Of Interest...

NQEC Has Arrived

ASQ’s National Quality Education Conference (NQEC) will be held Oct. 25–27 in Jacksonville, FL. The event will follow the theme “Leading, Learning and Teaching for Tomorrow’s World.”

The event will include preconference workshops, networking opportunities, an education team excellence award, sessions and keynote presentations.

Additionally, NQEC panel members—John Pieno from Florida Sterling, Mary Beth Corace from Pinellas County Schools and Constance Jones from Lee County Schools—will participate in a 30-minute education roundtable interview on Florida Matters, a radio program on WUSF, a station out of Tampa, FL. The show will be aired twice: 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, and 10 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. The show can be heard on www.wusf.org.

Learn more about the conference.

Seventeen Years of Baldrige Scoring Data Now Available

Recently, the Baldrige National Quality Program published anonymous scoring data on 1,033 applicants for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from 1990–2006. The information, posted at www.baldrige.nist.gov/Data_Analysis/index.htm (case sensitive), is being publicly released in response to many requests, as well as to facilitate further analysis by interested researchers.

Presented in tabular and graphic forms, the scoring data come from independent reviews (the initial scores given by individual examiners prior to consensus on the examiner team) and consensus reviews (the later scores determined by a team of examiners) for:

All 17 years and all six award categories (manufacturing, small business, service, healthcare, education and nonprofit) together.
All 17 years by individual category.
Comparison of categories within individual years.
Comparison of years within individual categories. Applicants and examiners are not identified.

Future updates to the scoring data website will add features such as individual applicant scores for individual Baldrige criteria items and the ability to track the scoring progress for repeat applicants.

For more information, call 301-975-2036 or send an e-mail to nqp@nist.gov.

Businesses Invited to ‘Sponsor a Teacher’

A new ASQ initiative allows businesses that are concerned about 21st century skills and competitiveness in the future workforce to support educators in their community. The sponsor-a-teacher program invites any business to sponsor educators or a district to attend this year’s National Quality Education Conference, Oct. 25–27 in Jacksonville, FL.

The program—and the conference—helps teachers enforce and promote problem solving, critical thinking and science, technology, engineering and math skills in the classroom to ensure students are fully skilled when entering the workforce.

Learn more about the program.

Perspectives on the Future of Quality and Organizational Excellence

Thought leaders from business, industry and nongovernmental organizations met in June at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, to discuss the future of quality and organizational performance excellence.

Hosted by ASQ and the Baldrige National Quality Program, participants identified four priority areas in which quality and performance improvement can produce the greatest effect and foster positive change.