College presidents address workforce challenges

Sep. 12—John Fuchko, interim president of Dalton State College (DSC), joined Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) President Heidi Popham for a lengthy discussion on the state of postsecondary education on Sept. 7.

"Between our campuses, our adult education sites, our dual enrollment sites, we have 44 addresses across Northwest Georgia," Popham said at the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event. "Currently, this fall semester we're happy to say that our enrollment is up ... right now, even before our mini-term starts, we're at a little over 6,600 students."

Fuchko also said that enrollment is up considerably at DSC.

"I think it's the highest growth since 2009, actually," he said. "It's unofficial numbers, but we're up almost 7% and just short of about 4,900 students for this fall."

Last year, he said DSC graduated about 700 students.

"82% of those who were employed were employed in Dalton, Whitfield County or in the immediate area," Fuchko said. "Over 90% of our graduates were employed in the State of Georgia, so I think that right there is kind of an answer to the question around workforce needs."

Fuchko said the college strives to build programs that are "relevant to the needs" of students and the community at large.

"Frankly, we don't have the luxury as a State institution to kind of come up with programs that aren't relevant to that," he added.

Popham said she's especially proud of the GNTC placement rate for graduates within the fields they actually studied.

"Which is at 90.1%," she said. "That's just staying in touch and focused on what are those workforce needs of our community. We are very focused on those high-demand fields where there are more openings in the workforce than there is a skilled workforce to fill them."

She said that a ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for the college's mobile advanced manufacturing lab shortly.

"We're very excited to have that opportunity to provide training wherever it is needed, not necessarily on one of our six campuses," she continued. "It may be in the parking lot of your industry, that you need robotics, AC/DC, PLC ... and we're anticipating accepting our mobile welding lab."

She noted that some of the college's technical certificates of credit can be completed within one semester.

"It's very important for us in any area that we can to ensure that those students who are completing that are receiving an industry-recognized credential," she said. "If they have that industry-recognized credential — and for whatever reason, life happens and they need to leave GNTC — they still have that very valuable tool that they can utilize to ensure that they have a job and can work in an area."

Fuchko touched upon DSC's core curriculum.

"We want students who can think critically, we want people who can interpret what's going on around them in a way when, frankly, there's a lot of 'facts' — quote, end quote — out there floating around in the world," he said. "As your employees, you want them to think through data, to understand what data means, and be able to come to you with recommendations."

And clearly, employers want employees who can effectively communicate.

"Whether it's the elevator pitch or that detailed report," he said. "It's very important to me that we're producing engaged citizens who are going to be the future voters, the future leaders, the future elected officials — and I fundamentally believe that what we do in our core, with our English and our history and our social science and math and all those other things, are a big part of that."

From a higher education perspective, Fuchko said the fundamental philosophical question is what's the best thing for the student — and the best thing for the community.

"If you start there, everything else works itself out," he said.

He also broached the topic of articulation agreements between postsecondary institutions.

"Basically, if you take classes at Georgia Northwestern Tech and you come over to Dalton State, we want you to lose as few credits as humanly possible," he said. "They all transfer, but they might transfer into a bucket of electives, which is a limited number ... we've got more work that we're going to be doing in a very focused way to make sure that students who are completing specific programs at Georgia Northwestern Technical College can seamlessly, with hopefully minimal loss of any of those credit hours, come to the kind of applicable 'next step' four-year program with us."

Popham stressed the importance of partnerships with the local high schools.

"It's taking our teams to them and being on their sites," she said. "So a family that may feel a little uncomfortable going to one of our institutions because it's different and it can be a little intimidating — we're going to them."

The message, she said, is loud and clear for students — "the opportunity is here and you can do it."

Popham said it's important for industries to relay their concerns to the local colleges.

"We're all about continuous improvement," she said. "How can we do what we do and do it in a more effective manner to meet your needs?"

Fuchko said things like internships, clinicals and teaching programs are all big factors.

"It's giving opportunities for our students to get involved in your business and your organization," he said. "It's 90% of the way there in terms of getting them to stay here and engage and be a part of the community and part of a business."

Fuchko said DSC's retention rate is "consistently in the top third" of Georgia-based colleges.

"When you give us your students, we're going to treat that as an investment that you're making in us," he said. "And if they're meeting us halfway, we're going to meet them more than halfway to bring them through."

Popham said that all of GNTC's health care programs are competitive admissions.

"So we just have this pool of students that are completing their Englishes, their maths and their psychologies but they haven't actually gone into radiology or RN or echo or cardio," she said. "We want to provide that group of students, which for us is over 600 students ... an opportunity to meet with our health care systems that we serve over nine counties, just opening up that communication."

Fuchko weighed in on the significance of the scholarship piece of the equation.

"It's being able to recruit not just students locally, but students from outside the area," he said. "Where are they going to do their clinicals? Well, they're going to do it here, and if they do it here, where are they going to get their first job? Probably here ... and if we can keep them, that gives us a competitive advantage."

Prior to the postsecondary education discussion, Stephani Womack — director of education and workforce development for the local chamber — took to the podium.

"Our belief is that Greater Dalton's education system will enhance our appeal to families by steadily improving outcomes for students," she said. "Not only are we focused on outcomes in third grade reading or high school graduation, we are also passionate about college and career readiness — we believe that we can assist in reducing disparities in key outcomes for our disadvantaged student populations and that we can convene our education and business partners to drive innovation for our students."

She said that several new workforce development initiatives began in 2023.

"We met with key school leaders, industry stakeholders, and started benchmarking with other communities ahead of us in this work," she said. "We have launched a variety of programs and events to better publicize our schools and get our students and educators in our industry facilities."

So far, she indicated that chamber-led community industry tours have involved well over 200 key educational stakeholders, including administrators, educators and counselors from the local school systems.

"We are not even close to being done yet and we look forward to continuing the tours with our schools," she said. "In March, we hosted the first ever Northwest Georgia Apprenticeship Summit, in partnership with Georgia Northwestern Technical College and the Technical College System of Georgia — we believe that both pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships are an avenue that we can grow in our community to better secure career pathways for both students and employees in our local industries."

A second summit, she said, is slated for February 2024.

"Since February, we have hosted 18 events and presentations that have impacted 2,458 middle-, high- and college-aged students," she said. "And in June, we launched our inaugural Project Purpose program — a 10-day boot camp for recent high school graduates who do not plan on attending postsecondary education immediately following graduation."