Windward Community College’s (Hawaii) student newspaper, Ka ‘Ohana (the family), has garnered another first place national award from the Ameri can Scholastic Press Association. The newspaper has ranked among the top winners in the ASPA competition for the past 19 years. Ka ‘Ohana scored 930 out of 1,000 possible points for the first place category and was recognized by the judges as “an excellent school newspaper, which shows the creativity and journalistic knowledge of your staff.” The competition recognizes excellence and provides feedback in content, page design, general plan, art, editing and creativity. Ka ‘Ohana is produced by students in WCC’s newspaper lab and news writing courses. The classes provide hands-on training in the entire news gathering process — from writing articles to graphic design, photography and website management. Ka ‘Ohana has also served as a springboard to the state’s coveted and highly competitive Society of Professional Journalists summer internships. For 2012 and 2013, two WCC student journalists were among an elite group of interns selected, mostly from four-year colleges and universities. 

Walt MacDonald — who is devoted to helping advance quality and equity in education by improving teaching and assessment of learning around the world as president and chief executive officer of Educational Testing Service — has received Camden County College’s (N.J.) 2014 Outstanding Alumnus Award. The Mercer County resident was born in Massachusetts and grew up in “humble beginnings.” He left home at 19, coming to the Camden area to live with a brother employed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and work in construction. “I was encouraged by my fellow construction workers to go to college, but I didn’t know where to start until one of them brought me some information about this little college in Blackwood, N.J.,” MacDonald recalled. “CCC certainly whetted my appetite for more knowledge, lots of it, in fact, so that after the associate degree, I continued on to earn bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Rutgers and even made education my career. CCC was my incredible doorway to higher education.” MacDonald, who also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University’s Business School, has spent most of his professional career at ETS. The company administers and scores more than 50 million exams in 180 countries around the world every year.