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| Dr. Priscilla Bell |
How PTE, community can work together
Professional-technical education at North Idaho College remains a vibrant topic of discussion throughout our communities.
As I promised in this space last month, I'll continue to talk about PTE and how we strive to meet community needs.
PTE students can earn a technical certificate of completion with as few as seven credit hours. At the other end of the timeline, students can earn an associate of applied science (AAS) degree with a minimum of two years of study and 60 credits.
Traditionally, this spectrum of options fulfilled the needs of the majority of our PTE students; however, we find many of our AAS graduates are looking for avenues to continue on to a baccalaureate degree. That is one option we cannot fulfill at NIC, since we do not offer upper division classes (and by the way, do not have plans to since that is not the role of a community college).
That isn't the end of this story though. NIC has a great partnership with Lewis-Clark State College which for many years has provided junior and senior level courses for our Associate of Arts or Associate of Science graduates to pursue bachelor's degrees.
The PTE students in North Idaho can now complete programs ranging from seven weeks to four years. They decide how much they want to complete at any given time to acquire the skill expertise and education level they decide is right for them. In an era when continuing education has become the norm rather than the exception, our citizens can start their working careers with basic skills and progress in skill level and education as their work situation demands. For the past three years, NIC and LCSC have provided this option for programs in three broad areas: business and professional programs, trades and industry and health professions. Simply put, if you get an AAS at NIC, LCSC has a program for you to continue toward a bachelor's degree.
I'm also very proud of the work being done to make our courses more accessible to students who need more flexibility in scheduling and completing courses. This semester, we opened the Flexible Learning Center (FLC) as part of our Computer Applications and Office Technology Department. The FLC is a computer classroom offering individualized, self-paced learning for computer application courses, such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Students who choose this method work at their own pace to complete assignments and take their tests within the semester they enrolled.
Their classroom is any computer, at home or at school. If they need to work in the FLC, it is open various hours of the day, including evenings and Saturday mornings. If they need help, instructors are available in the FLC or via e-mail.
While the FLC courses may not be for everyone, they offer a great alternative for students who can learn without traditional classroom instruction. These flexible one-credit courses allow students greater control over their learning schedules. Each course awards college credit, so a student can apply the credits toward a degree or certificate. And, in this time of declining budgets, the FLC is a fantastic example of doing more with less. Last spring, five full-time faculty members delivered approximately 560 credits in traditional classroom settings. Compare that to this fall as only three full-time faculty delivered 825 credits though the FLC. That is a huge 45 percent increase with two fewer instructors!
I hope these last two columns have increased your awareness of and appreciation for the scope of PTE. Next month, I'll venture into a new, but related topic. This past year we merged our Workforce Training Center into our PTE division, which is now called Professional, Technical and Workforce Education.
Read more about how we're better serving students through this new structure in next month's column.
Priscilla Bell, Ph.D., is president of North Idaho College. For comments on this column, e-mail her at PresidentsColumn@NIC.EDU.
