Wayne Community College has been honored as a finalist for a Bellwether Award, a national citation that recognizes community colleges’ best practices.
WCC’s Clearing a Path to Student Success (CAPSS) Initiative was named a Bellwether Finalist in the Planning, Governance, and Finance category that recognizes programs or activities that have been designed and successfully implemented to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the community college.
CAPSS is a campus-wide initiative that embraces a “guided pathways” approach to supporting students as they progress to completion. Faculty and staff were involved in the redesign of academic programs and student support services. Those changes resulted in measurable improvements in student completion and increased employability skills.
“This college has an excellent reputation for student success and increasing the employability skills of our students and graduates” said Dr. Patty Pfeiffer, WCC interim vice president for academic and student services. “Recognition from the Bellwether Futures Assembly affirms the work the college is doing to carry out the mission of our college in meeting the educational and training needs of the communities we serve.”
“The field of Bellwether nominations was very competitive this year with over 200 Bellwether applications,” according to a press release from the Bellwether College Consortium. Ten finalists were selected in each of three categories: Planning, Governance, and Finance plus Instructional Programs and Services and Workforce Development.
“Everyone there was a winner,” said Dr. Thomas A. Walker Jr., WCC president. “We will go back next year.”
Each category was judged by a panel of national experts within that group. The judges considered finalists’ materials and the quality of their presentations.
The finalists presented about their programs and projects on February 4 at the Community College Futures Assembly in San Antonio, Texas. The presenting team from WCC included Walker; Pfeiffer; Veda McNair, Board of Trustees member; Joanna Morrisette, associate vice president for academic and student services; Dr, Ernie White, Applied Technologies Division dean; and Hunter Allen, an automotive technology student.
Walker described Allen as “an impressive young man” and noted that he received a standing ovation for his part in the presentation. He is a full-time student who has maintained a 4.0 grade point average in his automotive courses while working six days a week at the Toyota dealership in New Bern, his hometown.
“My role was to give the audience and judges a point of view from the student’s perspective and the experience from going through this program,” said Allen. “I helped explain how this program has helped me as a student to move from school to work and to continue on to transfer to a four-year university.”
The CAPSS initiative is “amazing. It is a program that pushes a student to want to get their full associate degree and not stop half way,” Allen said. “A student such as myself can receive third-party credentials along the way which are free! They cost nothing to the student and give them a reason to continue to receive all these certifications to use in the industry once they graduate.”
In addition to his classes at WCC, through which he has received 13 General Motors certifications, 28 Chrysler certifications, 23 Snap-on certifications, Allen has taken the initiative to earn Toyota certifications online to prepare for a technician position at the dealership after he graduates in May.
The winner in each of the three categories was announced and all finalists were presented trophies on Feb. 5 at the CCFA annual meeting.
Other North Carolina community colleges distinguished as Bellwether Finalists were Wake Technical Community College (Instructional Programs and Services category) and Fayetteville Technical Community College (Planning, Governance and Finance category and Workforce Development category).
The Bellwether Awards are an integral part of the Futures Assembly, which was established in 1995.The Assembly is sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Florida and focuses on cutting-edge, trendsetting programs that other colleges might find worthy of replicating.
The Community College Futures Assembly, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, convenes annually as an independent national policy forum for key opinion leaders to work as a “think tank” in identifying critical issues facing the future of community colleges, and to recognize Bellwether Finalist colleges as trend-setting institutions.
The Bellwether College Consortium is an elite group of colleges charged with the mission to address the critical issues facing community colleges through applicable research and the promotion and replication of best practices addressing workforce development, instructional programs and services, and planning governance and finance.
Wayne Community College is a public, learning-centered institution with an open-door admission policy located in Goldsboro, N.C. As it works to develop a highly skilled and competitive workforce, the college serves 12,000 individuals annually as well as businesses, industry, and community organizations with high quality, affordable, accessible learning opportunities, including more than 70 college credit programs. WCC’s mission is to meet the educational, training, and cultural needs of the communities it serves.