Tag Archives: employee spotlight

🎓 Employee Spotlight: Eugene Attoube ’16

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Black and white headshot of Eugene Attoube

📢 Meet Eugene Attoube
Academic Advisor | Central Piedmont Alumnus

🤝 “The day starts with students and ends with students.”
This simple yet powerful advice shapes Eugene Attoube’s approach every day in his role as an academic advisor.

🌍 Eugene’s journey with Central Piedmont began in 2014 as a part-time Foreign Language Lab Facilitator. After earning his Associate in Arts degree, he transferred to UNC Charlotte, where he completed a double major in International Studies and Political Science.

💼 Why Central Piedmont?
For Eugene, it’s all about the community. “Central Piedmont is my home,” he shares. His passion for helping students succeed is matched by his dedication to mastering his role and expanding his skills.

✨ Making an Impact
Eugene takes special pride in working with students learning English, cherishing the moments when they return to thank him for his support. He aims to make a lasting impact on his students, just as the faculty and staff did for him.

“Central Piedmont is a leading force in education,” Eugene says. “With a wide array of programs, there’s something for everyone.”

Employee Spotlight 🔦 Ken Collins

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Ken CollinsKen Collins has been synonymous with the Automotive Systems Technology program throughout his 25-year tenure at Central Piedmont.

His history with the college stretches back even longer, though. In 1987, during a career change, Collins began taking courses at Central Piedmont, eventually earning his associate degree in 1990.

Collins would eventually become department chair, coordinate the Toyota Motor Corporation Technician Training and Education Network (T-TEN), and help establish the Tesla START program in 2018, a 12-week automotive technician training program designed to provide students with the skills necessary for job placement as service technicians at Tesla Service Centers across North America.

A three-time teaching excellence award winner, Collins also made several television appearances for the college, including a segment called “This is for Your Car” and an appearance on a CBS morning show about flooded cars.

“I have always enjoyed working at Central Piedmont,” Collins said. “We are allowed to utilize the best of the best tools that help us bring vehicle technology to these young students.”

Collins has enjoyed visiting shops and seeing his graduates work in the field. The relationship with one of those graduates, Nana Danso, helped bring Tesla to the college. ⭐

Educator Spotlight – Susan Autry

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susan-autry💡 Susan Autry has always loved history and wanted to be an educator. After a stint with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, she realized she had a calling to work in higher education.

“Being able to teach at the college level and teaching adults is so gratifying because I can focus on my passion, which is talking about history and telling students the amazing story of our collective past,” Autry said. “There has never been anything else I could conceive of doing professionally.” 😄

That passion has resulted in an award-winning career in the classroom at Central Piedmont. She has served as a Faculty Fellow for the Center for Teaching and Learning, received the Student Government Association Award as voted on by students at the Merancas Campus, and won the Mary W. and Wilton Parr Faculty Teaching Award. 🏆

📚 Autry also received the title of Full Professor and published a two-volume American History college-level textbook with co-author Dr. Edward Lee of Winthrop University that will be available this year.

Autry is grateful for the opportunities the college provided her to grow professionally by traveling to conferences, teaching students about history, and the relationships she developed here.

“It has been so meaningful to me,” she said. “The freedom to tell our past to mature students who are engaged and anxious to learn is the greatest possible profession I could ever ask for. Central Piedmont has given me more than I could have ever asked for in a career.”

One of the areas that Autry is most proud of is the quality of education she feels she provides her students, who have told her they learned more and had better experiences at Central Piedmont than at other institutions. Additionally, several have entered the teaching profession as well.

Ultimately, it is all about the students for Autry, embodying one of Central Piedmont’s core values of being student-centered.

“My most meaningful accomplishment is not the projects that I completed with the CTLE, or the awards that I received, or the faculty title I can attach to my name,” she said. “My most meaningful accomplishment is the intense and engaged stare I get when I know my students are fully enthralled in my teaching. There is no better reward than when students say they are sad that a semester is over or can’t wait until the next class to see ‘what happens.’ That is my greatest accomplishment. Fortunately, I can make it happen every semester if I keep my passion strong and my love of history and teaching engaging. Then I know I have accomplished what I have set out to do.” ⭐