Albany Technical College, Turner Job Corps sign articulation deal

ALBANY — After spending more than a decade in an unofficial partnership, Albany Technical College and Turner Job Corps made the relationship official Tuesday when ATC President Anthony Parker and TJC Director Rose Walker Cook signed an articulation agreement at ATC’s Logistics Center board room.

“This is an exciting day for Albany Technical College, we are officially formalizing whet we’ve been doing for nearly 20 years,” Parker said. “This formal agreement will benefit the state and community by allowing Turner Job Corps students the opportunity to get a college education.”

The goal of the articulation agreement is to assist and promote the transfer ability of a student’s TJC training achievement record to the associated diploma or Associate of Applied Sciences degree at Albany Tech. It will allow TJC students to be dually enrolled at TJC while also taking classes for college credit at ATC.

TJC courses include Culinary Arts, Electrical, Carpentry, Medical Administration Assistant, Office Administration, and Welding.

These courses will transfer to an Albany Tech Culinary Arts Diploma and Hotel, Restaurant, Travel Management for Culinary Arts, Electrical Technology and Electromechanical Engineering Technology for Electrical, Carpentry Diploma for Carpentry, Medical Assisting Diploma for Medical Administration Assistant, Business Administrative Technology AAS degree for Office Administration, and Welding and Joining Technology Diploma for Welding.

“Students will learn once they complete their educations they will become commodities in great demand,” Parker said.

Cook said she was also pleased with the now-official arrangement.

“We are thrilled we now have a formal way to help our students get a leg up on their educations,” Cook said. “It’s incumbent on us to meet our young people where they are. Many students on our campus don’t know how successful they can be until given the opportunity.”

In 2012, Complete College Georgia, challenged the Technical College System of Georgia, as well as the University System of Georgia, to improve graduation rates and the recommendations included increasing and improving partnerships and performance, including shortening the time to obtain a degree.

“This articulation agreement between Albany Technical College and Turner Job Corps meets the details in both of those recommendations,” said Elizabeth Brown, Prior Learning Assessment Coordinator for Albany Tech.

Job Corps is a no-cost education and career technical training program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor that helps young people ages 16 through 24 improve the quality of their lives through vocational and academic training.