IN EDUCATION President in motion Flexible scheduling getting
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Seward County Communty College President Dr. Ken Trzaska (bottom left) joins community members at the NJCAA Women’s National Championship in Lubbock, Texas in March. Trzaska has taken on the role of connecting the college with the community. Photo courtesy SCCC
President in motion SCCC’s Dr. Ken Trzaska: Community progress starts with personal connections
If you stop to visit Dr. Ken Trzaska, Seward County Community College president, the top of his desk is likely clean and bare‚ and he’s probably not sitting behind it.
Trzaska is more likely to be traveling across campus, where he has made the student experience a top priority. He may be picking up fruit and coffee from the updated cafeteria, chatting with students along the way, or connecting with an instructor who has taken on a dual-level class as part of the college’s new focus on flexible course offerings. Then again, he might be returning from another trip to Topeka, where the work of keeping SCCC on the mental map of legislators is an extension of his role. “It’s a matter of not assuming that people understand the daily experience in Southwest Kansas. We have to help people on the eastern half of the state understand the difference between their needs and ours,” Trzaska said. “We have to stay at the forefront of committees in order to articulate rural life and our students’ circumstances.” As the 10th president of SCCC, Trzaska is keenly aware of the foundation crafted by his predecessors. “The issues we work on today have grown out of the work done by the nine presidents who held the position By RACHEL COLEMAN • Seward County Community College
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before me,” he says. “Their work informs mine, and it creates a dynamic flow, whether that means I’m riding on the bus with the basketball team, or speaking to high school students who are visiting our campus, or connecting with emerging leaders in the community.” Whatever his focus, Trzaska is undoubtedly in motion. It’s fitting for the person who coined the college’s current theme and focus, “Moving Seward Forward,” and it’s what he does daily as he builds the team spirit at the college. He challenges his colleagues to do good work, and do a bit better every day. “We can’t be perfect, but the vision is to advance a little more, continually, through our five key directions,” Trzaska will say, listing them from memory: create a safe and healthy campus; Dr. Ken Trzaska points to an area of future growth on the campus of Seward County Community College. Photo courtesy SCCC invest in teaching, learning and curriculum; enhance financial and organizational vitality; expect high outcomes in recruitment, retention organizations here through the same lens, we’re “A great example of that is our trail system, and graduation; broaden community, always going to be trying to solve the problem in which began as a way to connect two sections of educational, business and industry collaboration. our own way, and it won’t have meaning, it our campus, and has now evolved into a way to “And under those directions are specific goals doesn’t have impact, it doesn’t contribute to the connect the community to our college as well.” for the college in each area, but beyond all that community.” Through partnerships with the Liberal Area is the reality that the issues touch the lives of our That perspective drives Trzaska’s vision of Coalition for Families, the Sunflower students, and the challenges we face as a college SCCC as it will be in five years. Foundation, and even Blue Cross Blue Shield, are the challenges we face as a community,” he “The most important thing is the interconnect- what began as a simple sidewalk has grown into said. “If we don’t look at situations, in the city, in edness between the campus and the community, a network of overlapping, interlocking pathways, the county, economically, demographically, the and the community and the campus,” he said. with more expansion planned.
