Lancaster County Ctc-Willow St. Campus issued the following announcement on Jan. 28.
The Adult Education Automotive Technology AST Specialized Associate Degree program at the Lancaster County Career & Technology Center received a well-known and well-regarded industry accreditation from the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) Education Foundation in late January. The ASE Accreditation that the CTC program received ensures that automotive technology programs meet or exceed stringent standards and requirements of education.
“This accreditation is a national standard for automotive programs and shows our ability and commitment to teaching to industry expectations,” said Brian Singer, the instructor of the LCCTC Automotive Technology AST Specialized Associate Degree program. Singer continued explaining that ASE is one of the most recognized accreditations in the nation.
The LCCTC started the accreditation process with ASE about 18 months ago. This entailed many hours for Singer and the CTC administration in answering many questions concerning how the existing program meets the ASE criteria for teaching standards. Once the first round of questions was addressed, the Automotive Technology AST program’s Occupational Advisory Committee (OAC) stepped in to review the application and standards. (An OAC is a group of local industry professionals that meet during the year to advise the CTC program and make sure that instruction is meeting the needs of local industry. Each full-time student program at the LCCTC has its own OAC.) ASE sent a representative to review the program on site and offer recommendations.
“We didn’t do much modification at all to the Automotive Technology AST program material to make it conform to the requirements of the accreditation and the program received the accreditation. The recommendations from the ASE rep were very minor and very few of them. None of the recommendations had to do with the curriculum or the instruction or the instructors. I think that says a lot about how rigorous and comprehensive the program has been all this time,” Singer said.
Singer said that his next goal for the program is to incorporate individual student ASE certifications into the program. He said that now that the program is accredited for the next five years with ASE, he wants to get the authorization to offer ASE certifications in eight different areas called a “G1 Maintenance and Light Repair ASE Certification.” He said that aspect of the program will take at least another year to develop and enact but this will be a shining star on any graduate’s resume.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up