Innovation Rewarded

Skip Godow 

Skip Godow spent much of his career in higher education encouraging others to never be satisfied with the current state of affairs, no matter how good it is.

"Good is the enemy of great and we should always be striving for great," says Skip. "That takes creativity, imagination and innovation."

This is why he started the SKIPs (Strategy + Knowledge = Innovation Prize) at Trident Technical College in 2013. He wanted to help create a culture of innovation by rewarding those that make exceptional contributions in order to transform the student experience or improve on the administrative process.

When Skip was the VP of Continuing Education at TTC, there was an "Innovator of the Month" award, which empowered employees to look at innovation as part of their jobs.

"It was amazing to see how many people in the division came up with (and implemented) new ideas," he says. "Instead of thinking that we had to do things the way we always did them, we had everyone looking to find better ways."

This year's SKIP winners, which were announced last week, exemplify the kind of innovation that Skip envisioned.

Teresa Coke (left) and Dawn Higdon

Dawn Higdon and Teresa Coke in TTC's Web Services department won in the non-instructional category for the TTC Scholarship Essay Module. The project involved developing and building a scholarship essay module which allows students to submit their essays electronically. They are then saved and assigned to evaluators who read and score them - all within the security of the college's intranet.

Keith Rumrill, director of development, manages the scholarship process and says that the new module has already saved countless hours of manpower. 

"This year over 400 essays were submitted, and each one needs to be read and scored by three different people. Having a central point of access for students, evaluators and administrators reduces the time required to manage the essay portion of the application and selection process," he says.

In the instructional category, Anderson Jackson, Carter "Lee" Burns and Laurie Boeding from Information Systems won for the IST 290 Problem Solving Internship.

Anderson Jackson (left), Laurie Boeding and Lee Burns

The team developed a new curriculum for IS students to solve a real-world Information Technology problem. Working with Roper St. Francis Innovation Center, a class of programming students was tasked with coming up with a viable solution to a complex problem for the scheduling of in-patient physical therapy. Students in the course investigated the information technology problem, dissected it, worked with customers and then provided a practical solution to the problem.

According to Dr. Laurie Boeding, dean of Business Technology, the members of the Innovation Center were so impressed that they agreed to continue an ongoing relationship for additional process improvement opportunities for future classes.

"We are hoping to begin another class to help the Clinical Biotechnology Research Institute (at Roper St. Francis) to modernize their Alzheimer's patient data," she says.

Skip was very pleased with this year's winners and was elated to hand each team a check from TTC Foundation for $1,000 and each member a hand-sculpted trophy.

"Trident Tech is truly committed to giving access to higher education, and the faculty and staff there are passionate about their students," he says. "This is just one small step to reward them for exceptional work."