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Trzaska routinely walks the route between main campus and Industrial Technology to check the dozens of newly-planted trees. Solar lights and charging stations will soon be installed. Someday, he says, “this is going to be the kind of place where a family can come out with the stroller and the dog and a picnic and just have a really nice day in a place they can enjoy.” An added benefit? Pedestrians will have even easier access to shopping locations on the north side of town. Another important project has been alignment of the institution’s vision for the future with the community’s needs. Most college capital campaigns focus tightly on campus priorities and program needs; at SCCC, Trzaska pointed out, the “Students First Community Always” campaign is built on interlocking needs rooted in regional realities. As plans are finalized for the Sharp Family Champions Center, a multipurpose indoor sports facility on the SCCC campus, Trzaska is keenly aware of the back stories that have fueled its conception. There are major donors Gene and Jo Ann Sharp, longtime community members who not only carry a lasting affection for baseball, but also played key roles in establishing the college, serving on local boards and in elected offices, and advocating for
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children’s sports leagues. The project, Trzaska hopes, will honor that longstanding tradition of community initiative, and serve Liberal’s needs as well as the Saints athletes and the local semipro baseball team, the Liberal BeeJays. Then there’s the Colvin Family Allied Health Center, slated to begin construction this spring. The new teaching and lab facility not only bears the name of major donors and economic players in Liberal, it reflects a commitment to the region as a whole. Currently housed in Liberal’s original Epworth Hospital, the SCCC Allied Health program produces healthcare professionals who literally keep residents in a 200-mile radius alive and well. “Our graduates are going out and working at rural hospitals and clinics and nursing homes, in these little towns where an outsider might drive through and think, ‘there’s nothing, that’s an anemic place with no possibilities,’“ Trzaska said. “But what we know is that these towns are full of talent and opportunity, and people who are working very hard to make a difference.” Trzaska, who completed his college degrees in upstate New York and spent time working in Chicago, finds the grit and community in rural Kansas inspiring. “I was at the national college conference in Washington, D.C. recently, and it seemed that whenever I connected with people, they’d ask a
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few questions about me and my background, and where I am now, and then they’d ask, ‘Why in the world are you in Kansas? Isn’t that a state where things are really kind of messed up?’ Trzaska shakes his head. “I think I had this conversation something like four times. I’d say, ‘There’s a lot of great things happening in Kansas. Let me tell you what’s happening in Liberal.’“ Trzaska loves to list the can-do spirit that characterizes the community, as well as the newest collaborative projects taking form. He tells them about the seven new schools recently constructed, the expansion on the north end of the city, and the excitement about joint board meetings between elected officials who also want to “Move Seward Forward.” “The excitement after the last joint meeting I attended was profound,” he said. “Everywhere in the room, you felt this determination that we’re ready to make changes, to think differently, to go forward together, not compartmentalizing. That’s the way to solve problems.” SCCC’s president credits that awareness to a childhood experience that transformed his life trajectory, and ultimately led him to college. “Growing up, I moved a lot, and it was all around the world because my father worked for the government,” he said. “So, I learned a lot about getting along with people, basically by
being exposed to communities where I didn’t speak the language, where kids were from different backgrounds. You have different different cultures, different attitudes, different religions. To me, it was the norm. I don’t shy away.” In Germany, Trzaska’s family lived in Gartringen (near Stuttgart), in a home that abutted a refugee housing complex. “I didn’t know what that was, I just walked down there,” he said. “Here were all these kids playing soccer. I remember standing on the sides, watching. Then one of the kids kind of waved me over and started speaking in his language, and I just started playing.” Forty years later, Trzaska said, “I remember the faces of these kids I played soccer with, in between two buildings. We played soccer at all hours of the day with no shoes.” Trzaska gained more than good childhood memories from the experience. “I never learned to speak their language, but we learned to communicate together through our passion for soccer,” he said. “I learned to understand that others that may look, speak, think, believe differently, but there are still more things in common than there are different. At the college, and in the community, we talk about this idea of belonging. But wow, did I feel like I belonged.”
