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Press release:

Chevron’s Fuel Your School Program Expands to Support Nine Communities Across the U.S.

Innovative program to fund classroom projects adds seven communities to the 2012 program; consumers can help generate nearly $5 million for teachers and students

SAN RAMON, Calif., Sept. 5, 2012 – Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (NYSE: CVX) announced the expansion of its Fuel Your School program to nine communities this fall from two communities in 2011.  Fuel Your School will provide useful funding for eligible classroom projects developed by public school teachers and posted to DonorsChoose.org in the following communities:

• Alameda and Contra Costa counties, California

• Orange County, California

• Kern County, California

• Sacramento County, California

• St. Tammany, Orleans and Plaquemines parishes, Louisiana

• Jackson County, Mississippi

• Multnomah County, Oregon

• Harris County, Texas

• Salt Lake and Davis counties, Utah

Chevron will donate $1 for every eight gallon or larger fill up from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31 at participating Chevron and Texaco stations in those communities, up to a total contribution of nearly $5 million.

"Educating today's students remains critical to our country's future, but America's schools face significant challenges and have fallen behind in science, technology, engineering and math," said Dale Walsh, president of Chevron Americas Products. "Fuel Your School provides teachers with essential tools and resources that help students learn, explore and get excited about STEM education to help prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow."

The program is an innovative collaboration with DonorsChoose.org, an online charity to help students in need. All year, public school teachers across the U.S. post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org, ranging from pencils to microscope slides and even live tarantulas for use with biology lessons.

"Teachers spend more than $350 of their own money every year on materials for their students," said Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose.org. "Our site enables public school teachers to post projects for funding from their community and companies like Chevron who want to improve students' education."

The lack of adequate school funding across the nation has become so dire that some teachers do not have basic supplies to help students complete their classroom assignments. During the last school year, public school teachers shared more than 100,000 requests on the DonorsChoose.org website. One of those requests came from Ms. Lim-Breitbart, who teaches high school physics at Aspire California College Preparatory Academy in Berkeley, Calif., but lacked the resources to provide students with hands-on scientific activities. With the help of the Fuel Your School program, she and her students received digital thermometers and hot plates to use during physics lessons.

"[The] donation helped change our classroom from 'getting by' to 'doing real science' this year," said Lim-Breitbart. Students now believe that "science is a real option for them in the future."

Chevron partners with local communities, governments and non-profit organizations to increase learning opportunities for students and support the social and economic vitality of communities where the company has significant business operations. Chevron has contributed nearly $100 million for education in the U.S. over the past three years.

Since its inception in 2010, Fuel Your School has funded more than 3,000 classroom projects at nearly 600 schools, and the program has grown each year to support students in additional communities. Public school teachers and other educators are invited to post eligible projects starting on September 1 to www.DonorsChoose.org, for possible funding as part of the Fuel Your School program.

Consumers can track the classroom projects in need of funding and see how much money is being earned for public schools in each city by visiting www.FuelYourSchool.com. Donations earned through Fuel Your School will be used to fund eligible classroom projects from Oct. 2 through Nov. 30, 2012, or until funds generated by this program have been exhausted by eligible projects. Consumers and Chevron employees may also independently fund classroom projects on the DonorsChoose.org website by making separate, individual donations.

About Chevron

Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies, with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide. The company is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry. Chevron explores for, produces and transports crude oil and natural gas; refines, markets and distributes transportation fuels and lubricants; manufactures and sells petrochemical products; generates power and produces geothermal energy; provides energy efficiency solutions; and develops the energy resources of the future, including biofuels. Chevron is based in San Ramon, Calif. More information about Chevron is available at www.chevron.com.

About DonorsChoose.org

Founded in 2000, DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need.  Public school teachers from every corner of America post requests, and individuals can give directly to the ones that inspire them. To date, 237,000 public and charter school teachers have used DonorsChoose.org to secure $120 million in books, art supplies, technology, and other resources that their students need to learn.

Oracle Press Release

New Report from Oracle Shows that Investment in Student Services Will Significantly Enhance the Educational Experience for College Students

Study Finds Only 19 Percent of Administrators Feel They Have a 360-Degree View of their Students; Technology Brings New Opportunities to Engage and Compete

Redwood Shores, Calif. – August 28, 2012

News Facts

Today Oracle announced the results of its “Making the Grade: Optimizing the Higher Education Student Experience” report, which surveyed more than 1,000 undergraduate students and 180 higher education administrators to examine where student services stand today, the impact those services have on overall student satisfaction and how higher education institutions can improve services and address opportunities like social media and mobile apps.

Oracle will host a Webcast on Wednesday, September 19 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the study’s findings and provide real-world examples of how technology can improve student services. Panelists will include Bill Carter, vice chancellor of information technology, Houston Community College, and Cole Clark, global vice president, education and research industry, Oracle. To register for the Webcast, click here.

Key Findings

Student Services Matter: Sixty-six percent of students say the service they receive has a direct impact on their overall satisfaction with their school. Students who are satisfied with their school’s student services are significantly more likely than those who are not to recommend their school to other potential students and donate following graduation.

Lagging Behind the Top of the Class: Only 60 percent of students say their school meets their customer service expectations and 57 percent say their school treats them as valued customers.

Missing a Birds-Eye View: Only 19 percent of administrators feel they have a 360 degree view of their students. A majority of administrative respondents note they either have multiple views of students and have to piece that information together (31 percent), or have multiple views of students and find the information conflicting (20 percent).

