Since the phenomenal growth of community colleges during the 1960s, continuing education programs and departments have become a mainstay on the American higher-education landscape. Referred to in a variety of ways — adult education, distance learning, self-directed learning —continuing education is a very broad term.

To appreciate Michael Plater’s passion for the value of adult education is to understand how significantly continued education factored into his own experience.

St. Louis, Mo., entrepreneurs and siblings Michael and Steven Roberts embrace the notion of keeping the family business in the family and say all African-American entrepreneurs should do the same.

In a recent interview with The Network Journal, Susan Taylor Batten, president and CEO of the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE), discussed the importance of philanthropy in strengthening Black communities.

Close friends describe Max L. Siegel as the type of leader who sees potential where others don’t. In his new role as CEO of USA Track & Field, a position he took three months before the London 2012 Olympics, Siegel faces an uphill task of turning around an organization that has suffered tremendous setbacks on and off the track, both at and since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

Africa’s tourism officials grimly acknowledge that they will have to throw their collective weight behind a “Brand Africa” to attract to the continent more of the nearly one trillion tourists who travel the world each year.

Frontier stock markets in Africa rallied in June amid rosy growth prospects, but downside risks —the eurozone crisis, China’s economic slowdown and the possible rise in oil prices — aren’t far off.

Sadly, the securities laws don’t make it easy for small startups to raise capital from lots of “little” investors. So how do you structure a startup when you’ve got lots of people involved, some putting in money, others putting in “sweat equity” and still others providing both; when you’re looking to raise only a small amount of money (less than $250,000) to launch the business; or when you can’t afford the services of a qualified securities attorney?

In most developed market economies the cultural industries account for 2 percent to 5 percent of gross domestic product and have generated consistent and stable growth above world average in the last decade.

Would you take a bribe? To do the right things? Things like saving and paying down your debt? That’s part of the interesting psychology behind SaveUp.com, a free website that lets you earn a shot at cash and other prizes, just for doing the right thing.

Senior Caribbean officials and business executives are promoting the region as a free-trade, emerging market economy whose growth rate is higher than that of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and more in line with that of booming East Asia.

More than $7 billion of federal funds are sitting around in 18 states and the District of Columbia, waiting to be given to homeowners who have fallen behind in their mortgage payments. The funds are available under the relatively new TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Hardest Hit initiative to help keep the unemployed from losing their homes, but some states are having a tough time putting the money to work.

A startup technology company’s three founding partners found themselves at a loss over how to value their business when angel investors expressed interest in investing in it.

Yes, all Caribbean islands offer warm weather and a chilled-out atmosphere, clean seas and lots of air- and ocean-borne animal life, but there are unique touches to the Barbados experience that set it apart from its island neighbors.

You’ve seen the ads: Valerie Bertinelli lost 40 pounds using the Jenny Craig diet program. Marie Osmond lost 50 pounds on Nutrisystem. Both plans rely on portion control through prepared foods delivered to your door, but do they work?

“EMerge: Danny Simmons and Artists on the Cusp,” which runs through Sept. 7, features the work of abstract-expressionist painter Danny Simmons and creations by nine contemporary artists from New York and London.

Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans
Author: Emily King
Publisher: Amacom, 2012
Pages: 187
ISBN: 978-0-814417-79-9

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn 
Author: Cathy N. Davidson
Narrated by Laural Merlington
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Format: 2 CDs / 13h. 56m.

By Love Possessed
By Lorna Goodison
Amistad/HarperCollins, May 2012
$14.99, 262 pp.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln
By Stephen L. Carter
Knopf, July 2012
$26.95, 512 pp.

The Reverend’s Wife
By Kimberla Lawson Roby
Grand Central Publishing, May 2012
$24.99, 336 pp.

Ada’s Rules: A Sexy Skinny Novel
By Alice Randall
Bloomsbury, May 2012
$24, 335 pp.