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He also learned that generosity is not dictated by possessions and power. “Those kids had very different experiences than I did,” he said. “I would be what you probably call pretty lucky. I didn’t have to worry about anything. I had shoes; I took them off because all my friends played with no shoes, but these kids lived in a world where they had to worry, ‘how do I survive?’ By allowing me into that circle, they did something for me. They made me a pretty good soccer player, I just learned everything from them. I had the opportunity to move forward and go to college and start playing, but it all started from somebody just kind of waving their hand and saying, ‘come on into this circle.’” Trzaska gives the Boy Scouts organization equal credit for infusing him with a sense of responsibility and resourcefulness. “I became an Eagle Scout when I was 16. I very much loved the outdoors, loved having to solve problems with whatever was at hand, loved the independence,” he said. “I still am involved with the Scouts by serving on the Santa Fe Trail council board.” Along with duties at the college, Trzaska is an active Rotary member, serves on the Liberal Area Chamber of Commerce board, the Baker Arts Center board, and various state and national committees affiliated with the academic
IN EDUCATION world. “One of my favorite things is describing this part of the world to people who have never driven past Wichita,” Trzaska said. “I think our strength here is that we have an openness and a desire to be as much an inclusive community as we can, and that we take responsibility for our own community. I see that through the committees I sit on in the community, the voices I hear, and more and more, I see the potential and the generosity. If you make a general assumption about rural America, because you take 70 across the state, and not the real roads, you’re not going to see the real communities that are finding ways to make a difference.” When Trzaska thinks about the connections between the college and its students, the community, and the world as a whole, he gets inspired. “Kansas is vast. It’s huge. The Plains have a certain, hard-to-describe, numbing beauty, and to get to a place like Liberal, Kansas, you’ve got to go through a lot of the country, and that creates an awareness’ in an emotional, deliberate way’ that there are a lot of people who are making everything work. The leather bag over your shoulder, or the shoes you’re wearing, or sitting at Morton’s Steakhouse in Chicago waiting on your order’ do you have any idea about the father who got up at 3 in the morning
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This aerial view shows the campus of SCCC wiht plenty of room for growth. Courtesy photo to work his shift at National Beef to make a difference for his family, and to do work that benefits you?” Far from being “a place with a lot of problems,” as a conference colleague imagined, Kansas – and Liberal – Trzaska pointed out, “is one of the economic engines of the country, from an agriculture perspective, an energy and economic perspective. Moving here from another region, my awareness of this deepened as I came to know our students and people throughout the community. You live in a big city and drive through the corporate parks and it’s
easy not to know who the people are who do the real work of this country. When you do, it’s pretty inspiring.” Within the college’s parameters, the challenge is to equip a diverse and ever-shifting body of students to do that real-world work. It might happen through carefully calibrated transfer programs that offer seamless articulation from the general education classes to a competitive spot in pharmacy school at the University of Kansas, or a trade-to-industry internship that lands an 18-year-old a $28-an-hour job. It might occur when a stay-at-home mom goes back to
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college to earn a teaching degree that she’s able to complete through SCCC partner colleges while working at the local school district. It might manifest through innovative course delivery like the new “Blendflex” program that offers enrolled students the option to attend traditional classes, view lectures on demand, or do both, as work and life circumstances shift. More options unfold with apprenticeship programs, cross-disciplinary projects like biofuel production, or the use of drones. From a new partnership to diversify the Intelligence community to a fledgling social-work program, SCCC continues to explore ways to meet the needs of students and the region. “The bottom line is, we have no shortage of talent and energy in this community,” Trzaska said. “It is the college’s role to empower people to build their families and their community. It’s exciting work, and it goes beyond the boundaries of campus.” In the long view, and the in the near future, and right now, Trzaska said, “Liberal can be a better community, a more prominent community, a place where people look at us and say, ‘Wow, look at what they’re doing.’” Sometimes, what it takes to get to that point, he said, is a friendly nod and a wave that invites others to join in the game.
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Liberal High School Principal Ashley Kappelmann explains the redesign project to a group of community members in December. Part of the redesign includes FlexMod scheduling where students will work with 20minute blocks of time, allowing teachers to reach more students with shared information at one time, freeing up time to teach additional and more specified content and having more contact time with students. L&T photo/Earl Watt
Flexible scheduling FlexMod changes class structure from the ‘hour’ concept to 20-minute blocks that will make teaching more efficient with more options for students
Back in 2017, Meadowlark Elementary School and Liberal High School were announced as the two schools of USD 480 who will be taking part in the Kansans CAN school redesign project, which was developed to help overhaul many facets of education in schools.
