KCTCS begins major campaign

Flatwoods nursing student first to get ACTC scholarship

Local adult education programs gets rewards

Daily Independent
October 21, 2003

KCTCS begins major campaign

ASHLAND The state community college system of which Ashland Community and Technical College is a part on Monday launched a multi-million dollar fund-raising campaign.

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System's five-year major-gifts campaign will target corporate heavyweights to fund four major initiatives:

*Student Success Fund will offer loans and scholarships, expand career exploration and job-shadowing, create programs and services for at-risk students, support student involvement in national academic and leadership organizations and increase the transfer of students to universities.

*New Economy Fund will expand teaching capabilities in emerging technologies.

*New Opportunities Fund will be an unrestricted endowment to pay for special projects and initiatives for which budgeted funds are not available.

*KCTCS Building Fund will support renovation of a former manufacturing facility into permanent quarters for the KCTCS system office.

ACTC will launch its own fund-raising campaign in the spring, said its president, Greg Adkins. That drive will be separate from the system-wide campaign, he said.

KCTCS didn't announce a goal, but President Michael B. McCall said the campaign is expected to be the largest private fund-raising effort ever undertaken by a two-year college system in the U.S.

The largest such campaign previously was the $43 million undertaking by the Kentucky community college system in the mid-1990s.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky has already promised the first major gift of the campaign, $500,000 to launch the KCTCS Center of Excellence in Automotive Manufacturing, McCall said.

Most of the benefit from that gift will go to Central Kentucky Technical College in Lexington and Gateway Community and Technical College in Northern Kentucky.

The money will allow KCTCS to develop its capability to teach skills needed in the automotive industry.

ACTC will receive some benefit, Adkins said, in the form of diagnostic equipment and other hardware for its automotive technology program.

Daily Independent
October 21, 2003

Flatwoods nursing student first to get ACTC scholarship

ASHLAND Ashland Community and Technical College has selected a single, working parent from the region to receive a full scholarship to Ashland Community & Technical College next year, thanks to a recent donation at the state level.

Brenda Brown, a nursing student from Flatwoods, is the first area recipient of the Kentucky Colonels Better Life Scholarship Program.

The program seeks to help "highly motivated and deserving students who desire a better life for their children and know that their only hope is through a college education."

The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels is funding the program with a $320,000 donation over five years. Through it, one student from each of the 16 Kentucky Community and Technical College System districts will be selected to receive a $2,500 scholarship to cover the costs of full-time attendance.

The scholarship can be renewed for a second year if the student continues full-time status and makes "satisfactory progress" toward completion of an associate degree.

The scholarship program is geared toward those students who would otherwise be unable to obtain the financial assistance they need to attend school full-time. The criteria are:

* Kentucky resident;

* A single, working parent with one or more child under the age of 12;

* A demonstrated financial need not met by other sources; and

* A demonstrated enthusiasm for learning and potential for academic success.

Note: The Boyd County Adult Education and Literacy program is associated with Ashland Community and Technical College.

Daily Independent
October 21, 2003

Local adult education programs gets rewards

FRANKFORT Local adult education programs are being rewarded for their continuing success.

Kentucky Adult Education, a unit of the Council on Post-secondary Education, recently announced financial rewards to programs that met enrollment and performance goals for fiscal year 2003.

The rewards range from 5 to 10 percent of the programs' base funding.

In Greenup County, the adult education program was awarded $18,779, the most in the area. Boyd received $14,411; Carter, $11,785; Lawrence, $6,440 and Elliott, $2,686.

A total of 75 counties received a total of $879,555.

"This is the first time we have gotten rewards, so we are very happy," said Beverly Waddell, an instructor at the Greenup County Adult Education Center.

The center served approximately 959 people in fiscal year 2003, she said. If a center reaches its goal, then the state raises its goal for the following year, Waddell explained.

The rewards money will be used for advertising and new computers at the center in South Shore, which opened Aug. 1, she said.

In Boyd County, the program has received rewards for the past three years, since the state adult education accountability system was started.

"It really is a challenge," said Joan Flannery, director of the Boyd County Adult Education Center. "We are constantly brain-storming and trying to come up with new ways to reach out to the public."

The Boyd County center, which recently moved to the Ashland Community and Technical College's Roberts Drive campus, served approximately 1,286 people last year, Flannery said.

She said the center is coming up with a "wish list" of things it would like to purchase with its money.

Statewide, a record high 109,800 Kentuckians enrolled in adult education programs last year, up from 86,413 the year before.

Adult education includes family literacy, adult basic education, GED preparation, workforce education, corrections education and English as a second language.