Election shoo-in for board member; other seats pending
by Chris Taylor, editor-in-chief

    The TCC Board of Trustees elected Robyn Winnett for District 1 Thursday, April 18, at its monthly meeting held on SE Campus.

   Winnett was elected by the board because she was the only candidate to run unopposed. The appointment of Winnett to the board will save the district somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 and eliminated the need for an election in District 1. The board unanimously approved Winnett’s election.

   Districts 2 and 3 will have elections because board member Tom Demarest is stepping down and current president Ardis Bell is facing opposition.

   In other action, the board approved associate of applied science degree plans for computer hardware maintenance on South Campus and culinary arts on SE Campus.

   Dr. Faye Murphy explained that the first degree would be for computer hardware, not computer programming. South Campus has offered a certificate of completion in computer maintenance technology for the past three years. Because of rapid changes in technology over the last few years, the district believed that the need for extensive training was important enough to offer more courses in that field.

   The program will require students to complete 68 semester credit hours, including 50 hours in technical courses from the Workforce Education Course Manual and 18 hours in the Lower Division Academic Course Guide. To create the degree program, four new technical courses will be added to the college catalog.

   The culinary arts degree will prepare students for careers in the food and entertainment industry. The curriculum will require students to complete 71 semester hours, including 56 credit hours in technical courses and 15 hours in lower academic courses. To create the program, eight courses will be deleted from the catalog, and 10 new courses will be added.

   “In hospitality management and food service, we were training high level cooks. With culinary arts, we want to train chefs,” Murphy said.

   The approval from the board allows the district to seek approval for the degree plans from the coordinating board.

   The board also approved some revisions to the policy and regulation manual. One key change is a new TASP exemption. Students who complete high school with 3.5 GPA or higher will now be exempt from taking the test.

   The meeting was held on SE Campus and included a welcome by the campus president Dr. Judith Carrier. Carrier thanked the board for the recent purchase of land adjacent to SE Campus that will allow the campus to possibly expand all the way to state highway 360.

   The next meeting of the board of trustees will be Wednesday, May 15.