With the possibility of a recession looming, and coming off the biggest rise in unemployment since the 1930s, training people for attainable, local jobs is critically important.
Workforce preparation, particularly in skilled trades and manufacturing, has been emphasized in recent years -- think Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs."
The LEARNS Act, a sweeping overhaul of education in the State of Arkansas that recently was signed by Gov. Sarah Sanders, requires schools to give students the opportunity to earn a diploma through a "career-ready pathway," where their high school education is focused on "modern career and technical studies aligned with high-wage, high-growth jobs in Arkansas."
At the same time, jobs are becoming more complicated, and with worker safety a priority for those on the plant floor as well as those employing them.
That's where South Arkansas Community College comes in.
While SouthArk offers a broad range of programs of study, workforce development is its primary focus. SouthArk President Dr. Bentley Wallace said the college's job is to drive economic growth, and having a trained workforce is key to that effort.
"The college's role is to help drive economic growth in our region, and if we're not aligned with the employers in our region, if we're not able to be nimble and adapt to changes in local industry, if we couldn't make those quick changes, not only would we not be serving our students well, we wouldn't be fulfilling that mission to drive economic growth locally," he said.
And to ensure that students can leave SouthArk with everything they need to get a job close to home, the community college collaborates closely with employers throughout the region to select programs to offer and design curriculum.
"Decisions about curriculum are made by the employers in our region," Wallace said. "The college uses advisory committees made up of production, human resources and safety professionals from those employers and they determine what our curriculum is. They tell us what we should teach our students to help them be really good employees."
For example, when a grant became available last year to start a forestry tech program, which would train workers for entry- and mid-level jobs in the forestry industry, SouthArk jumped at the chance.
The forestry industry makes up 5% of Arkansas's GDP, according to the University of Arkansas at Monticello, and labor income derived from working in the forestry industry was $3.1 billion in 2017, according to the University of Arkansas Extension Office.
SouthArk will offer its first credited forestry tech classes this fall, Wallace said earlier this month.
According to SouthArk, forestry jobs have an average wage of $22 an hour in Arkansas.
Also coming this fall is a new medium- and heavy-truck technician program that will be available to both high school and college students.
SouthArk received more than $1.1 million in grants last year to upgrade its existing automotive lab and other facilities at its East Campus for the program.
"The construction projects are happening for ... expansion and renovation of our automotive technician space and the renovation of the old industrial technology building into our new transportation technology center, classrooms for automotive technology and lab and study space for the truck program," Wallace said this month, noting that the final preparations are being made to start construction work this summer.
SouthArk is also updating its welding program, another course of study available to both high school students and others.
Grants of $835,000 from the U.S. Department of Labor and $734,000 from the Delta Regional Authority will fund the expansion of the college's welding capacity and non-credit welder training, Wallace said.
The welding facilities at the East Campus will be updated starting this summer as well, he said.
SouthArk's biggest program of study is nursing, and the community college announced earlier this month that the licensed practical nursing (LPN) program currently offered there is now also available to high school students, a first for the state. Area high schoolers will be able to begin taking nursing prerequisite courses their junior year, followed by nursing courses in their senior year.
"As soon as they're 18, they can test for their national nursing exams, so this is a fast-track program," Wallace said. "Other colleges in the state are looking to partner (with the Arkansas Office of Skills Development, which provided a grant for the program at SouthArk); SouthArk was the first to launch, and we do have students enrolled now."
The expansion of the nursing program will help to address a critical nursing shortage being felt across the country, the program director, Michelle Moseley, said.
"We're in a new era," she said. "If they know that this is what they want to do, why not go ahead and do this while in high school? I would have, had it been an option for me."
Another growing industry is computer technology, which, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2018 accounted for 9% of the country's GDP. Wallace said SouthArk currently offers courses that allow students to earn proficiency and technical certifications, and that the college hopes to grow the program in the coming years.
One step SouthArk is taking to do just that is established esports, a type of organized, competitive video gaming.
"It is an area we need to expand, and one thing we're doing toward that in is launching esports this year," Wallace said. "It's a great way to attract students to the college who typically would be majoring in our business or computer science classes."
Creating an esports team will allow SouthArk to recruit gamers, a population that might take more of an interest in computer technology programs of study, Wallace said.
The team will launch this fall, and next spring will be a part of the National Junior College Athletic Association Esports.
SouthArk also offers criminal justice, culinary arts, industrial engineering technology, electrical & instrumentation, industrial maintenance and chemical process technology in its career and technical studies catalog.
Wallace said as a community college, SouthArk's mission differs from what a four-year university may aim for.
"Two-year colleges are much closer, typically, to the needs of local employers. We have great partners at our four-year institutions, but at two-year colleges, we work to get people to get education and then to what's next as quickly and as affordably as possible," he said. "Some of our graduates will go on to get a four-year degree; most will go to work locally."
As El Dorado and Union County's populations decline, SouthArk is working to keep local students close to home, filling high-need jobs for fair pay.
"SouthArk continues to be the leading educational institution for workplace preparation in south Arkansas. We train highly-qualified and safe employees for a number of careers -- high-wage, high-demand jobs that allow our students, both high school and post-secondary, to stay home after graduation," Wallace said.