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OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Early College is more than just an accelerated learning opportunities for low-income, first-generation college goers.  According to Augenblick & Palaich (2006) it's about an investment that yields a $400 return over the course of one's work-life for every $100 spent in an Early College program.  Early College is our strategy to meet your goal of 55 by 25.

Dr. Joel Vargas
Vice President
Job For the Future 
UH West Oahu Director of Community Partnerships and Student Success

Joel Vargas on PBS NewsHour Does early college for high school students pave a path to graduation?

Joel Vargas is a Vice President at JFF and leads the work of JFF’s west coast office in Oakland, CA as well as the national School & Learning Designs team.  He also researches and advises on state policies to promote improved high school and postsecondary success for underserved students. He has helped policymakers and intermediary organizations develop state and federal policies that expand early college schools and other school designs incorporating college coursework into high school. Since joining JFF in 2002, Dr. Vargas has designed and implemented a research and state policy agenda for implementing Early College Designs; created policy frameworks, tools, and model legislation; written and edited white papers, research, and national publications; provided technical assistance to state task forces and policy working groups; served on a number of national advisory groups; and organized and presented at national policy conferences. 

 

Dr. Vargas has directed, initiated, and studied a variety of middle school and high school programs designed to help more underrepresented students get into and through a postsecondary education. He also has been a teacher, editor, and research assistant for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. He is coeditor of two JFF books: Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials for Underrepresented Youth (Harvard Education Press) and Minding the Gap: Why Integrating High School with College Makes Sense and How to Do It (Harvard Education Press). In 2005, Dr. Vargas was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education as one of “Higher Education’s Next Generation of Thinkers.” He received a B.S. in journalism from Boston University and an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The Honorable Dwight Takamine was appointed State Director of the Department of Industrial and Labor Relations and by Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie on November 30, 2010.   Before becoming director, Dwight Takamine served in the state Legislature for 26 years, representing Hilo, Honokaa and Waimea.  Sen. Takamine was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1984 and later elected to the State Senate in 2008. He served as chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, House Labor and Public Employment Committee, House Finance Committee and House Water and Land Committee. Sen. Takamine spent 30 years practicing law in Hawaii with a general focus on labor-related cases. He holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a J.D. from the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law.

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