Grant To Expand A-B Tech Nursing Assistant Program
Students in the Nursing Assistant program practice taking blood pressure in a patient care station in the Elm Building on the Asheville Campus.
A $130,630 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust will allow A-B Tech to expand its nursing assistant program by more than 50 percent to help meet the high demand in Western North Carolina.
The college trained 800 nursing assistants this past year to provide care to the elderly in the 174 facilities and 5,600 nursing home/adult care beds in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania counties. Yet more are needed, according to Gaynelle Rogers, former coordinator and instructor of Health Occupations at A-B Tech.
Rogers said a health care facility with a staff of 10 nursing assistants might end up hiring 14 people in a single year to keep those 10 positions filled. "It is a high turnover rate. It's very hard work," she said.
The $130,630 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust of Winston-Salem to the A-B Tech Foundation will allow the College to expand the Nursing Assistant program to its Enka Campus and train an additional 500 nursing assistants each year.
Max Queen, vice president of Continuing Education, said the funds would be used to purchase equipment to establish a classroom and a lab on the Enka Campus, and hire a coordinator and secretary for the program. "The lab will consist of three patient care stations, which will replicate what we have on the Asheville Campus," Queen said.
The patient care stations consist of a standard hospital bed and bedside table with the general supplies used in the care of a patient.
In addition, the grant will enable A-B Tech to replace the equipment in the current labs and purchase new equipment for the Enka Campus to ensure uniform care stations across the campuses. The Asheville Campus currently has two classrooms and two labs, with six patient care stations.
"This will enable us to offer approximately 74 classes training an estimated 1,300 nursing assistants for employment in our area annually," Queen said.
"Health care and jobs are foremost on everyone's mind," said Anita Metcalf, A-B Tech Foundation Executive Director. "The expansion of the Nursing Assistant program will address both of these concerns. We, at A-B Tech, appreciate the favorable consideration given this grant application by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust."
Navies Captures Past Through Oral History
Kelly Navies
Long before written communication was established, history was recorded through the spoken word, passed down through generations. Now oral history has come full circle, and is again used to capture the past.
Kelly Navies, Basic Skills recruiter at A-B Tech, received her introduction into oral history in 1991 as an undergraduate student at the University of California at Berkeley. She was assigned to do a paper on a maternal ancestor in the 19th century.
"My mother often spoke of her great-grandmother who'd been a slave in North Carolina and had lived over 100 years," Navies said. "That particular ancestor was Elizabeth Gudger. She was born around 1854 and died in 1956. Her brother lived to be 111."
Navies was able to get a glimpse into the life of Elizabeth Gudger Stevens, who was also known as Betty and Betsy, from the memories of many family members. "I was given a lot of information by Gearldine Ray, my mother's first cousin. She is the family historian. She currently lives in Weaverville and is a graduate of Stephens-Lee, but was actually raised in Barnardsville," she said.
"Betsy walked all the time, even 12 miles to church on Sundays up until the year she died. She was a midwife and healed people with herbs. She baked delicious breads," Navies said. "The family has pleasant and vivid memories of her meals and walking to church. My mother met her once."
Stevens stayed in the area where she had been a slave even though many others left after being freed. Navies believes it was family and the scenery that kept her here. "Many freed men and women that left were looking for family. Her family connections were strong here and there was the beauty of the mountains. There are traditions that have lasted. It's a good reason to stay," she said.
Those are also the reason Navies left California for North Carolina. "Researching that project brought me back here. I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for graduate work so I could be near the mountains."
At Chapel Hill, Navies became involved in the Southern Oral History Program's 25th anniversary project "Listening for a Change: North Carolina Communities in Transition."
This project was aimed at post-World War II history. Navies came to Western North Carolina to do oral history interviews about Asheville's Stephens-Lee High School that closed in 1965. "I did most of the interviews during the summer, but as more came up, I continued to go back and forth from Durham," she said.
"I was really lucky with the Stephens-Lee interviews. I was given a name, Everette Parrish, and I contacted him," she said. Parrish's name came from a friend and colleague from Chapel Hill, Kathy Newfont, who now teaches at Mars Hill College. It happened that Stephens-Lee was having a bi-annual reunion at that time, and Parrish took Navies along with him. "I got a whole list of names."
She also learned what the school building, which was closed and then demolished as a result of desegregation, meant to students. "Stephens-Lee was a much-loved and revered institution and a focal point of Asheville's African-American community," she said.
She then moved to Baltimore, Md., for what she thought would be a good oral history job with a brand-new museum, the Reginald F. Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture. She was hired as a contract interviewer in 2001, and did over 60 interviews for the museum, scheduled to open this summer, according to its website. Unlike the Stephens-Lee project, she was given a list of names; however, like the Stephens-Lee list, it grew. "In any given area of research, interviewees would suggest others that I should also contact," Navies said.
Doing an oral history interview is different than doing a news story, according to Navies. "Oral history is much more in-depth," she said. Navies audio records everything and takes brief notes on paper just to get proper names. She is able to give her full attention to the person she's interviewing.
Once the tapes are complete, they need to be deposited in a good place. "You have to have the right facilities. It's not good to hold on to them. Tapes wear out," she said. Navies gave her tapes to UNC-Chapel Hill and to the museum in Maryland.
Due to personal and professional reasons, and the family connections, she came back to the mountains and wants to write a book about African-Americans in the mountains. "It's strange, but sometimes people from other areas seem to have no idea there were African-Americans here in the Appalachians."
"I consider being an oral historian one part of my identity as a writer and educator. It's all about storytelling and passing it on," she said.
New Lab At Enka Campus
The Biotechnology Incubator on A-B Tech's Enka Campus will lease a space to a company that will provide chemical and molecular information and services to a range of clients, with emphasis on the pharmaceutical industry.
Genesis Molecular Discovery, a client of AdvantageWest's Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council and Blue Ridge Angel Investors Network, will occupy a wet lab that will be retrofit and finished by June. The renovations are expected to cost $110,000. AdvantageWest has committed $55,000 in funds, and Buncombe County will match it with an additional $55,000.
This new lab is designed to attract high-growth businesses in the life science industries to Western North Carolina and is a solid investment for economic development leaders, according to AdvantageWest CEO Dale Carroll. Once Genesis Molecular Discovery outgrows the incubator, the wet lab will be available for other life science clients.
"After meeting extensively with our client, Genesis Molecular, we learned that despite a strong interest in operating in Western North Carolina, they were finding difficulty in securing suitable lab space for complex chemical operations," Carroll said. "We now have retrofit plans that will give Western North Carolina its first truly world-class wet lab space for private sector life sciences applications. I would like to thank A-B Tech and Buncombe County for their leadership in supporting the lab's development."
"Having a life sciences firm the caliber of Genesis Molecular Discovery on our campus is an exciting development for A-B Tech," said President K. Ray Bailey. "We appreciate the support of Buncombe County and AdvantageWest in retrofitting space on our Enka Campus to make this day possible," Bailey said.