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EWCHEC is Recipient of the 2008 Texas Economic Development Council (TEDC) Workforce Best Practices Award
Temple College officials announced Wednesday that the East Williamson County Higher Education Center (EWCHEC) in Taylor was recently notified that it will be the recipient of the 2008 Texas Economic Development Council (TEDC) Workforce Best Practices Award.
EWCHEC is a new multi-institutional teaching center which provides traditional credit and non-credit courses through Temple College at Taylor and is also the host college for the state’s first rural Early College High School (9th-12th grade). It establishes customized employer training programs and has formed partnerships with Texas State Technical College-Waco, Taylor ISD, and Hutto ISD, as well as other school districts. EWCHEC is in negotiations with several other universities and colleges to complete its 9th grade to terminal degree model.
The Workforce Best Practices Award recognizes the exceptional contributions of a Texas community which has implemented successful workforce initiatives. Criteria for evaluation include innovativeness, transferability, community commitment and leverage-measured objectives and secondary benefits.
EWCHEC is a result of community partnerships to fund and establish the Temple College at Taylor (TCAT) in 1997, without using any property tax base for Temple College. In the past 10 years TCAT has experienced incredible growth with an enrollment of more than 800 students this year.
In October 2006, school officials and community leaders began exploring the concept of a multiinstitutional teaching center (MITC) to be known as the East Williamson County Higher Education Center. In December of that year the Texas Education Agency awarded a $600,000 grant to EWCHEC to fund startup of an early college high school program, the first program in the state to serve a rural area.
In May 2007, EWCHEC was officially approved by the Texas Legislature. During the summer, the first students were recruited and classes for the Legacy Early College High School, a dual credit program which began in August 2007 with 55 students enrolled. Students from Hutto and Taylor attended classes at their home campus for half a day and spent the remainder of the day at the Temple College Taylor Center.
The need for additional instructional facilities became acute as TSTC – Waco became a primary partner in August 2007, bringing a variety of workforce and technical training programs for high school, college and adult students to East Williamson County. Community leaders again banded together and have purchased a sitefor the EWCHEC campus. Construction is expected to begin this summer on a new 30,000 square foot facility which will greatly expand the available classroom and training space for current Legacy Early College High School, Temple College and TSTC classes, as well as provide room to develop additional programs and expand educational partnerships.
Each year the Workforce Best Practices Award recognizes a Texas community for projects or programs that have been have been initiated during the past 12 months, ending December 31. Nominated projects must have been active during the past 12 months and have some measurable results.
The development of the East Williamson County Higher Education Center in Taylor is an exemplary model of community empowerment through small, yet powerful, public/private partnerships. EWCHEC’s nomination was submitted through the Taylor Economic Development Corporation.
The Texas Economic Development Council Workforce Committee, representing economic development leaders from around the State of Texas, determined and recommended the finalist for the WBPA award. The award will be presented to EWCHEC representatives at the 2008 Texas Economic Development Council Spring Conference in El Paso, Texas, April 23-25.
This is the second consecutive year that a Temple College program has received the Workforce Best Practices Award. The Texas Bioscience Institute (TBI) in Temple, a community workforce initiative to prepare students to enter the bioscience medical industry was the 2007 winner.
An innovative educational component of Temple College, TBI has become a model which has been widely recognized on both the state and national level. In addition to the 2007 Texas Workforce Best Practices Award, TBI received the prestigious 2007 Bellwether Award which recognizes the nation’s best and most innovative educational programs in community colleges, has been honored on the national level as one of the “Best Practice” STEM Education Programs and received an “early innovator” grant from the Texas High School Project T-STEM Initiative as a model program for the state of Texas.