Overview

In an area of the country that is seeing no economic growth, West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) provides tremendous opportunities for students and the region alike. The community college excels at its twin goals of providing students with strong job training and continuing higher education opportunity, boasting high completion and transfer rates and strong employment results for graduates. On campus, WKCTC works hard to make sure every student is learning by using classroom-based and campus-wide assessments to drive improvements in instruction. The results are clear: WKCTC transfers perform better than other Kentucky students in their junior and senior years at four-year colleges. At the same time, WKCTC is a vital player in regional economic development, supplying the majority of nurses and other allied health professionals for the region’s robust health care sector as well as creating new programs to respond to the needs of local industries—from the nearby chemical factory to area riverboat operators.

Measuring student learning

For many people studying health sciences, the anatomy and physiology course is an insurmountable hurdle. The educators at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah have found a way to help students clear it.

Since 2006, WKCTC’s academic faculty have identified student learning outcomes and developed consistent ways to assess whether they are being met. The precise stumbling blocks in anatomy and physiology were unknown as long as professors gave their own exams. But now that students in the course take the same final, aggregated results made it clear: Students had trouble understanding the nervous system. Instruction on the topic was bulked up.

Educators work to ensure a WKCTC education means something consistent no matter who is teaching. This takes on different forms in different departments, from a common essay to  coordinated scoring to align grading across courses. The ultimate outcome is instruction that constantly improves and focuses keenly on the success of the school’s 9,000 students. Data can show whether high grades in a section are justified, or whether a professor teaches better online or face-to-face.  Professors are free to tailor instruction, to a point: specific learning goals guide professors’ teaching.  For example, when the goal was set that 80 percent of Introduction to Computer students will score 90 percent on the applications section of a common final, teachers no longer had the luxury of focusing on Microsoft Word at the expense of Access just because they wanted to. “I think back 10 years ago and where we are now, it’s just a tremendous improvement in student learning,” said Tammy Potter, the dean of business.

The recent five-year push to improve student reading reflects the college’s drive. Faculty members from auto body to English received intensive training in instructional strategies to boost students’ weak reading skills. Peggy Block, the dean of allied health, now teaches the Cornell method of taking notes and conducts class activities aimed at understanding the textbook. Her course retention rate has gone up and her student evaluations have improved. She sent several colleagues to the training and believes that’s why the graduation rate in their physical therapy program increased from 75 percent to 94 percent. “I really do think it made that much of a difference,” Block said. “And it’s really permeated throughout the whole institution.”

Removing barriers to completion

Student outcomes have improved at WKCTC, fast—the number of credentials awarded has increased 23 percent over the last five years. One by one, the school is identifying and removing barriers to completion. A thoughtfully designed one-stop shop enables students to receive services from financial aid to registration to veterans’ support without delay. Advisors have reduced the number of undecided students, by providing career counseling and regular contact. For students awaiting entry into the selective nursing program, WKCTC created a more accessible associate degree in health science technology. Now, nearly 800 students who may have spun their wheels indefinitely or dropped out are making use of their nursing prerequisites and earning a marketable degree.

WKCTC has also made a big push to reform developmental education, and the completion rate in remedial courses has increased. Local high school students take the math placement test, and those who score poorly must take a class that WKCTC helped their schools design. WKCTC students who score low on placement tests may take a free training course, retake the exams a month later, and enroll in compressed, web-enhanced courses that reflect their new placement level midway into the semester.

For all its developmental math courses, WKCTC has thrown out the lecture in favor of an “emporium” model, where students move through computer-based modules at their own pace, with professors and tutors on hand to help. Maurice Large, 24, a former car salesman studying for a business administration degree, finally feels like he can get a handle on algebra. “I’ve always been a very weak math student,” he said, “but it breaks things down in a way that you can understand them.”

A pillar in Paducah

WKCTC focuses its lens outward just as intently. Under the leadership of Barbara Veazey, a former nurse and the college’s president for 10 years, WKCTC has placed itself at the center of nearly every development that has mattered to Paducah and its surroundings. “There’s a constant drive by her to try to figure out what the community really wants from this institution, and at a very, very rapid pace turn around and deliver it to them,” said Bruce Brockenborough, chairman of the college’s board of directors.

When economic development officials told Veazey that the area could not attract jobs when the community college was training future workers on such outdated facilities, Veazey immediately began rallying support—from private donors, then the state—for a $16 million state-of-the-art technology building. In response to local companies’ difficulties recruiting and keeping engineers, WKCTC decided to grow their own, by inviting University of Kentucky to locate on campus (in a building funded largely by private donations) and offer the third and fourth years of a bachelor’s degree.

The college, which offers customized training to area companies, is a not-so-secret weapon for attracting industry to the area. And in a region where plant closings hit hard, killing a thousand jobs at a time, the school looks closely at economic projections to develop programs that will ensure viable, skilled careers. New programs can be created in a just over a year, such as the online associates degree in marine technology developed recently for the deckhands in Paducah’s river economy who aspire to advance their careers.

In recent years, Paducah has been recast as a fine arts hub. You might not think there’s much of a role in that effort for a community college—but then you wouldn’t be from Paducah.  WKCTC started an associate degree in fine arts in 2008 and will be opening an art school downtown. Local leaders believe that culture attracts economic development. Barbara Veazey believes that her students need a revitalized city, no matter how it comes to be. As the art school proceeds, as with every WKCTC effort, there’s no doubt that each step will be taken deliberately, with opportunity for students as the number one priority.