Do you know about the...QEP?
A SACS re-accreditation requirement
The QEP describes a carefully designed and focused course of action that addresses a well-defined topic related to enhancing student learning.
Student learning/success - is defined in A-B Tech's QEP as "a change in the knowledge, skills and/or behavior that facilitates the attainment of educational and career goals."
A-B Tech's QEP Topic - "Educational and Career Advisement"
Educational and Career Advisement - providing information to current or prospective students. (If you are answering a question, you are participating in advisement.) A-B Tech advisement should be accurate, timely, easily accessible, and delivered invitationally.
Invitational Education - Activities resulting in a total college environment that intentionally summons success for everyone associated with the college.
A-B Tech's Mission Statement - "A-B Tech, the community's college, is dedicated to student success. As a comprehensive community college, A-B Tech is committed to providing accessible, quality educational opportunities for lifelong learning to meet the diverse and changing needs of our community."
A-B Tech's Vision Statement - (added to the Strategic Plan on Nov. 17, 2003) "A-B Tech's vision is to develop strategies for student success through Invitational Education."
QEP Goals:
1. Strengthen the advising and registration processes for both curriculum and continuing education students to better support their educational decision-making.
2. Provide current and prospective students with timely and easy access to accurate information to assist them in making sound educational and career decisions.
Scholarship Recipients Believe in Paying It Forward
Dental Hygiene student and Haith-Miller Endowment Scholarship recipient David Jones, III
Two non-traditional students within the Allied Health and Public Service Education Division have been honored with A-B Tech Foundation scholarships, but they both intend to "repay" this financial assistance.
David Jones, III and Dana Bentley Triplett, recipients of the Haith-Miller Endowment and the Crews Endowment Scholarships, respectively, are on course to graduate this Spring and are eagerly anticipating "repaying" their scholarships through providing health care-based services to the local community.
"I believe in giving something back," Jones, enrolled in the Dental Hygiene curriculum, wrote in his scholarship application letter. "Fulfilling my short-term financial need would be a long-term investment for our community."
Triplett, in the Nursing program, expressed similar ideals in her application letter.
Nursing student and Crews Endowment Scholarship recipient Dana Bentley Triplett
"I can only assure you that [this scholarship] will, in turn, help more than just me," she wrote. "There is the concept of 'pay it forward' that I believe truly happens in life...[and] this is the concept I plan to follow."
One of just three men in the history of the dental hygiene program and the first African-American male , Jones plans to obtain his bachelor's degree and potentially pursue teaching.
Triplett foresees working in a hospital setting to strengthen her clinical skills before continuing her education and she, too, is thinking about possibly making the transition to instruction.
A-B Tech's Emissions Technicians
Thanks to a donation from MAJEC Tool Distributors in Matthews, A-B Tech is the only institution in Buncombe County where auto technicians can earn certification on new equipment being used to check and enforce new emissions standards.
The equipment, an EASE Stand Alone On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) II NCAS machine, is valued at more than $5,500 and is housed in the Enka High School Automotive Lab.
"There are approximately 700 technicians in Buncombe County who need to be certified by June," said Joe Austin, the A-B Tech instructor who teaches the eight-hour OBD course. "And MAJEC Tool Distributors made this donation to the school for the purpose of training those technicians."
Austin and MAJEC distributor Mike Brown set up the machine, taking approximately four hours of calibration work, and the first class completed its training at the end of January. Classes are limited to 20 students, and the next sessions with available space will be offered March 15 and 17, April 19 and 21, and April 26 and 28. To register, call the Continuing Education Division at ext. 472.
