What's Happening at Ranken Technical College

Alumni Remember the Past

William Boedeker (Machine Shop 1965) retired in 2001 from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and tells us he was recently evacuated from his home during the Las Conchas wildires. Luckily for him he was able to return after seven days without any loss. What Bill remembers about his Ranken education is "the personal attention I got from the instructors".

Rob Wirth (Architecture 1971) is the president of Wirth Professional Services, Inc. in Gillespie, Ill. He remembers "the only attitude that was acceptable at Ranken was that I was there to learn. All the instructors had a personal interest in me, our well-being and to give us a good education."

Dean Tepen (Automotive Maintenance 1986) remembers "the fact that I made it!"

Marshal Pinnix (Precision Machining 1999) wrote that his favorite memory of Ranken is "walking across the stage to receive my diploma. I'm proud to have gone to a college with zero tolerance for those who choose not to succeed. Ranken was hard and demanding. Thanks to all for the experience!"

Elizabeth Maue (Advanced Welding 2009) is a maintanance engineer at Dillard's. She says, "my favorite Ranken memory is meeting new people and having great teachers!"

Send your memories of your Ranken education to ktfern@ranken.edu to be posted or published. We are happy to hear from our alumni and look forward to seeing you back on campus in the near future. 

From Prairietown to Ranken

Dennis Gusewelle (Mechanical Drafting 1965) from Prairietown, Ill. visited campus last week and was having a hard time finding his way until he reached the anchor of campus, the Finney Building. A frequent visitor at car shows and owner of a '57 Chevy, Dennis had not had a full campus tour in years and was amazed at all the growth and change. Dennis, a project manager in the oil industry in Wood River, went to work before he graduated and had opportunities as a Ranken graduate that he wouldn't have had otherwise. Dennis is also a family hero. Read more about Dennis and how he continues to be Ranken Material in an Alumni Spotlight section of upcoming newsletter.

IT Hosts Hiring Seminar for Future Graduates

On Tuesday, November 15, Ranken’s Information Technology department hosted the Second Annual Graduation Summit given by Help Desk International (HDI). HDI is the world’s largest IT service and technical support membership association and the industry’s premier certification and training body. Guided by an international panel of industry experts and practitioners, HDI is the leading resource for help desk/support center emerging trends and best practices. HDI was started as a way for local businesses to share information and increase productivity. They provide members with a vast repository of resources and networking opportunities.

"Our local HDI chapter is made up of a lot of businesses who hire Ranken graduates," said Charles Corrigan, IT division chair. "So it makes a lot of sense for us to collaborate with them and host this event on campus."

The event consisted of several speakers who represented various local businesses such as Apex, Mastercard, Technisource and Enterprise. Presentations covered subjects like how to build a good resume, interview techniques, "selling yourself" to potential employers, working in the IT "real world", being a contractor versus an employee and current IT trends.

The event also included a question and answer session with a panel of IT professionals as well as a student testimonial by 2010 Ranken graduate Robert Johnston who is currently a contractor with Enterprise.

"This is such a great opportunity for our students," said Corrigan. "These are great companies looking to hire quality employees and they are taking the time to give our students insight as to what they look for when hiring. They are also getting "heads up" information about which companies have positions open and how to apply. We feel really lucky to have formed this partnership with HDI."

 

Electrical Students Get On-the-Job Training

This year for the first time, Electrical students have the opportunity to complete the wiring in one of the homes being built by the Ranken Community Development Corporation (RCDC).

For the past 17 years RCDC has been helping to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood by building homes and selling them at reasonable prices to members of the community. The program also gives Ranken students the opportunity to put what they have learned in the shop to work in a real-world environment. Carpentry, Plumbing, HVACR and recently Architectural Technology students have all had the chance to work on the homes currently being built as part of Sam Moore Estates on Evans Avenue. Electrical students have never been able to help due to the legalities of electrical work having to be performed by an electrical company that is licensed and insured.

