The Courier-Journal
November 20, 2002
SHELBYVILLE, Ky. -- Even if Laurie Lawson had said nothing at yesterday's grand opening of the Shelby County campus of the Jefferson Community and Technical College District, the importance of the day would have shown in her eyes.
Almost from the moment she stepped to the podium, tears flowed and her voice trembled with emotion as she described the disappointment of living without a college degree after flunking out of Murray State University.
''I often wished I could turn back the hands of time,'' said Lawson, a 30year-old single mother. ''. . . I wanted a college degree. I needed a college degree. I could almost taste a college degree.''
Now she is earning one at the new campus, where classes began in midAugust. It primarily serves students in Shelby, Spencer, Henry and Trimble counties.
''It provides an opportunity for those who would not otherwise attend college were it not here,'' she said.
The $10.8 million campus is the latest addition to the district -- which includes Jefferson Community College in Louisville -- as it strives to improve access to education regionally and boost its enrollment of 13,033 students.
About 230 students are enrolled at the Shelby campus, which consists of a 48,000-square-foot building about two miles east of Shelbyville on U.S. 60, said Anthony L. Newberry, president of Jefferson Community College.
Newberry predicts that Shelby enrollment will blossom to 1,000 students within eight years and reach 2,500 to 3,000 in 20 years.
''Jefferson County is growing, but the real growth is coming in . . . the outlying counties,'' Newberry said. So the hope is that the Shelby campus will grow ''in response to the growth of the community and then also . . . stimulate the growth of this community.''
In a ceremony yesterday, several local dignitaries praised the project, including Shelby County Judge-Executive Robert Stratton, who said the campus is a dream come true, and state Sen.-elect Gary Tapp, who touted it as a means of increasing not only educational but economic opportunity.
Loyd Cheak, whose family previously owned the property, said he was ''deeply
gratified'' to see it being used for a school that could benefit his grandchildren
and other youths. ''I can drive by and look up here and be proud,'' he said.
Classes are limited now, but students will be able to obtain an associate's degree within the next couple of years, said John Horton, interim director of the Shelby campus. The offerings include business studies, machine-tool technology and nursing, as well as general education classes, such as math, English, social studies, psychology, biology and art.
The campus also is offering dualcredit courses to students at the neighboring Shelby County High School and Shelby County Area Technology Center, Horton said. That means those students can get credit from their own school and from the Shelby campus for taking certain courses.
At yesterday's grand opening, Gov. Paul Patton hailed the new campus.
''Young people in high school can begin to look at college (here), and they actually can begin to prepare and get credit for college while they're still in high school -- or how they can work in technical fields and build towards academic degrees and certificates,'' Patton said.
The Kentucky Post
November 15, 2002
Dr. G. Edward Hughes intends to transform an institution that's been around
for decades.
Emblematic of that transformation was a change of the institution's name last
month from the Northern Kentucky Community and Technical College district to
Gateway Community and Technical College.
The new name reflects a growing role for the two-year college, which seeks to provide quality education to move students directly into jobs and to prepare them to transfer to degree programs at four-year institutions. And the new name helps define the college as the separate and independent entity it is, working cooperatively with, but not as a part of, Northern Kentucky University.
Hughes, who today is inaugurated as the founding president of Gateway Community and Technical College, embraces that growing role.
While today's inauguration made his presidency official, Hughes, who was previously president of Hazard Community College, has been laying groundwork and guiding the college's transformation for nearly a year.
Over the past year enrollment increased from 2,200 to 2,550. Hughes expects that to double in five years and climb to 9,000 in 10 years.
He sees the college's new campus in Boone County filling a role that's critical to the region with its emphasis on industrial and manufacturing technology. Groundbreaking is scheduled for February, joining Gateway campuses in Covington, Edgewood and Highland Heights.
Hughes expects Gateway to earn accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as a comprehensive community college where all coursework is transferable to four-year schools.
Gateway will continue to fill its core mission of providing students with assessable education and training students for technical careers.
But in 2002 that has taken on new dimensions. Gateway is now far more than a "vocational school." It is a place where the technical skills needed to maintain an increasingly complex society are taught. Along with cosmetology, carpentry and bricklaying are courses in sophisticated electronics, computer assisted drafting, graphic design and a wide array of health careers. Gateway also tailors courses to fit the training needs of area business and industry.
We welcome Hughes as the college's founding president and we applaud the transformation of Gateway Community and Technical College into a valuable education asset.
Today the college assumes its rightful station as an equal in our community of higher education.
Enrollment at Bowling Green Technical College reached a record this semester.
There are 2,288 students enrolled for the fall semester. The combined enrollment of the four campuses of BGTC increased over fall 2001 enrollment by 3 percent, with projections of a 5 percent increase before the end of the semester.
For the past four years, enrollment has steadily increased up 33 percent in 1999, 30 percent in 2000, and 58 percent in 2001. With the 3 percent increase this year, there has been a cumulative 124 percent increase in the college’s enrollment since the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) was formed in 1998.
Almost every college in KCTCS is enrolling record numbers of students this fall. System-wide enrollment is up more than 5 percent over fall 2001 and more than 45 percent since fall 1998.
Enrollment has increased this fall among both full-time students (up 4.1 percent)
and part-time students (up 5.1 percent). Fifteen of the 16 KCTCS districts saw
enrollment increases from fall 2001 to fall 2002.
The News-Enterprise
November 18, 2002
Cathy Halcomb Beahm recently dashed around an Elizabethtown Community College nursing lab, caring for three mounds of plastic posing as humans.
While she completed nurse duties, her instructor, posing as aid and doctor, interrupted. One of the "patients" had a high temperature, adding extra tasks to Beahm's two-hour test period. She faked a phone call to the doctor for instructions, and then picked up her patient care demonstration.
