Experience (FYE) is a multi-faceted, comprehensive introduction to Tri-C, says Dr. Michael Schoop, president of the school's Metropolitan Campus. The "campus support system" for new students folds the college's ordinary orientation procedures into a systematic, larger-scale effort meant to focus freshmen on long-term career and academic goals.
 
"Tri-C has long been interested in anything that can help more of our students become successful," says Schoop. "With so many of them new to the college experience, we needed a more structured approach."

Read the rest of the story here.
 

Tampa Bay successfully hosted the Republicans in 2012, and Denver hosted the Democrats four years before that. Fresh Water decided to reach out to representatives from each city to see if our fair city could glean some best practices on how to pull off a successful -- and inclusive -- convention.

When doctors perform surgical procedures, they typically use cold surgical irrigation fluid to expand the patient’s body cavity. The cold fluid can increase their risk of hypothermia, which in turn leads to three times the risk of surgical site infections and other complications. 

Now hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals have turned to a local company for a solution. Thermedx has developed the first smart surgical irrigation device to provide fluid warming in arthroscopic and hysteroscopic procedures.
 
“We developed a smart version of an irrigation pump,” explains Thermedx co-founder and executive vice president Mike Haritakis. “It’s a touchscreen, multi-functional irrigation pump that can actually allow a procedure to be done with one device”
 
The Thermedx’s Fluid Smart System, which is used primarily in endoscopic and laparoscopic gynecological, urological and orthopedic procedures, pressurizes the body cavity safely during surgery to improve visibility, warms the irrigation fluid and monitors the fluids and prevents hypothermia.
 
“It really consolidates the devices and streamlines the staff in the OR,” explains Angela Dubik, clinical services manager. “The end result is it makes surgeons’ and nurses’ jobs much easier, it saves the hospital money and it improves patient care.”
 
Thermedx developed the Fluid Smart System in part through funding from Third Frontier and BioEnterprise. The company employs 18 people and is growing. “We’re just looking to continue to develop new products,” says Haritakis. “We want to continue to add jobs to support Northeast Ohio growth in the medical device community. We’re all about growth, essentially.”

As the 2014 Gay Games play out with eclectic events all over town, it becomes clear how they will leave a lasting positive effect on the host city of Cleveland. Uniting beneath a banner of inclusion, collaboration and unity, participants and sponsors establish a spirit that will endure long after the lights have dimmed and the last athlete has left the track.

Any teenager with a smartphone and some ingenuity can record a song and download it to SoundCloud or YouTube. But Cuyahoga Community College’s recording arts and technology program prepares students for all types of positions within the audio industry.

Graphic design is a form of visual storytelling, where a few well-crafted images can speak to the viewer in a language more powerful than words. Cuyahoga Community College's graphic design program helps students to harness that power for themselves, with the story they're telling going straight into their portfolios. 

Artists are often the first to move into urban neighborhoods, and also the first to move out when rents escalate. Yet in the post-recession landscape, many communities are working with artists to transform blight, engage residents and reimagine their neighborhoods.

There has been a flood of new businesses that tout the city through an assortment of Cleveland-themed apparel and products or by integrating the city name right into the company’s branding. Many point to the recent recession as the dawn of this entrepreneurial movement, which coincided with a newfound pride of place.

An annual economic impact study conducted by Center for Economic Development at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs shows that companies that received support from 16 of the area’s business accelerators, incubators and other organizations generated $424 million for Ohio.
 
Of the 245 companies surveyed, 236 companies are in Northeast Ohio, generating $306.2 million in the region. These numbers reflect good news for the startup community in Cleveland. “Companies that start here are growing,” says JumpStart chief marketing officer Cathy Belk. “The fact that companies are growing and generating jobs reflects that those courageous folks jumping into the startup world are able to access great people, capital and the expertise -- and are able to lead their companies forward. The ecosystem here is robust and getting more robust all the time.”
 
Of the companies included in the latest study, 42 local businesses have participated each year over the past four years. “Over that time, they have grown payroll by $14.7 million and created and retained 134 jobs in this region,” says Belk. “This reflects that startups here are able to be successful, creating sustainable jobs for people who live here.”  
 
Belk wants to see these trends grow. “We want entrepreneurs to continue to decide to start companies in this area, and keep them here because of their ability to be successful here,” she explains. “We have to make sure we continue to have the successful startup programs and ecosystem in this region, ensuring companies are able to access the capital they need. And we must continue to help a broader number of small businesses -- including those that could create a significant number of jobs. These are all next steps for our community to maintain and accelerate our momentum.”

 

Welcome to the latest round of Lab Chat, in which we try to demystify the often complex field of biomedical research. Today, our well informed post-doc takes on commercial drug development, specifically, why the heck does it take so long for prescription drugs to move from lab to local pharmacy?
 

There's more than one way to get around Cleveland. As more and more alternative transportation options like Lyft, Uber and pedicabs enter the local market, residents are discovering that it's increasingly becoming easier to leave the wheels at home. Fresh Water took them for a test drive.

Sometimes, even the most adventurous resident can grow a little too comfortable living in the same city after a while. But one can always find something new to discover if we just dig a little deeper. Lucky for us, a number of smartphone apps will help the explorer in all of us get reacquainted with the city we call home.

It's been four and a half years since the first edition of "Moon Handbooks: Cleveland" was published. Considering all that has taken place in Cleveland during that time, author and Fresh Water managing editor Douglas Trattner says that for the second edition, which was released this week, he went back to the starting gate.

If you're considering a move to Cleveland, there might be no better means to examine the broad range of residential options than by hopping aboard a City Life tour hosted by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. In a few short hours, participants enjoy an immersive dive into a number of Cleveland's most in-demand neighborhoods.
 

Changing careers can be a difficult journey, regardless of a fulfillment-seeking wanderer's age or economic standing. However, the older a person gets, the less time they have to start that long voyage toward a new vocation.
 
Fortunately, there are more expeditious alternatives for those retracing their steps on the job trail, says Susan Muha, executive vice president of Cuyahoga Community College’s Workforce and Economic Development Division. The division's focus is job retraining, meaning adult employment seekers don't need to go back to school for a bachelor's degree.
 
"One way or another, it's all about connecting people with the job market," says Muha, a decade-long veteran of Tri-C's workforce division.
 
Throughout its layers of jobs-centric programming, the school works with about 15,000 to 20,000 participants annually. Many of these students have already attended a university and have little desire to go back. Tri-C offers training and certification programs measured in weeks or months rather than years, allowing prospective job seekers to be launched back into rotation quickly.

Read the rest of the story here.
 

Beginning in August, Northeast Ohio firefighters and law enforcers will have a "one-stop shop" at Cuyahoga Community College. The sprawling facility, dubbed the Public Safety Training Center of Excellence, is expected to meet the education needs of both green recruits and grizzled first responders alike.