Greg "Aussie" Thayer, an instructor in the Electrical division owns his own company called Big Bend Electric and did the electrical work on the home built last year. Thayer decided to fix the problem of electrical students not being able to work on the homes by hiring them as employees of his company.

"We had been trying to figure out a way to give our students the opportunity to work on the homes and we thought this was a good solution," said Thayer.

The students work at the house on their own time outside of classes and are paid through Thayer’s company.

"We now have six Ranken students doing the wiring on the home, which is a great opportunity for them to have work experience to put on their resume after graduation."

 

Scholarship from Forest Pharmaceutical

Pictured L-R: Craig Hood, financial aid; Ken Meyer, development, Theresa Belding, senior manager of fleet services and Lisa Geringer, senior fleet administrator.

Theresa Belding, senior manager of fleet services for Forest Pharmaceutical came to Ranken to deliver a $5,000 scholarship check for students interested in our new Fleet Management certificate program. Belding was recently selected Fleet Manager of the Year by the Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association (AFLA). Part of her recognition is the ability to award a scholarship to the organization of her choosing. Funding for the scholarship comes from Wheels Inc. and AFLA and Belding also approached Forest Pharmaceutical about matching the award and they readily agreed.

Belding has chosen to utilize the award funding she received to establish scholarships at Ranken. These $1,000 scholarships will be part of an effort to identify students who have an interest in fleet management and encourage them to pursue that certificate program at Ranken. The scholarships will the named The Belding Fleet Management Scholarships.

 

 

RankCAN Competition Starts In Time for Holiday Season

Each year Ranken’s department of Residential Life hosts the RankCAN competition. To start the event teams made up of faculty, staff and students collect cans and other food items and then build a creation based upon a theme. The purpose of the annual food drive and RankCAN creations event is to help feed the hungry in the St. Louis area during the holiday season and to exhibit the technical skills of our students. Over the last 11 years, the Ranken food drive has resulted in over 81,000 food products being donated throughout the local community and to Ranken students in need.

The theme for 2011 is "The Holiday Season," so team sculptures may include Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year’s Eve. The food drive portion of the event has already began and teams may begin building sculptures on Monday. Winners will be announced on Monday, December 5. The team that has the best sculpture will win a pizza party as well as the team with the highest student-to-food ratio. The food collected will benefit two local church food pantries, a community group and Ranken students in need of food so find a team or teams to support with can goods or your creative mind.

"This is a really great event," said Jeremy Sutton, director of residential life. "The teams that participate always have a really great time building their sculptures and its a great way for them to show off their technical abilities. Its also a great way to help our local community."

 

S-STEM Students Participate in Team Work Field Trip

Ranken’s S-STEM program participated in a team-building effort last week hosted by YMCA TEAM Works. Forty-eight S-STEM students went to Forest Park and learned five components of building an effective team: effective communication, problem solving, consensus decision plan, goal setting, and trust. These components were exercised through various tasks, some mental and some physical.

The students were split into two different groups, one on Tuesday and another on Thursday. Each group had students from four different departments; Architectural Technology, Information Technology, Industrial Maintenance, and Precision Machining. Each student brought their own strengths and weaknesses and succeeded in completing eight hours of challenges together. Some things the students did were to get their entire team step over a net without ringing a bell, get an entire group (approx. 12 students) on a 24"x24" platform without touching the ground and hold it while they sang Row, Row, Row your Boat three times, and make a bridge with limited tools to cross "hot lava" without getting burned.

Many people overcame some fears and learned to effectively achieve any obstacle as a team.

"This field trip made me realize it is alright to rely on other people instead of trying to do it all on your own," said Megan Murphy, an Architecture student.

 

Walker in October

I thought you may have missed the Walker Hall family so I am giving you an update. Since, I last posted, we were in full swing of our September programs. Well, October was no different. There was plenty on the calendar.

