Gwinnett Technical College will begin offering four small-business-management courses in Spanish in fall 2002.

Ogeechee Technical College in Statesboro is now offering Georgia’s first funeral service education program at a public institution. Courses for the program include anatomy, chemistry, microbiology, pathology, business law and funeral service management.

Washington County, in the Sandersville Technical College service area, became the second Certified Literate Community in the state of Georgia. During the nine years of Certified Literate Community Participant status, Washington County raised over $200,000 to support literacy efforts and helped over 2,625 citizens of the county improve their reading skills and/or earn a GED. Currently, 48 communities in Georgia are part of the program — 44 participants and four Certified Literate Communities. The process by which a community may achieve the Certified Literate Community ranking is designed to take ten years and involves deep levels of community commitment and support. Columbus/Muscogee in the Columbus Technical College area was the first to be certified. Elbert County (Athens Technical College area) and Gordon County (Coosa Valley Technical College area) have also achieved Certified Literate Community status.

The Bread & Butter Café is the result of a partnership between Savannah Technical College, Union Mission and Second Harvest Food Bank. It provides homeless people with access to professional culinary arts training. The participants work in the café, which serves a growing downtown clientele. More than 40 people have graduated through this program.

South Georgia Technical College’s new basketball team, the JETS, won its first home game in Americus in November. The team is part of the Georgia Junior College Athletic Association.

Southeastern Technical College in Vidalia has received a $101,000 grant from the Goizueta Foundation to initiate two training projects designed to improve the work skills and safety knowledge of Hispanic workers. Initial business partners — who will nominate existing employees for the program, allow plant tours as part of the program, and support the program in a variety of other ways — are Rotary Corporation, TUMI Incorporated, the Oxford Shirt Group, and Savannah Luggage Works, Inc.

As part of its ProTech program, a collaborative enterprise between Southwest Georgia Technical College in Thomasville and the John Deere Company, Southwest Georgia Tech has had the benefit of having its Program Director of Agricultural Technology, Sam Miller, made an expert in delivering the ProTech program through the $650,000 John Deere Roads Scholar mobile training center. Upon completion of the program, trainees can use a laptop computer to diagnose equipment problems in about 200 types of John Deere tractors and other equipment.

West Central Technical College in Carrollton has partnered with Planet3 Wireless of Atlanta to offer a non-vendor-specific Wireless Network Professional Certification program, the first of its kind in the world. West Central has received inquiries about the program from all over the Southeast, including from The Walt Disney Company and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.