President's Blog

The Career College Association has selected Brooks Institute for its 2009 Innovative Best Practice/New Program Award winner.

In January 2008, Brooks Institute implemented a truly innovative program to generate “the next big idea” from the grass roots of our employees. The Innovation Excellence Award program solicits proposals from all employees that can generate additional revenue, reduce operating expenses, and/or increase operational efficiency. For the five quarters that the program has been in effect, Brooks has received more than a dozen proposals each quarterly cycle from full-time and part-time faculty and staff. The school has implemented five innovative ideas to improve our school. The employee receives $500.00 and special recognition at the school’s quarterly Town Hall meetings as well as prominent mention in the bi-monthly President’s Newsletter.

Winning proposals ranged from the grand and big-scale (i.e. close our two ground bookstores and convert to a 100% online bookstore) to the small but significant (purchase 250 chairs and save over $5,000 in annual rental costs for different events throughout the year.)

“All of us at Brooks are thrilled to be recognized for our Innovation Excellence Award program, ” states President Dr. Roger C. Andersen. “The value of the program lies in its simplicity and buy-in from our staff. Also, it recognizes that every single employee can offer suggestions from his/her unique perspective that can greatly benefit the school. Best of all, this program can be adopted by any other school in the United States immediately so it is completely transferable to every work setting.”

This award will be presented to Brooks Institute at the CCA Annual Convention in mid June in Orlando, Florida.

The Career College Association (CCA) is a voluntary membership organization of private post-secondary schools, institutes, colleges and universities that provide career-specific educational programs. CCA has more than 1,500 members that educate and support over one million students each year for employment in over 200 occupational fields.

News award, Bachelor of Arts, Brooks Institute, Career College Association, Film, graphic design, innovation, Master of Fine Arts, Photography, Video Production, Visual Journalism

Many students have asked this question to me as well as faculty and staff at Brooks Institute: Why do they have to take general education and business courses as part of my Bachelor of Arts degree program? Another frequently asked question: How do GE and business courses help me to become an outstanding photographer, graphic designer, film maker or visual journalist?

Brooks Institute regards general education as an essential, integral part of each of our four undergraduate programs of study. The mission of general education is to expose students to a broadly integrated curriculum focusing on the liberal arts. The GE curriculum encourages and cultivates critical thinking, independent reasoning and ethical responsibility. We strongly believe that, through this comprehensive course of study, successful graduates will attain skills necessary to pursue their career and engage in lifelong learning.

At Brooks Institute, we want to graduate a student who not only has a broad and comprehensive knowledge of all areas of his/her “core” program, we want our students to be able to have strong oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills, be able to analyze problems, master the foundations of information literacy, appreciate diversity and understand the influences of culture, identify and integrate quantitative information into contemporary issues, and practice professionalism based on the standards, competencies, and ethics of the profession.

All of our general education and business instructors have masters degrees in their professional fields. Some have doctorates. All are committed to our general education mission. Most important, all of our instructors are committed to assisting our students become a more “complete” and “balanced” person who not only has a strong mastery of his/her core area but the liberal arts as well.

I am convinced that a major reason the almost 12,000 “Brookies” (alumni) located throughout the world are so accomplished and successful in their career fields is the strong general education foundation they acquired at Brooks – and which supplements and complements their core instruction.

News Bachelor of Arts, Brooks Institute, film and video, General Education, graphic design, language arts, math, Photography, science, speaking, Visual Journalism, writing