TCCC tops in job training

Continues high enrollment in face of state budget cutbacks

By Frank Bradley

Sentinel writer

If you want to know where local out-of-work people are going to learn skills enabling them to once again get good paying jobs, then you might want to take a look at what they’re doing at Tri-County Community College.

At the TCCC Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, President Dr. Donna Tipton-Rogers told the board that Spring enrollment at the college was up 28 percent over the previous year, and that Summer enrollment might even exceed that.

“Student enrollment has been on the upswing these past two years,” Tipton-Rogers said. “People who have lost their jobs have come back to school for retraining, and high school graduates have been enrolling in larger numbers than before because we are more affordable.”

She said there has also been an increase in students taking on-line courses.  Speaking of the success of the welding and nursing programs, Tipton-Rogers said 334 students have been enrolled in the welding program over the past two years completing more than 125,000 contact hours with many of the students getting good-paying jobs before they can complete the course of study. In January, 36 welding students were placed in jobs.

“We measure our success by a somewhat different standard than they do at the state level,” Tipton-Rogers said. “We consider it a success if our students can take what they learn here and turn it into a job. That often means that our welding program completion rate is somewhat lower than at other colleges because many of our students get offered good high paying jobs before they complete the program.”

With regard to the nursing program, Tipton-Rogers said the college’s partnership with Haywood Community College has worked out extremely well. Together they are graduating and pinning a record number of nursing students while progressively improving the quality of their instruction. Fire and rescue training continues to be a vital part of TCCC’s instruction. Also, the college will be starting Basic Law Enforcement training within a couple of weeks, which should prove to be a major benefit to local sheriff’s and police departments.

With regard to college transfer students, Tipton-Rogers said that TCCC ranked 4th in the state with a 3.0 or higher GPA.

Tipton-Rogers also reported on a recent visit of North Carolina’s Community College president, Dr. Rawls, who was so impressed at the staff briefings that he invited Dr. Tipton-Rogers to Raleigh to brief the state board of education on TCCC’s success in placing students in jobs.

Tipton-Rogers praised her financial staff in managing the college’s funds so effectively that it did not have to lay any employees off. “We were one of just a few of the colleges that did not have to do that,” she said.

In other matters, Tipton-Rogers said a new building for the Fire Training Center is expected to be completed by year’s end; because of a record number of applicants, the 40 incoming freshmen students at the Tri-County Early College High School were selected using a lottery; two classrooms on the main campus have been outfitted with new computers; the college is working on a regional Job Fair that will be sponsored by Congressman Heath Shuler to be held on Saturday August 14. TCCC will partner with the Employment Security Commission, area chambers of commerce and Cherokee, Clay and Graham governments on this project.

Summer Semester classes begin on Thursday 3 June and end on August 2.

Two full-time faculty members are retiring this summer: Dr. Gene Boyer, GCC Coordinator for Instructional Services and Biology instructor and Melanie Rothchild, Head of Early Childhood Development. Adjunct faculty member William Bristol has also retired.