Much excitement was expressed after USD 480 was announced as part of the project, and that excitement continues to go on as more progress continues to be made. “FlexMod scheduling is something we found that other schools are using - some schools have been using it since about the 1960s and 1970s, but not very many,” LHS Principal Ashley Kappelmann said. “It’s definitely challenging to implement, but it was something we felt would be better for our students. There’s the traditional schedule where students go to class for 50 minutes each and then when the bell rings they all go together to the next class, very much a wash, rinse, repeat cycle. With the redesign, we were trying to make sure we weren’t implementing just tweaks to our system because we already knew there’s a good chunk of our student population we may be missing and not fully serving. So we started looking at ideas for overhauls with the redesign and this scheduling is something that popped out at us for several different reasons.” And much of that excitement comes from being able to have more one-on-one time helping students with more problematic areas. By ELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times
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A group of community members listen to a presentation in December 2017 about changes coming to education in Liberal including the FlexMod schedule concept. L&T photo/Earl Watt “Some of the things we want our students to have, we talk about our Angry Red Advantage, which has a lot to do with problem-solving skills and coming up with a plan and taking responsibility for themselves, so this puts a lot of responsibility on the students and a lot of opportunities for students to plan ahead to know what they’ll need to get help with and making sure they get assignments done and keeping to their schedules,” Kappelmann said. “There’s also the chance to have more conversation with teachers
because it could be they have an overlap in class where they have to really do that job of speaking to their teachers and making sure they’re getting work made up. Our students really need to build confidence in that area in speaking to adults and advocating for themselves in a professional manner, so we’re really excited about the benefits that could bring. Another thing we really like, as part of our redesign, is the wide variety of course offerings so the students don’t have to study just the standards and can study
stuff that’s more appealing to their passions.” Other LHS staff also talked about working through the process of implementing FlexMod scheduling. “It has been a learning experience. We had to contact other schools that are currently using the flex-mod schedule. There have been teams visit schools in Wisconsin and Nebraska to check out a flex-mod schedule in action,” LHS counselor and FlexMod scheduler Cindy Orrantia said. “We talked to individuals in charge of creating
the flex-mod master schedule to determine what the first steps in this process would entail. The teachers were then asked to ‘package’ their classes and add new classes based on the interest of students who filled out a survey. These “packages” were to include the number of days a class would meet along with the number of mods during that day. The teachers also decided if they wanted to instruct the students in a large group setting (like college), in small groups or lab time.”
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Liberal High School instructor Eric Olmstead explains how the new redesign will affect scheudling during a community meeting in December 2017. When LHS students begin classes in the fall of 2018, they will be using a FlexMod schedule which will open up a wide vriety of new class options. L&T photo/Earl Watt “Once those decisions were made, Cindy and I took the information from the teachers and began using sticky notes to place classes for each individual teacher,” fellow LHS counselor and FlexMod scheduler Stacy Scripsick added. “During this process we would ask department heads questions that would arise and make adjustments accordingly. At the present time we are waiting to adjust the number of sections that need to be offered based on pre-enrollment numbers. Once we adjust sections we will then input the master schedule into Powerschool and begin enrolling students.” Kappelmann then went into how different the FlexMod model will be from the traditional school day.
