East Central Community College trustees are working hard to ensure students have opportunities to learn the most up-to-date skills and techniques through constant expansion and revision of the college’s course offerings.
In a Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 9, Vice President for Instruction Teresa Houston presented several new courses and an opportunity to give students credit for classes they’ve already taken.
“There are very few instances where you could stay the IHL (Institution of Higher Learning) and Mississippi Community Colleges are on the same page,” Houston said. “But with this one, we are.”
For years, Houston said, community colleges and universities have had differing ideas of a passing score on high school AP (advanced placement) courses. She said this has created issues for some students, who get credit for a course at East Central, but must retake the class once they transfer to a 4-year school.
However, she said, the IHL, which governs Mississippi’s 4-year schools, and Mississippi’s community colleges got together and agreed to standardize the acceptance of AP classes. All AP classes with a score of 3 on a student’s transcript will be accepted at both the community college and university level.
Additionally, Houston said, East Central has added a national certification for the Career Planning and Assessment System students, which was the last national certification the college needed in its career path courses.
“All career paths now have a national certification,” she said.
Unfortunately, Houston said, students who took the national certification exam did not perform as well as their instructors had hoped, with less than half passing the exam, but there was a bright side to that as well.
Now that East Central knows it needs to raise the bar for those courses, Houston said, instructors can work toward preparing students to be competitive on a national level.
“And if we need to go back and do some remedial instruction, we can do that,” she said.
New courses coming soon
Also, during their Oct. 9 meeting, trustees voted to add two new career paths for students to pursue.
East Central has been working on developing a curriculum for a lineman training course for several years, said ECCC President Billy Stewart. The curriculum is finished, and a non-credit instructor has been found.
Stewart said, with board approval, the instructor could begin Jan. 1, 2019 to begin preparing to accept the first batch of students for Fall 2019. When launched, the lineman course would graduate a class of certified, work ready linemen every 16-weeks.
Another new certification offering that is available for East Central is a Diesel Equipment Technology Program, Houston said. She said the college applied for, and was awarded, a $399,000 grant from the Mississippi Community College Board to begin the program.
“We are really excited about this new program,” she said.
While the new class would not be able to launch until Fall 2019, Houston asked the board to accept the grant and approve pursuing the new program early to meet the deadline for filing a new program application with the Mississippi Department of Education.
“The deadline to make their December meeting is Oct. 17,” she said, adding the program application was being filled out as the board met.
The board agreed both the lineman training and diesel equipment course were great opportunities for East Central and its students. Motions to approve both courses passed unanimously.
The East Central Community College Board of Trustees will next meet Tuesday, Nov. 13. Trustees meet for lunch at noon and begin the board meeting around 1 p.m.
