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• Students Build Bathroom Cabinets for Habitat Homes
• Service-Learning Program Named to National Honor Roll
• Certified Master Chef Demonstrates His Skills
• Communications Office Nets National Admissions Marketing Awards
• A-B Tech to Host Artisan Bread Festival
• King to Receive Phi Theta Kappa International Distinguished Administrator Award
• Invitational Education Committee Offers Two Programs in March
• Meet Foundation Scholarship Recipients
• Welcome, New Employees
• A-B Tech Teams Up with APD for SAFE Driving Course
• Smith-McDowell House Hosts History Themed Tea Parties
• Fire Protection Technology Department Shows Latest Technology
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Students Build Bathroom Cabinets for Habitat Homes

Cabinet Making students, from left, Andrall Johnson, Sal Scarano, Cole Pirkle and Instructor Mike McCracken, with the two bathroom vanities they built for Habitat for Humanity.

Students in Mike McCracken's Cabinetry/Millworking class were able to get hands-on experience and help a good cause this semester by building cabinets to be installed in a Habitat for Humanity house.

"The students went to the house where the cabinets were to be installed, measured the area, researched two sources of materials and prepared a bid as a classroom project," McCracken said. The students factored labor and materials into the bid for on-the-job training.

Habitat paid for the materials and the labor was free. The two custom-built bathroom vanities are worth about $1,000 retail, but the Cabinetry students were able to bring the project in for $318.

Student Andrall Johnson may have won the bid, but would have lost money if it were an actual job. "I didn't know it would take so long to build," she said.

"We can make the cabinets better than the store-bought ones," said student Sal Scarano. "We use high-quality wood and the labor is free."

The six students are in the third of four classes in the cabinetry curriculum. According to McCracken, it was an excellent time to start a project like this. "We hope to be able to continue to work with Habitat for Humanity and maybe try our hand at building some counters and cabinets for a kitchen," he said.

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Service-Learning Program Named to National Honor Roll

A-B Tech students work in Asheville's edible gardens for winter for a Service-Learning project. The College's Service-Learning program was named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The Corporation for National and Community Service has named A-B Tech to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for its Service-Learning program.

Service-Learning at A-B Tech led to more than 400 students performing thousands of hours of service in the community during the fall semester and for the past few years. Out of the 58 community colleges in North Carolina, A-B Tech has had the highest Service-Learning participation in 2006, 2007 and 2008, according to Lloyd Weinberg, Service-Learning coordinator for A-B Tech.

"The instructors incorporate Service-Learning into the curriculum and the students volunteer in the community in fields relevant to their studies," Weinberg said. "It makes what they are learning in the classroom come alive. It's a win-win for the community and the students."

A-B Tech started its Service-Learning program in 2005 when Weinberg volunteered to help teachers and students get involved while he was an adjunct instructor. Then President K. Ray Bailey saw the benefits of the program and worked with the members of the A-B Tech Foundation, including Foundation Executive Director Anita Metcalf and Grant Writer Tamma Moriarty, to secure a grant to create a permanent Service-Learning Center at the College. "My supervisor, Tom Dechant, (Dean of Learning Resources) and Gigi Derballa (Humanities/Fine Arts Chair) were extremely supportive in helping the program grow," Weinberg said.

A-B Tech graduate Mary Warren landed her dream job working with troubled teens through her Service-Learning experience. Warren volunteered at Eliada Home and found a good match through its program. She wrote a paper about her experiences, which was published in Explorations, the Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities for the State of North Carolina.

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of selection factors including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

The Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation, in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education.

"I offer heartfelt congratulations to those institutions named to the 2008 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. College and university students across the country are making a difference in the lives of others every day - as are the institutions that encourage their students to serve others," said American Council on Education President Molly Corbett Broad.

Recent studies have underlined the importance of Service-Learning and volunteering to college students. In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave more than 297 million hours of volunteer service, according to the Corporation's Volunteering in America 2007 study. Expanding campus incentives for service is part of a larger initiative to spur higher levels of volunteering by America's college students. The Corporation is working with a coalition of federal agencies, higher education and student associations, and nonprofit organizations to achieve this goal.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The Corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports Service-Learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. For more information, go to www.nationalservice.gov.

Service-Learning Center

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Certified Master Chef Demonstrates His Skills

Certified Master Chef J. Kevin Walker prepares a pasta recipe from The French Laundry during a demonstration Feb. 27 in the demonstration hall of the Magnolia Building. Walker, who has received numerous awards including the title of national Chef of the Year, shared his processes and organizational skills for the kitchen with Culinary Technology students. One of only 61 certified master chefs in the nation, he was inducted into the American Academy of Chefs in 2008. He is currently the executive chef at Cherokee Town & Country Club in Atlanta.

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