GUEST COMMENTARY: Improving health requires a group effort

Generally speaking, Northwest Indiana residents are less healthy than the nation as a whole on a variety of standard measures: death rates, infant mortality, physical activity, weight, tobacco use, binge drinking and teenage births.

GUEST COMMENTARY: Focus on education, infrastructure, business policy

The Northwest Indiana Quality of Life Council tracks 11 key indicators of community health in order to measure the progress our region is making toward becoming a more desirable place for our residents to live and work. One of those indicators, "A Community of Opportunity," identifies income…

GUEST COMMENTARY: Regional campuses develop programs to meet regional needs

The Quality of Life Council is a membership organization of engaged citizens from business, education, not-for-profit, and government sectors of Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. It is chaired, on a rotating basis, by the six chancellors and presidents of colleges and universities in Northw…

Programs for the future

The Quality of Life Council is a membership organization of engaged citizens from business, education, not-for-profit and government sectors of Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. It is chaired, on a rotating basis, by the six chancellors and presidents of colleges and universities in Northwe…

Where are we going, how will be get there?

Northwest Indiana might be the "Crossroads of America" for the tens of thousands of personal and commercial vehicles that pass through our state every day, but the public transportation infrastructure for our own citizens leaves much to be desired.

Clear out clutter when spring cleaning

You know you have a problem with clutter when your new 52-inch flat screen TV looks more like an old 19-inch, dwarfed by all that junk piled high around it.

Transportation needs upgrades for quality of life

In Northwest Indiana, we mostly commute to work and do so by driving alone. In 2004, the Quality of Life Council found the state of transportation in our region to be "disappointing" and assigned it a grade of "D+."

Trailblazing women of the '60s

A triple biography can prove challenging for a writer and her readers. But Sheila Weller's candid "Girls Like Us" -- about the lives and work of Carly Simon, Carole King and Joni Mitchell -- is surprisingly stellar. Unlike far too many celebrity bios, "Girls Like Us" never settles for simple…

NWI is making progress but isn't there yet

The Quality of Life Council periodically publishes quality of life indicators, an assembly of data that paints a picture of how we are progressing toward our vision of a stronger region. Each month we will examine one of the 11 indicators in this column.

Regional bus service linked to commuter rail

The decision by the Regional Development Authority to grant $6.5 million to the Regional Bus Authority is an important step toward providing integrated regional transit services for Northwest Indiana.

Biology major unlocks key to exciting careers

"There has never been a better time to be a biologist." according to Michael Henson, head of the biology department at Purdue Calumet. Jason Lacny of Portage would certainly agree.

College helped grad engineer career success

In the eyes of Hammond native Bryan Robles, an aerospace engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., the term "the sky's the limit" is too -- well -- limiting.

How we can get more people to earn degrees

Nothing is more important for our long-term social well-being than educating the next generation. Knowledge is growing faster than ever, and change is occurring faster than ever. Futurists predict that by 2012 human knowledge will double every year. A significantly larger proportion of our p…