PROGRAM NEWS
Yakima Valley Vintners earns Platinum Wine honors Yakima Valley Vintners (YVV), Yakima Valley College’s teaching winery, recently received several awards at the 21st Annual Wine Press Northwest Platinum Competition. The multi-day tasting competition included entries who have earned gold awards at any of 40 recognized wine competitions held in the Pacifc Northwest. YVC student wines were judged blindly alongside those produced by commercial wineries during the competition. In total 655 wines from British 2021 Platinum award-winning wines. Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington were evaluated. YVC's recognitions include platinum awards for the 2017 Late Registration Petit Verdot, 2016 Lemberger and 2016 Austin Sharpe Vineyard Dean’s List Merlot. The 2017 Dean’s List Tempranillo and 2017 Primitivo each garnered double gold medals and the 2019 Easy A Chardonnay earned a gold medal. “Overall, 2020 has been an impressive year for YVC’s program earning several awards at a number of state-wide competitions,” stated YVC Vineyard and Winery Technology Instructor Trent Ball. For more information about Yakima Valley Vintners and the Yakima Valley College Vineyard and Winery Technology Program visit yvcc.edu/wine or call 509.882.7007.
Surgical Technology collaborates with Confuence Health YVC’s Surgical Technology program recently collaborated with Confuence Health’s Hospital and Clinics in Wenatchee, Wash., to ofer training to hospital employees. After realizing the need to upskill its workers, Confuence Health contacted Program Coordinator Libby McRae to create a partnership to provide the training. “We have numerous graduates of the YVC surgical technologist program working in our surgery unit,” stated Confuence Health’s Perioperative technology students practice their Supervisor J. Douglas Landers. "Our patients beneft greatly from the technical Surgical skills in a mock operating room at YVC's West Campus. skills learned while attending this program.” Combining convenient online instruction, laboratory simulations and supervised clinical practice, YVC’s degree program prepares students for careers as surgical technologists. “The very concept of our program is to provide healthcare professionals that the community needs,” stated McRae. “A collaboration such as the one we have with Confuence Health is responsive to their community needs and provides them with surgical team members that will serve patients in their own community.” YVC’s surgical technology program is 96 credits in length. A program application is required, with up to 16 students accepted each fall quarter by use of a competitive point system. Upon successful completion of the program, graduates receive an Associate of Applied Science degree in surgical technology.
Nursing Program Accreditation
This winter YVC’s nursing program hosted a site visit for continuing accreditation of its associate degree nursing program by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN). Accreditation is a voluntary, peer-review, self-regulatory process by which non-governmental associations, like ACEN, recognize educational institutions or programs that have been found to meet or exceed standards and criteria for educational quality. By going through the accreditation process, it further improves YVC’s nursing program related to resources invested, processes Students in YVC's ADN-DTA/MRP program (September 2017). followed and results achieved. YVC’s nursing program ofers six quarters of instruction that leads to an Associate in Nursing Direct Transfer Degree (ADN-DTA/MRP). Students who complete the ADN-DTA/MRP program and successfully pass the RN licensure exam will be considered as having met the minimum requirement for transfer into Washington State RN-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs. 11 Yakima Valley College
