Lehigh Career and Technical Institute.

Lehigh Career and Technical Institute. Since its opening in 1971, Lehigh Career and Technical Institute(formerly Lehigh County Vocational-Technical School Vocational-technical schools, often called vo-tech schools, are high schools in the United States and Canada designed to bring traditional academia to their students, as well as provide them with vocational and technical skills. ) has not only grownin size, it has also increased the scope of its mission and goals. It isnow offering more than 35 areas of study and with the completion of amodernization project is planning to offer students even moreopportunities. Culinary Arts is part of the Accelerated Career Education System(ACES) at Lehigh Career and Technical Institute (LCTI LCTI Lehigh Career & Technical Institute (Schnecksville, Pennsylvania)LCTI Large Component Test Installation ). ACES is apartnership of LCTI, Lehigh Carbon Community College and Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley or the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area is a metropolitan region in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey, in the United States. It is the third-most populated metropolitan region in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. businesses and industries that allows students to combine academic andtechnical preparatory courses with workplace learning. They can alsoearn a national skills certificate and an associate's degree as��so��ci��ate's degreen.An academic degree conferred by a two-year college after the prescribed course of study has been successfully completed. . Students in ACES select a career path in ninth grade, and then intheir sophomore, junior and senior years of high school, they spend halfa day at their home schools and the other half at LCTI. The LCTI Culinary Arts program has articulation agreements with 11postsecondary institutions in the nation, and depending upon thecollege, a student can earn from 17 to 33 credits. Among these schoolsare Johnson & Wales Wales,Welsh Cymru, western peninsula and political division (principality) of Great Britain (1991 pop. 2,798,200), 8,016 sq mi (20,761 sq km), west of England; politically united with England since 1536. The capital is Cardiff. , Lehigh Carbon Community College, New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of PolyTech, Florida Culinary Institute and Scottsdale Culinary Institute. This articulation with postsecondary is one of the replicableaspects of the program that the National Dissemination Center for Careerand Technical Education cited in awarding the LCTI culinary arts programexemplary status in 2002. NDCCTE NDCCTE National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education also noted that, "In addition tothe cutting-edge culinary arts training for restaurants, studentsbenefit from institutional food preparation curriculum and equipment, asthey prepare for careers in commercial settings such as major hotels,hospitals and colleges." Academic standards are integrated into the culinary arts curriculumat LCTI in several ways. In the safety and sanitation course calledServSafe, students learn about bacteriology bacteriologyStudy of bacteria. Modern understanding of bacterial forms dates from Ferdinand Cohn's classifications. Other researchers, such as Louis Pasteur, established the connection between bacteria and fermentation and disease. and ergonomics. They analyzethe nutritional content of food products and become certified in CPR Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)DefinitionCardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a procedure to support and maintain breathing and circulation for a person who has stopped breathing (respiratory arrest) and/or whose heart has stopped (cardiac .While learning CPR, they integrate the process of diseases that causecoronary heart disease coronary heart disease:see coronary artery disease. coronary heart diseaseor ischemic heart diseaseProgressive reduction of blood supply to the heart muscle due to narrowing or blocking of a coronary artery (see atherosclerosis). and learn how chefs can alter recipes to lowercholesterol. According to instructor Dean Ritter rit��ter?n. pl. ritterA knight.[German, from Middle High German riter, from Middle Dutch ridder, from r , they work with the schoolsthat send students to LCTI on the students' senior projects. Healso says, "As instructors, we meet certain times of the year withacademic teachers from our sending school and demonstrate our trade, andthey help us integrate the standards within our curriculum." The culinary arts curriculum at LCTI is Access ACF (Advanced Communications Function) An earlier official product line name for IBM SNA programs, such as VTAM (ACF/VTAM) and NCP (ACF/NCP). ACF - Advanced Communications Function . In order to beAccess ACF approved, a program must meet the academic standards set bythe American Culinary Federation Established in 1929, the American Culinary Federation (ACF) is the largest professional chefs' organization in North America.ACF, which was the progeny of the combined visions of three chefs' associations in New York, comprises more than 18,000 members in 240 chapters . At the end of their senior year,students must pass a written and practical test in order to becomenationally certified. "We were the third school in the country to becertified," says Ritter, "and the first in Pennsylvania. Wewere the top Access culinary arts program in the Northeast and thecountry in 1999-2000." According to Ritter, over the last five years about 89 percent ofthe seniors passed the certification test. As another option, studentsmay take the Pennsylvania Skills Baking Test, and he says that theyscore about 84 percent above the national and state levels. In addition to the national recognition earned by the program, thestudents themselves have earned a number of honors. "In the last five years, we have had three national goldmedals," Ritter says. One was from SkillsUSA-VICA for baking, andtwo were from Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA FCCLA Family Career and Community Leaders of America (formerly Future Homemakers of America)FCCLA First Congregational Church of Los Angeles (California))for culinary arts. He also notes that, in three of the past five years,the junior culinary team competed against college teams in thePennsylvania ACF state competition. KEEPING IT STRONG The LCTI Culinary Arts program has a close connection with areabusinesses, because many of the restaurant owners were once students atthe school and are now members of the Occupational Advisory Committee.Past students can also be found among the members of the Greater LehighValley Professional Chefs Association, meeting once a month to learnabout new techniques and business opportunities. There are currently 100 students in the LCTI Culinary Arts program,which is taught by Ritter and Terry Hoffman. Sharon Maletsky serves as ateacher's assistant, and Janice Lucas teaches in the three-year-oldpastry arts department. Both Hoffman and Maletsky are former students ofRitter who came back, as he puts it, "to strengthen theprogram." Ritter is a Certified Executive Chef, Certified Culinary Educator,but he also works at a fine dining restaurant to keep updated on thelatest advances in the field, which is one more way to ensure theprogram remains strong. In fact, the demand for the program is so great that they are nowin the process of increasing the lab by about 300 percent and adding athird instructor. And because of the recognition as an ExemplaryProgram, the school received a $100,000 grant for equipment. It has alsohelped Ritter to travel to other schools and conferences, and for othereducators to come to LCTI so that the story of their success can beshared--and possibly replicated.