“The day is actually built into 21 modules of 20 minutes each, which doesn’t mean each class period is only 20 minutes but rather that you can package them together in 20-minute increments,” Kappelmann said. “It depends on how the teachers want to set up their classrooms or how the departments want to set up their schedules — they could have some classes that last 40 minutes and some that last 60 minutes, that’s about the range. We do have homeroom that will be 20 minutes for days a week. You can set them up several different ways. There’s time for deeper discussion and that type of thing. Large group is where you offer a lot of direct instruction — for example, instead of our American History teachers going all day
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teaching the same lesson seven hours every day and doing that to 20-something students at a time, he and the other American History teachers can combine and have a large group class of about 60 to 80 students. Then there’s not just one teacher in the room, there’s three one doing the lecture and the others circulating the room. And it’s not just a straight lecture, there’s time for the students to talk to each other and do deeper discussion, and that might happen two or three days a week. Then there’s the lab, which can be either an actual math or science lab or it can be the discussion portion of a class. You can have even smaller groups that can have more focused group discussions. There are also chunks of time that can be open and students can use that for personalized learning time and can go to the resource center for what they need like for math or the band room if they’ve got a solo to prepare for an upcoming contest or concert.” With that, Kappelmann added, comes the ability for staff to lock the students’ schedules down to where the students have the freedom and opportunity to choose but they must also be working on subjects they may be struggling with. And there are also several benefits that will come from having the FlexMod scheduling model implemented for the students. “The benefits are definitely the flexibility and wide array of class that students will be able to experience. Students should be able to take classes that will allow them to be exposed in finding their passion,” Scripsick said. “Students will also have the opportunity to receive help with classes during the school day and not have to find time before or after school. Kids are not serving time at school but school will serve the students.” And the involvement of the students’ parents and the rest of the community has also been positive. “It’s been really positive. One, parents and community members have always seen the benefits of why we’re doing this,” Kappelman said. “The other thing I appreciate from our community is they recognize there’s going to be
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This poster shows the progress of the redeisgn project currently under way at Liberal High School and Meadowlark. The challenge to rethink how education is done has led to the development of a new daily schedule at LHS which will include FlexMod scheduling, a concept that will allow classroom lectures to reach more students at the same time, and then instructors will be able to work more with the students on anindividual basis and offer additional instruction rather than repeating themselves six times a day. For example, American History teachers will be able to offer additional classes on items like Military History, and English teachers will be able to present additional offerings like Greek Mythology. L&T photo/Earl Watt
challenges at first, so I appreciate that because we know it’s going to be challenging at first too. They understand it and are communicating to us they know it’ll be worth it in the end. We have good questions from the community such as what would happen if a student has too much flexibility, and that’s great because it makes us
make sure we’re ready to answer those questions. So it’s been positive also in how people know they can ask us those types of questions. Our community and parents, I can’t say enough about how supportive they’ve been of our efforts in trying to make that positive outlook with what we’re doing.”
“It will require a lot of work and communication but the end results will be very beneficial to our students, and the community’s been awesome with feedback,” Orrantia said. “We are trying to get parents as involved as possible in the process of students selecting classes,” Scripsick said. “Parents need to take
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IN EDUCATION these opportunities with their students to be involved in helping the student prepare for the future. Parents also need to recognize that this is a new process. We hope the change goes smoothly but we realize we will find issues and work to resolve them as they arise. Patience will be the key.” Overall, Kappelmann said, it is extremely important for the LHS students to have such flexibility available. “We already know from the student engagement survey we did through Gallup that 30 percent of our students are actively disengaged and only 27 percent of our students are. The vast majority of our students are not currently engaged in the system we’re providing for them,” Kappelmann said. We’re doing a lot of student focus groups to figure out why and what we can do to address that but this, to me and the team, has been huge in recognizing we’ll be able to do a better job of meeting the needs of a lot of our students we’ve been missing. It’s going to give us more time with individualized interventions with those students. It’s about giving that choice to the students as to what they feel is relevant and their passions. We’re also trying to develop that culture and growth mindset. It also allows, since the schedule’s flexible enough, for community members to
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Liberal High School Assistant Principal Scott Hinkle discusses the process of researching a variety of options that could be implemented at LHS with the purpose of enhancing the educational process that will give students the ‘Redskins Advantage.’ L&T photo/Earl Watt come in and share their expertise in things we can’t offer - our students are begging to have life skills and things like that and would love community members to come in and do that, whereas before, if we wanted to do that, it’d take almost a full day for that community member or
an all-school assembly to address everyone. We’re excited about the partnerships we can form and how we can work with community members differently and honor their time.” And while there will be several positive outcomes from this model, it was emphasized
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this will continue to be a work in progress and patience will be paramount. “I was just speaking with a principal from Wisconsin we visited with and he’s had more people contacting him or following him on social media and it’s become a bit of a thing where schools in Kansas have gotten ahold of him about FlexMod scheduling,” Kappelmann said. “We have multi-tiered systems of support that addresses students’ needs. I see why so many other schools are also looking at this and I’m looking forward to seeing how many schools adopt this. Our staff must be commended for being willing to take this big risk and for the work they’ve put into this. Our schedulers and departments have put in an insane amount of work into making sure this will all work out. We’re really excited for the benefits this will give our students. We know it will take some time to adjust to this for students and staff, we know there will be some growing pains at the beginning, but we hope by taking this risk to help our students, that they’ll see when it’s worth it to make something bigger and better and we modeled it for them.” “As with all change it is scary and frustrating but the outcome will be well worth the trials,” Scripsick said.
