As college testing center professionals, we are masters at coordinating services for our community. As rural testing center professionals, we may have a slightly different charge than our urban compatriots. Private sector funding sources are drying up and federal programs are advocating for shared efforts in rural communities, how do we manage in this new landscape? At the same time, national certification exam programs are converting to computer-based formats and on-line education is burgeoning. The NCTA has begun the work of knitting together a network of college testing professionals with the Consortium of College Testing Centers. This webinar will discuss rural policy initiatives that are at work now and how those initiatives are impacting rural college testing centers. How can the use of a SWOT analysis, advisory boards and new partnerships foster the mission of the rural college testing network? We hope to answer these questions and more.

Kellie Smith is the Director of the Tutoring & Testing Center at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon (pop.79,000). The college district is 10,000 square miles with four campuses to support citizens who live in the center of a state currently sporting a population of 4 million. Since 1997, Kellie has been managing a regional testing center that supports her college, local branches of state universities and state and professional certifying programs for her community(www.cocc.edu/Tutoring-and-Testing ). She has been a member of the NCTA since 2003.

David Espinoza is the Director of the Testing Center at the University of Oregon. He currently serves as the NCTA Past President, is the Chair of the NCTA Webinar Committee and a member of the NCTA Non-Standard Testing Accommodations Committee.