College

Gary Moskowitz NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- The Verdugo Hills Hospital Foundation will host a special seminar for high school students who plan to attend college and their parents next week. The program will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in the fourth floor council rooms at Verdugo Hills Hospital, 1812 Verdugo Blvd. The seminar is free and open to the public. David Levy, director of financial aid at Caltech, will lead the program. Levy will present simple and effective ways to manage money and stay within a balanced budget while attending college.

Alecia Foster NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- Two college representatives will discuss what parents need to know about planning their child's college education. David Levy, assistant dean and director of financial aid at CalTech, and Catherine Thomas, associate dean of admissions and financial aid at University of Southern California will present "Planning for Your Child's Educational Future" at Verdugo Hills Hospital. The two will address simple and effective ways to develop a financial plan for college.

Gohar Khechumyan’s father is supportive of her education and wants her to go to college. But because of his limited English and the differences in the college application process in the U.S. versus Armenia, navigating the process is foreign and bewildering to him, she said. Gohar and her father, Vigen Khechumyan, attended the Path to College community forum organized by the Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee on Wednesday night to learn about the details of finishing high school and heading to college in the U.S. “I’m trying to get every little bit of information about college,” Gohar said.

SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — A proposal to expand Glendale Community College's Garfield Campus would turn a block of Garfield Avenue into a grassy area and 24 parking spaces. The proposed $20-million expansion of the campus — which college officials laid out at a public meeting at Chevy Chase Baptist Church on Tuesday — calls for a new classroom building and 136 new parking spaces. To accommodate the expansion, the college would have to purchase three residential properties — which are three separate apartment buildings — and take over one block of Garfield Avenue, between Chevy Chase Drive and Adams Street.

Marshall Allen GLENDALE -- Greg Mehdi, 17, is an advocate of college, so he started a Web site to helps high school students through the college application process. "I think that college is for everyone and there are a lot of people who don't think college is for them," Mehdi said. "I want to spread the word that it's possible to go to college." Mehdi is a Glendale resident and junior at Flintridge Preparatory Academy in La Canada Flintridge.

Joyce Rudolph NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- Glendale Community College Theater Arts Professor Ken Gray is preparing his students for a theater festival at Cal State Hayward. But Gray is in charge of more than his students. He is the chairman of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region VIII. For six days beginning Feb. 11, about 1,000 theater students will arrive in Hayward from nearly 175 colleges and universities in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

Glendale Community College's Community Services Education Department will offer a seminar Saturday called "How to Become a Mystery Shopper." The seminar will be from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday in Room 120 at the college's Adult Training Center, 1122 E. Garfield Ave. The seminar is open to the public. Business evaluation companies hire mystery shoppers to visit restaurants, retail stores, theaters and other locations and report on their visit. The seminar will teach participants how mystery shopping works, how to get into the shoppers' network and how companies compensate shoppers for their efforts.

Crescenta Valley High School will be hosting an informational meeting for parents and students on scholarships and financial aid on Wednesday evening, Feb. 7. The meeting will be held in the school's cafeteria at 7 p.m. Entitled "Completing the Financial Aid Application," the meeting builds on a November presentation that gave an overview of what financial aid options are available. Dr. David Levy of the California Institute of Technology will review, line by line, the process of completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Alecia Foster NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- Brandon Pancost describes his first few weeks as a Cal State L.A. student as "weird." "Everyone wanted to know my student ID number, which I didn't know," he said with a grin. Others asked him if he was as young as he looked. The answer was 'Yes.' Brandon started college at 14. The Glendale resident, who recently made Cal State's dean's list, is one of about 100 students between 10 and 16 years old attending the college through the Early Entrance Program.

ON THE AGENDA The following items will be considered at Monday?s Glendale Community College Board of Trustees meeting: ? Bill Taylor, director of business services for the college, will discuss the school?s Measure G capital improvement projects, updating the board on changes. WHAT TO EXPECT Taylor will explain that additional funds have been allocated for the implementation of PeopleSoft management software. ? The board will consider a resolution to amend the college?