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Industrial skills needed to keep America’s economy moving forward are learned at Seward County Communtiy College’s technical school In its early days, it was known as Liberal Area Vo-Tech. It later became Southwest Kansas Technical School before merging with Seward County Community College.
Now it is simply known as the Industrial Technology (IT) campus of SCCC, but no matter the name, for about five decades, students have been coming to Liberal to learn a technical skill or trade at the school. In recent years, the IT campus has added to its number of courses, most recently with the addition of a plumbing apprenticeship program. SCCC Business & Industry Director Norma Jean Dodge said the school is beginning to look in a similar direction for some of its other classes. “We’re looking right now at a maintenance technician one as well, but that’s in the baby stages right now, trying to get all the courses together, and then we will submit that to the state,” she said. With the plumbing apprenticeship and others of its kind, Dodge said SCCC is working with companies that give existing employees a chance to be an apprentice. “They put their employees into this program, and we just help build on the skills that they need for that position that they’re in,” she said. “We know there’s definitely need in industrial tech.” Dodge said several groups have approached the college about a maintenance technician program, but for now, the best that can be done in Corrosion technology is one of the newest programs offered at Seward County Community College’s Industrial Technology campus. Courtesy photo that area is an apprenticeship. “Our faculty’s working to develop that and get that going,” she said. “I’m not quite sure on the kickoff date on that yet, but that’s one of the things By ROBERT PIERCE we’re working on right now in addition to the plumbing apprenticeship • Leader & Times that we just started in February. We have eight people in that program
IN EDUCATION right now.” Dodge said SCCC Computer Information Systems Instructor Ed Hall has added to the technology mix with some coding classes. “He’s been trying to introduce those to the younger ages to kind of get them on campus and also get familiar with coding and seeing what exactly that is and how that would be of interest to them,” she said. Dodge said interest in robotics is growing amongst younger people, and more of that will be seen in the near future. “Some of the drones that they use, some of that’s being implemented into the programs that our faculty, and Ed’s one of them, are offering,” she said. “They’re connecting that part with our ag. Some of what they’re doing is how do those connect and how can we provide training.” Dodge said SCCC is even looking at providing training to the area’s ag industry in terms of apprenticeships. She said this is just some of what the school is looking into benefit the community and the area at this time. “I think you’ll see some of that come out,” she said.” You’ll also see there are some things they’re working on with ethanol. We have our biology instructor working with our ag instructor and Chris Hickman from process tech. We’re trying to connect those three and how do we
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These students are learning skills in one of the many programs offered at the Industrial Technology campus. Courtesy photo
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help those in the ethanol industry as well.” In this way, Dodge said school officials are being very creative in how training is provided for potential employees. “These kind of things have not taken off yet, but those are things that they’re working on right now,” she said. “I wish I could tell you dates when these things will happen, but those are the things that the staff is looking into working on and hopefully introduce as other training opportunities for the community.” Dodge said SCCC’s IT campus, particularly Business & Industry, tries to promote the idea that locals do not have to travel elsewhere to get the type of training the school provides. “We’re trying to bring it here whether we’re trying to reach our outlining areas or just Liberal,” she said. “My goal is to get people to realize that Seward’s offering this, Seward’s offering this, and you don’t have to travel to Kansas City or to Denver or wherever,. The training’s going to be provided here if you just let us know what type of training you’re needing. I think it is beneficial to the rural community. The things that we offer saves them money and traveling, hotels.” Dodge said SCCC’s newest president, Dr. Ken Trzaska, wants school faculty to be more creative in what they offer and to make sure
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This student gets some one on one instruction from a teacher at the Industrial Tech campus. Courtesy photo industry needs and training opportunities are met and provided. “Most of our programs on campus, as well as Business & Industry, we do have advisory boards that help us with that,” she said. “We talk to them about this is what we’re currently offering.