"I had to do a lot of things. I don't know how I did it all in two hours," Beahm said.
Beahm, 42, who left a broadcasting career for nursing school, will graduate from ECC with an associate's degree in December.
While the nation faces a nursing shortage, the local nursing school and Hardin Memorial Hospital officials are working together, pouncing on a variety of recruiting and retention efforts among students and practicing nurses.
At the school, the nursing curriculum has been designed to provide a realistic taste of today's nursing environment.
Susan Mudd, who coordinates ECC's program, hopes dealing with multiple patients and interruptions during evaluations will alleviate the "shock factor" that takes many nurses off the floor early in their careers. The stress and responsibilities of the job often overcome new nurses, Mudd said.
"We're trying to be sure the student is prepared for the environment and has the skills so they're not shocked by the environment," Mudd said.
An overwhelming work atmosphere is one reason, Mudd said, some nurses aren't nursing.
"We have got a lot of people with nursing licenses out there who aren't working as a nurse for a variety of reasons," Mudd said.
The Kentucky Board of Nursing reports that 3,435 licensed registered nurses statewide are inactive, and Mudd believes a portion hung up their stethoscopes when the reality of the work "shocked" them off the job. There are 43,768 active registered nurses in Kentucky.
Beahm is confident she'll keep up with a fast-paced nursing position.
"I think the most shocking thing will be knowing you are ultimately responsible for managing the care of a patient," she said.
Working in several clinical settings, including her current position as a nursing aid at Hardin Memorial Hospital, has fostered Beahm's confidence.
ECC has joined with Hardin Memorial Hospital to give nursing students hands-on experience beyond traditional internships. Through new practicum programs, students work one-on-one with a nurse and complete tasks under that nurse's supervision.
"They'd get a better feel for working a full shift at the hospital," said Jeanette Griffen, vice president of patient services at the hospital.
The hospital has also connected with students for some time through scholarships, given in exchange for an employment commitment from the student.
Hardin Memorial staffing efforts that focus on practicing nurses include bonuses for employees who recommend a new nurse, bonuses for voluntary overtime and tuition reimbursement that lower-level employees often use to become registered nurses. The incentives have paid off. The hospital usually only has about eight openings among 258 registered nurse positions.
"There was a time when we were told people weren't as interested in the profession, but that seems to be changing," Griffen said.
A shortage in the field seems to have recharged interest in nursing as it offers hard-to-match job security no matter the economy's condition.
Although Beahm's mother, Ruth Halcomb, who was also a nurse, held the strongest influence in Beahm's career switch, the security and flexibility she found in nursing pulled her to the field.
"There are many, many jobs for nurses. They're endless," Beahm said.
"Students who want them have jobs before they graduate," said Mudd. "There are all kinds of areas just begging for nurses." In addition to clinical and educational settings, nurses are needed at sales, consulting and research firms.
With graduation a month away, Beahm has already lined up a registered nurse's position at Hardin Memorial Hospital. Although she won't actually practice until she meets certification requirements, she'll be able to get a long orientation process under way.
Though hospitals have beefed up recruiting efforts and nursing schools are paying closer attention to the real demands of the job, officials are still cringing at what the future and an aging population will demand. The worst of the shortage is still several years away, Griffen said.
But another aging group is agitating the nursing shortage- nursing instructors.
"The response I get from several programs in the state is they are having difficulty finding academically prepared faculty," said Michael Bloyd, an education consultant with the Kentucky Board of Nursing. In all, Kentucky has 56 registered nurse and licensed practical nurse programs.
A nationwide study by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in 2000, supported Bloyd's fears. Recruiting faculty with master's and doctoral degrees were among nursing schools' greatest challenges, said Robert Rosseter, a spokesman for the AACN.
"We're concerned, with the wave of retirement expected, there won't be enough to replace today's instructors," he said.
During the 2001-02 school year, the median age of all nursing faculty members was 51 and the median age of full professors was about 56, the AACN reports.
"Graduate nurses are heading more into the practice arenas more than education arenas," Bloyd said.
He suggests that schools gearing their programs to solely fill the need for clinical nurses have cut the number of academia-bound nurses.
The salary difference between education and clinical settings also steers nurses with advance degrees from teaching.
Last year, a national survey of nurse practitioners revealed a master's degree-holding nurse working in their own private practice earned an average of $78,217 annually, while nursing educators with the same degree earned $54,980.
"Without teachers, you won't have nurses," Rosseter said. Finding money to support advanced degree-seeking nurses highlights his organization's goals.
He said the Nurse Reinstatement Act plants new hope for filling the shortage. The act will forgive up to 85 percent of student loans for an advanced degree, depending on how long the nurse is willing to teach. But Congress has not yet marked funding for the program.
Locally, ECC was hard-pressed to fill two faculty positions at the start of this semester.
"We don't get the optimal. That (faculty applicant) pool is small," Mudd said.
The school, at first hoping to hire teachers with master's degrees, hired teachers with bachelor's degrees on the condition they would continue their education while teaching.
An evaporating pool of teaching nurses caps class sizes and, eventually, cuts the potential number of practicing nurses.
"The limiting factor we have is a Kentucky Board of Nursing mandate that limits a clinical teacher to 10 students," Mudd said. "That's what we have to look at when we admit a new class."
ECC's registered nurse program accepts about 35 students for a 90-candidate pool each semester, Mudd said. The applicant pool has widened with news of the shortage. The school generally enrolls as many as possible while adhering to state regulations.
Usually, the limited space turns away student applicants whose predicted success in the program is borderline. But even with an expanded staff, ECC's nursing class would still be limited for lack of classroom space and money for additional supplies.
"It's multi-faceted, anyway you look at it," Mudd said.