The following are updates on area athletes at the collegiate level. Erin Ashby (Crescenta Valley High, 2011) Stanford softball sophomore: Despite a performance in which Ashby drove in a pair of runs and tallied a pair of hits, Stanford stumbled against host Nebraska, losing, 10-5, to the Cornhuskers on Sunday in the final game of the NCAA Tournament's Nebraska Regional. Stanford went 2-2 in Lincoln, Neb., defeating Tulsa, 4-2, on Friday and Northern Iowa, 4-1, on Saturday in its second game of the day. But it lost in two outings to Nebraska.

Roughly a month before a new superintendent takes the helm at Glendale Community College, the president of the Faculty Guild publicly announced her resignation on Monday, citing building tensions with trustees. The announcement from Isabelle Saber at the board's monthly meeting came as the college continues to grapple with budget pressures that have clearly taken their toll on stakeholder groups. "It was a result of several culminating factors and one of the last nails in this coffin happened at the board retreat a couple of weeks ago, when I decided that the level of discourse was below what I was willing to accept after a full year of bending over backwards to try and help the district," Saber said.

A year ago Grace Graham-Zamudio settled for runner-up, third- and fourth-place finishes at the state championships. The Glendale Community College women's track and field star wouldn't settle for anything less that first in 2013. It resulted in Zamudio leaving the California Community College Athletic Assn. Track and Field State Championships, which was held at the College of San Mateo, and Glendale college with a triple crown. “The last race was definitely special, I know during the last lap I was thinking, 'This is my last lap as a Vaquero,'” said Zamudio, who capped off an incredible two-year career with the team by winning the 1,500-meter race in four minutes 36.13 seconds and the 5,000-meter in 17:41.

In beginning her quest Friday to win a triple crown at the California Community College Track and Field Championships, Grace Zamudio didn't change her racing strategy. With a light breeze blowing, the Glendale Community College women's distance runner broke past the starting line in the 10,000-meter event and paced herself before breaking away from the pack in the final mile. Zamudio cleared the first hurdle in her quest to win three state championships, as she clocked 37 minutes:22.19 seconds to win the event at College of San Mateo and earn her first state title in track and field.

Looking to jump start his career, Angel Rodriguez left Cal State Northridge for an opportunity to join the Glendale Community College baseball team. Rodriguez, who spent last season as a redshirt at CSUN, sought the chance to receive more individual attention while looking to improve his overall pitching skills. Turns out things worked fine for Rodriguez, who helped the Vaqueros win their third Western State Conference South Division championship in a row and was tabbed the division's pitcher of the year.

Qualifying to Saturday's CIF Southern Section Track and Field Divisional Championships at Mt. San Antonio College required the local entrants who earned such advancement to turn in very good results at last weekend's divisional prelims all over Southern California. This weekend, however, the bar will be raised from very good to exceptional. Of course, that's to be expected as divisional championships and CIF-Southern Section Masters Meet berths are on the line with the trip to Cerritos College available for the top 12 finishers in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs and top nine in every other event.

Having already captured three Western State Conference and Southern California championships, Grace Zamudio would next like to make a name for herself statewide. The Glendale Community College standout distance runner will seek to complete the task when she takes to the track Friday and Saturday at the California Community College Athletic Assn. Track and Field State Championships at College of San Mateo. The sophomore will look to close out her fabulous career at Glendale by attempting to win the 10,000-meter race Friday and the 5,000 and 1,500 on Saturday.

After building up the Glendale Community College men's and women's teams and leading each to appearances in the California Community College Athletic Assn. Golf Championship, Greg Osbourne resigned his post as coach to become Cal State Bakersfield's director of golf. Osbourne recently accepted the position with Bakersfield and will replace the retiring Dave Barber, effective June 6. He will coach both programs at Bakersfield, which will be joining the Western Athletic Conference next season.

SANTA ANA - Good-bye hugs were exchanged in right field before a few tears and plenty of beads of sweat were wiped away by many of the members of the Glendale Community College baseball team. It came shortly after the Vaqueros saw their season wrap up Saturday with a 4-3 defeat against El Camino Compton in an elimination contest of the Southern California Fullerton Super Regional at Santa Ana College. “It's a special group of guys,” said Glendale college Coach Chris Cicuto, whose team finished 27-13.