This instills skills that you’re employees need, and if not, what do we need to add to that or what do we need to take out of the programs that we’re offering.” Dodge said officials with the IT campus likewise work hard to stay connected with indus-
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tries, which guide them in what they need to be doing to train new employees. “That student completes their degree or it’s a short-term class like mine, that employer is saying, ‘Thank you, that’s what we needed. That’s what they need to train on,’” she said. “We pick our employers’ brain quite often with what we need to make sure we’re doing.” The training SCCC’s IT campus provides, Dodge said, is very essential in today’s world of ever-changing technology. “We need to stay on top of that. You’re in an automotive program, a lot of stuff is computerized,” she said. “How do we stay on top of that? Even in our energy programs, so many of these programs have things that are dealing with technology. How are we training them on that equipment?” Another way SCCC helps workers is in teaching them what do should equipment break down in the middle of a job, a skill Dodge said employees still need. “That’s one of the things our industry’s talking to us about,” she said. “It’s great to have this technology in their hands, but if something should happen and they need to figure out something quickly, we need to make sure they still have the basics of what to do if something should malfunction with that piece of
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IN EDUCATION technology that they’re using. It’s very important that we stay on top of that because technology is constantly changing, and it’s pretty much in everything that our programs are doing nowadays.� As for what careers are in demand, Dodge said the health career field is definitely one of the top areas needed at this time. “We have lots of outlying and within our own hospital, people looking for people in the medical field,� she said. “That’s definitely one of the growing fields, and I think it always will be.� In her position, Dodge said she sees a need to grow SCCC’s industry-based programs. “I know that our oil and gas has had a hit recently, but we have had several employers come to me and visit our students and wanting to either hire them on as an intern or hire them on when they’re done with their degree,� she said. “I think if students are looking for stuff, those fields, the process tech, the corrosion, the natural gas, people are calling me recently to come take a tour, come visit with those students.� Dodge said companies want to make sure their names are familiar with students as they train for careers in a field. “When they’re looking for employment, that’s something that they know about,� she said.
Auto repair is a staple found at many tech schools, and Seward County’s Industrial Tech campus is no exception. Courtesy photo “One of the things we’ve been talking about with some of these employers is how do we let the younger students from elementary to the middle school to high school what exactly is corrosion,
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what exactly is process tech, what is it, so maybe they would have an interest to get connected or even experiment a little bit with those programs.�
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For this reason, Dodge applauds Hall’s efforts with coding classes. “He’s offering it during his off time in the evening, having students come on campus and figure out what coding is and if they have an interest,� she said. “Maybe that will build his program as well, as well as help those industries that need those students in that area.� Dodge said from talking with many employers, new employees are a growing need due to the growing number of retirees in many fields. “They want to know how do they hire people with the skills already that they need,� she said. “They’re starting to look to our school and say, ‘How can we connect with your students?’ They come and take tours of the program to see what exactly they’re learning. They can see if that’s going to be applicable to their company when hiring them. It’s just really been neat this last six months. I’ve constantly had a business visit at least every other week, if not every week.� Dodge said working with companies to meet training needs is something that happens seemingly on a daily basis at the IT campus. “I’ve constantly having businesses on campus to visit with students about internships or some kind of career opportunity with them,� she said.
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