MBA Students Team with Small Business Center
An MBA student from Western Carolina University presents a research project to business owners at A-B Tech's Small Business Center.
Four student teams from Western Carolina University presented projects they had been working on during the spring semester to area small businesses in conjunction with a new program piloted by A-B Tech's Small Business Center and WCU's Small Business and Technology Development Center.
The program allows small business owners to have students complete research projects in areas of marketing, operations and business expansion. Four area businesses were selected to participate in the pilot program.
The purpose of the program is to allow graduate level students an opportunity to experience firsthand the trials of operating a business as they assist the small business owners in research and planning for their future success. Students analyzed each business as well as the specific areas the business owner wanted researched. They met with each owner several times and most performed on-site inspections and evaluations for their client. At the conclusion of the program, clients were given a presentation of the findings and a formal written report with guides to implementing the team's recommendations. Comments from the business owners were positive and indicated the students helped focus their attention on broader topics that affect their business rather than the day-to-day decisions.
The program will continue in the fall with a larger group of students and will become a regular course offering.
The Web Survey Results are In!
A-B Tech's web site users were surveyed during April and May on their opinion of the college's web site. The response rate for full-time employees was about 33%, and for non-employee users (students, employers, community members) was about 15%. Two survey respondents were randomly selected to win lunch for two prepared by the Hospitality Education Department this fall. The winners were Anita Sayles, an Asheville resident, and Mary Alice Church-Steurer, Director of Business Services.
Several areas of the web site were identified for improvement: a searchable directory of campus employees and departments; condensing job listings into a single list; providing more information on different programs of study; displaying more images or even video clips of campus life; providing more timely and up-to-date information; presenting a calendar of upcoming events; using more color rather than white space; and, for internal users, organizing the intranet more intuitively for quicker access to forms and policies.
The college's Web Designer, Deborah Ellington, is developing templates and a new file structure to accommodate integrating these improvements into the web site. Survey respondents who indicated an interest in participating in focus groups may be called within the next one to two months and invited to try out the prototype web site before it is published on the web. Any additional comments from users who missed the survey are most welcome and should be sent to dellington@abtech.edu.
In Memory
The brothers and sister of Scotty Wilson, former adjunct clinical instructor for radiography, assist in planting a tree in his memory, on Earth Day in the lower parking lot near the Rhododendron Building. Wilson had been an instructor at A-B Tech from August 1987 until he passed away this past summer. He was also the second shift supervisor in the radiology department at Mission Hospital, where he worked for 24 years. The tree is a weeping Japanese maple, and a bronze and granite marker was placed in front. Mission Hospitals was responsible for donating $500 that was used to purchase the marker and tree. Donations were also received from students, faculty, and co-workers of Wilson. The tree is near the parking lot for students riding shuttles to Mission Hospitals to see.
Student Artwork
A-B Tech student Elizabeth Linton presents her art to Sheila Tillman, chair of Hospitality Education, for display in the new Magnolia Hospitality Education Center. Linton's piece received the SGA Purchase Award in the 2005 Student Art Exhibition. A student in the Associate of Arts program, Linton created a snapdragon on watercolor made out of individual one-inch squares. Each square had to be done one at a time and dried so they wouldn't run together. Some of the squares have different effects where Linton used salt to absorb paint pigment, and where she used blotting techniques.