The first week of October we observed Mental Health Awareness Month. We did our best to expose the residents to all the options available to maintain their mental health. Our school counselor, Jennie Wilson made herself available, there was an artistic expression workshop with Ranken TRIO staffer, Miranda Myles Jackson who gave her personal time and showed her talent to teach residents how to express their feelings through painting, Residential life staff presented workshops on Depression and Stress Relief. Diane Padgette, licensed yoga instructor and long time student of the Big Bend Yoga Center, donated her time to lead a Yoga for Beginners course. We also showed the movie, A Beautiful Mind.

The remainder of October included our monthly WalMart Wagon for supplies and groceries, Our new Book Club by RHA President, Kory Wagner. The featured book is The Kite Runner. A Chick Flick Night hosted by WOW (Women of Walker), A Halo Tournament, Us on Wii (Wii Gaming Night) and a Microwave Cooking Workshop. Not to mention the excitement of the Cardinal's World Series win!

Halloween Week is huge in Walker Hall. October 23-October 31 will be filled with horror movies, pumpkin carving contest, costume contest, wing decorating contest, door decorating contest and visiting The Darkness. The Darkness is one of St. Louis's scariest haunted houses! The ghost of David Ranken, Jr. even paid a visit to Walker Hall during Halloween week. Check out his picture!

Check out some pics of all the fun!

 

Ranken Welcomes Tour Group from Chicago Area

On October 25, admissions counselor Josephine West, who is assigned to the Northern Illinois territory, brought 36 guests to campus. The group included 16 females, 17 males and 3 teachers/counselors from the Chicago Vocational Career Academy High School in Chicago, Ill.

Upon arrival they took tours of Electrical, Industrial Technology and HVACR. They also had speakers to discuss dorm life, BSAM and a time for a question and answer session. The group stayed overnight in the dorms, then the following day participated in a mini shadow-a-tech program in the Carpentry, Electrical and Automotive departments.

The teachers and counselors were interested in Ranken’s credit- by-assessment opportunity and plan to continue to pursue their relationship with the College.

"The visit was an eye opening experience for many of the students who want to further their technical education and realize they can do that here at Ranken," said West. "This is not an experience they have ever had before. Five students even bought a Ranken sweatshirt!"

After the visit, Yarnell Jackson, the school’s diesel assistant coordinator, took the time to write a thank you note to West:

"Good Morning Josephine, I just wanted to thank you and all of the staff who helped make this college tour a great success. I had a wonderful time. The students really enjoyed themselves they talked about it the whole way home. Your school is the perfect A+ over type B. The labs were so clean and organized it was just amazing to me...

I believe we will be able to have a great relationship with Ranken Technical College and grow at the same time through Credit-by-Assessment Programs, technical learning during high school!

It’s touching to know that there are people out there like yourself and staff members at Ranken who still have a great concern about helping our kids get to that next level of success without prejudice or judgment. Ranken Technical College has and will always be voted #1 in my book.

Sincerely, Yarnell Jackson"

S-STEM Students Visit Washington University

On October 19, the Industrial Mechanical Systems and Industrial Technology (INT) S-STEM students took a trip to Washington University’s Danforth Campus located near Forest Park. While on campus They met with the Director of Facilities, Bill Wiley. Wiley spoke with the students and introduced some of his managers. They covered topics such as
inter-personal relationship and the value of work ethic in the work place. They also informed the students that the Washington University maintenance department is comprised of more than 30% Ranken graduates. The trip ended in the maintenance break room for a short question and answer session.

"It was a really interesting field trip," said INT and S-STEM student Steve Lovegren. "The systems that the maintenance department has to maintain in a facility that large was cool to see."

S-STEM is a grant funded by the National Science foundation which awards scholarships to students majoring in INT, ART, IT and PMT. Part of the program includes funding for enhanced programs to help prepare students for careers in these high-tech fields which includes field trips, professional development activities and career services and counseling.