Expanding Communication Frontier: New forms of communication offer additional avenues for schools to engage students. Currently, only 39 percent of students and 27 percent of administrators rank their student services’ mobile access as very good. In addition, just 15 percent of students and 10 percent of administrators say their school is very successful at leveraging social media to keep students informed.

Fundamental Focus: When asked which areas their school should focus on to improve services, 54 percent of students and 61 percent of administrators noted their schools should make it easier to determine where to go for answers. Other top responses included provide consistent information (24 percent of students and 49 percent of administrators) and improve response times (37 percent of students and 27 percent of administrators).

To access the full report – which highlights the importance of services on a student’s educational experience and how institutions can use technology to enhance those services –visit here.

Supporting Quotes

“While administering class registration or processing financial aid isn’t as headline grabbing as constructing a new building, the student services a school provides have a significant impact on a student’s educational experience.  This report demonstrates that investments in student services’ technology pay long-term dividends.  Schools that focus on the basics – such as ensuring information accessibility, providing multiple contact points for students and delivering consistent processes – and leverage mobile and social media platforms to engage students, will provide an unforgettable positive educational experience, and in turn, make institutions more competitive,” said Cole Clark, global vice president, education and research industry, Oracle.

Supporting Resources

Oracle in Higher Education

“Making the Grade: Optimizing the Higher Education Student Experience”

Optimizing the Higher Education Student Experience Webcast

Oracle Higher Education on Facebook

About Oracle

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center.  For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

About Oracle in Industries

Oracle industry solutions leverage the company's best-in-class portfolio of products to address complex business processes relevant to the education and research industry, helping speed time to market, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge.

Trademark
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Safer Internet Day

News release from IBM:

IBM Releases Free Internet Security Training Tools to Educate Students, Teachers and Parents on Digital Responsibility

IBMers Volunteer to Teach Students How to Protect their Personal Data in an Online Environment

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ARMONK, N.Y. - 07 Feb 2012:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that in conjunction with Safer Internet Day, (#SID2012) it will release free Internet safety training tools for students and have thousands of volunteers working to help raise awareness and educate students and businesses on Internet safety and digital responsibility.

IBM is unveiling three free volunteer kits to better educate students, parents and teachers on Internet safety:

• Control Your Online Identity  - A volunteer education kit, it is designed to help teenagers learn to protect personal data online and reputation online. Teenagers are typically savvy about how to use the Internet, but often unaware about what happens to personal data once it's shared. This presentation and volunteer information helps students learn how to protect personal data and control how they present themselves online.
• Internet Safety Coaching - Aimed at teachers or adults working with children, this is a general primer on Internet safety providing basic information about common Internet activities by young people including instant messaging and social networking.   This kit is designed to raise awareness of Internet safety and how to have a meaningful and open dialogue with children on this topic.
• Cyberbullying -- Aimed at parents or adults who work with children, this activity helps adults learn about how young people use the Internet today and how to recognize cyberbullying symptoms, how to prevent online bullying from happening and how to intervene if it does happen.

"IBMers are committed to helping educate people on ways to safely and securely use the Internet," said Harriet Pearson, IBM Security Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. "The resources we are donating will help teachers and parents raise awareness that most Internet-based threats to individual and computer security can significantly be reduced by actions that informed users take themselves."

In conjunction with today's announcement, IBM volunteers around the world are educating communities about Internet safety. Some select activities include:

• In Finland, IBM's lead volunteer on Cyberbullying will participate in a national summit at Helsinki City Hall in conjunction with Safer Internet Day. 60 IBM volunteers have already run Cyberbullying workshops for parents in 100 schools across Finland.
• In Germany, IBM will expand its partnership with klicksafe, the national partner of the Insafe network, focusing on the Manage Your Identity Initiative, Already more than 500 IBM, retiree and partner volunteers have delivered over 100 interactive workshops on the topic to more around 3,000 students around the country.
• In Italy, an IBM team will conduct events in local schools using both the IBM materials and afilm from Safer Internet Day to discuss Internet safety and cyberbullying.
• In Romania, IBM volunteers are partnering with NGOs APDETIC and Junior Achievement Romania to deliver an Internet Safety session to students focusing on controlling your online identity and Facebook usage.
• In the United Kingdom, IBM volunteers will use the volunteer kits to promote online safety awareness in schools.  IBMers will partner with non-profit YPNGlobal on their initiative called Cyber Champions. 

Last year IBM employees donated more than three million hours of volunteer service.  The company has donated 34 volunteer kits to help both IBMers as well as community members have meaningful activities and dialogues in the community about various issues.

Since its inception in 2004, Safer Internet Day interest has grown to reach all five continents and almost 80 countries, from Canada to South Korea and Russia to Kenya, including all 27 countries of the European Union. The goal of the day is to help make the Internet a better place for our children and young people.

About IBM

For more information on IBM volunteer and citizenship efforts, please visit www.citizenibm.com

About InsafeInsafe is the European Safer Internet awareness-raising network co-funded by the European Commission. It comprises national contact centres across the European Union and in Iceland, Norway and Russia, with partner organisations around the world. Insafe aims at empowering users to benefit from the positive aspects of internet whilst avoiding the potential risks. Further information is available at www.saferinternet.org or contact info-insafe@eun.org.

About Safer Internet Day

Safer Internet Day is part of a global drive by awareness-raising partners to promote a safer Internet for all users, especially young people. It is organised by INSAFE in the framework of the European Commission's Safer Internet Programme.