"Dr. Michael McCall, Kentucky Community & Technical College System"

Dr. Michael McCall is the President of the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS). He works closely with Rotarian Dr. Barbara Veazey, President of West Kentucky Community & Technical College (WKCTC), and the leaders of the 16-college consortium of community and technical schools in Kentucky. Through their current work, these institutions are taking steps to address the forces of change today, including changing demographics, turbulent economic circumstances, declining population of students entering higher education, and the general preparedness of our workforce.

Three Major Initiatives Dr. McCall spoke about WKCTC's efforts to address the following three initiative areas: workforce competiveness, student transfers, and on-line education.

Workforce Competitiveness WKCTC has created the Emerging Technologies Center to address workforce preparedness and the current STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) priorities set by the Department of Education. WKCTC was just awarded a competitive $1.9 million national community-based training grant to support local training and help address local nuclear industry needs.

Student Transfers Student transfer is a problem for students who move between two- and four-year institutions as well as those who transfer between four-year institutions. KCTCS is concerned about the current block transfer agreement within the state of Kentucky and is working to reform that so that more credits will transfer for all students.

Dr. McCall spoke about the history of four-year university and community college connections and the relevance of each to the needs of each community. It is the goal of KCTCS to match the local community colleges to the needs of each community. The efforts to address this include partnerships with four-year universities, similar to the one that exists between Murray State University and WKCTC.

KCTCS On-line Education The KCTCS has identified a need in its 16 communities to develop an on-line education system catered to the student, with small bits and pieces of curriculum available and that is not restricted to specific terms.

On Monday, January 26, the KCTCS will conduct a soft launch of its new on-line learning program for Business Administration and Information Technology. Modules will be determined by faculty and will be competency-based. Students will determine when they can sign on. Courses will be offered 24 hours a day and never close. Faculty are ready to teach at any time. The hope is that the subject areas will soon expand to Business and Industry piece to enhance training partnerships with corporations. An industry would be able to tap into this at any time. The world-wide launch of the program will take place on March 1st. The programs will be offered by all 16 colleges in the KCC system. The next initiatives will be focused on health industry.

The KCTCS & WKCTC are committed to providing flexible and creative opportunities to make our communities and our state and the economy better. Dr. McCall applauded WKCTC's creativeness and support of community needs sets this college apart from many others across the state."