ACC is working hard to improve online education and sync up with other state colleges on general education standards.
As an entree into these efforts, ACC vice president Jon Marshall briefed ACC trustees Tuesday evening about the differences between online learning, which the college specializes in, and correspondence education, to which it has little connection.
Marshall said the distinction is important as efforts are made to synchronize standards for online learning across in-person, online and high school course offerings.
ACC has also spent significant time, he said, in recently updating its online learning standards, so that they resonate with best practices from cohort institutions, or “inspirational” ones such as Pennsylvania State University.
Marshall noted how Kansas colleges and universities, including ACC, are working to draft general education standards that are highly consistent with one another.
This would mean that a student who, say, graduated from ACC and then transferred to K-State, could later transfer to Wichita State without losing any of the progress that they had made towards earning their degree.
Marshall also mentioned that the number of phone inquiries being received at the Burlingame campus suggests that enrollments there are increasing, which could help the embattled campus extension to stay afloat.
Those interested in attending ACC or another Kansas college should also check out the Kansas Promise Scholarship, which “covers the cost of tuition, fees, book rental and required course materials not covered by other scholarships and grants.”
Programs eligible for Kansas Promise include manufacturing and building trades, early childhood education, physical and mental healthcare, information technology and security, and criminal justice studies.
ACC CONTINUES to stay COVID-19 free, though one item the board lightly debated concerned how COVID-19 protocols for students and student-athletes were slightly different or “out of whack.”
Initially, the policy put forward by athletic training staff said that masks were required for athletes receiving care, so the board talked about changing the policy to read that masks were “highly recommended.”
There was also some concern about students essentially being on the honor system regarding whether or not they had been vaccinated, versus student-athletes who are required at times to present their vaccination cards.
“Outside of athletes, it’s really people being on their honor,” noted vice president Cynthia Jacobson.
There will be vaccination clinics for ACC students and staff on Sept. 2 and Sept. 30, at the Iola campus, offered by the Southeast Kansas Multi-County Health Departments.
“We just wanted to make it available to everyone,” Jacobson said.
