News

March 28, 2008
University Students Choose ECC for Specialized Training

Terry Love, a 2005 graduate of Duke University, completed specialized quality control training for business and industry at Edgecombe Community College. “The training was definitely worth the miles that I put on my car every weekend,” he says.

Together, ECC workforce development instructors Joy Dalton-Robinson and Dan Grimsley hold 37 industrial training program certifications, which is uncommon for a mid-sized community college.

A group of students from Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and several other prominent universities recently chose Edgecombe Community College for specialized training. They say their experience dispelled any negative notions they might have had about the quality of teaching and learning at a community college.

Ten students, all either graduates or soon-to-be graduates of four-year schools, picked ECC for Six Sigma training, which is specialized quality control training for business and industry.

Terry Love, a 2005 graduate of Duke University who majored in economics and religion, works as an HR analyst at Fidelity Investments in Research Triangle Park. “There is a huge Six Sigma initiative here, and getting into training is a challenge,” he says. “I was looking for an opportunity to be trained outside of the company.”

Love, who has remained in touch with friends at Duke’s career center, says they told him about Six Sigma training at Edgecombe Community College. One of ECC’s instructors, Joy Dalton-Robinson, had sent flyers to career centers at a number of colleges and universities, including Duke.

“I contacted Ms. Dalton-Robinson, who was working on projects in RTP at the time, and she gave me even broader insight into what the training could do,” Love says.

According to Dalton-Robinson, Six Sigma is a “data-driven methodology for improving processes, work practices, and products. It moves people from traditional thinking of what they think a problem might be to using data to indicate what the problem truly is.”

Love was sold on the training, and each weekend for ten weeks, he and his fellow classmates traveled to Tarboro for the course. Of the ten students, four were working professionals, and six were students at universities including N.C. State and Wake Forest.

They were so impressed that at the end of the course they wrote a three-page thank-you letter to ECC President Dr. Deborah Lamm and collected a cash donation for the ECC Foundation.

“Once I joined the workforce,” Love says, “I realized the value of being able to apply classroom knowledge to my job. When I began the class at ECC I was intent on learning applicable information.”

“The training was definitely worth the miles that I put on my car every weekend. I have put what I learned into practice at Fidelity, and I am working on projects with other employers as well. Plus,” adds the Oklahoma native, “Ms. Dalton-Robinson and her co-instructor, Dan Grimsley, were the very essence of Southern hospitality.”

Indeed. Dalton-Robinson and Grimsley, who is dean of workforce development at ECC, found host families for the students who needed room and board and brought in food for meals.

Recalls Dalton-Robinson: “One weekend Harris Teeter had chicken quarters on sale for $.75 a pound. I bought as much chicken as I could carry, and while Dan was finishing up the class, I was turning chickens on the grill.”

The letter, which was signed by the six university students in the class, noted the “awesome instructors” who “just rocked.” The students gave examples of how the instructors made the training relevant through working examples they all understood, such as creating a Designed Experiment (DOE) out of knitting yarn from Wal-Mart.

ECC certification in Six Sigma requires a project at an industry, and since the students were attending school full time and were not employed, they were concerned about fulfilling the project requirement. Through their business contacts, Dalton-Robinson and Grimsley found projects for each of them, and several of the businesses provided paid internships.

“Without being insulting, we want to be honest,” the letter states. “Before coming to ECC for this class, our collective impression of community colleges, especially one located in such a rural area of North Carolina, was not good…but we are extremely impressed with and grateful to your community college, ECC.”

“Your instructors are some of the most dedicated we have encountered (we haven’t seen many who’d dedicate an entire summer of weekends to teaching). Your staff is willing to go the extra mile to assure a conducive learning environment and last, but certainly not least, the value is simply amazing. Never before have so many gotten so much for so little.”

Six Sigma training, including Greenbelt and Blackbelt with Minitab statistical software, costs $9,995 through the extension services housed at neighboring universities. At ECC, the same training costs $570. Limits are set on the fee ECC can charge for any course by the N.C. Community College System.

“I had hoped our training would appeal to university students because it means they have more to offer than a bachelor’s degree and a smiling face. With their Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing certifications they bring real value to a company, plus it means less training for the new employee by the employer,” explains Dalton-Robinson.

“Working with the university students was a great experience for us (the instructors), too,” she adds. “These kids are not burned out yet. Everything is still an opportunity for them.”

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