4 ACADEMICS MIC offers certifications for non-traditional students March 7-27
Kaitlin Brothers News Editor
The Missouri Innovation Campus offers students who aren’t interested in traditional degrees a gateway into the workforce through certifications and skill-set trainings. Clarinda Dir is the operations manager of the Workforce Development Program. She said this job originally started out as a career services position. When she changed positions to be the operations manager, she kept the career-services aspect of the job, helping students with their resumes and interviewing skills. “Workforce Development is actually still working with students and with employers to fill job needs,” Dir said. “Most students come in and they’re afraid of interviewing. I recently worked with a student...he was really terrified of having to get in an interview. Eventually, he did his last interview and he told me, ‘I did so well with it. And I would never have done that if I hadn’t had that resource at UCM.’” Dir said they get good feedback from employers about the students who come from the program. “The employers, when they come in for mock interviews...they’re saying that (students) are very well-prepared,” she said. “And one of the education teachers actually told her students that a principal had called her and said, ‘You guys prepare your students better than anybody else at interviewing.’ It’s a great service to help them get ready and not be terrified when they do go for an interview.” The other half of her job is working in workforce development. She promotes the programs and works with the Federal employment council to get scholarships for students. The FEC is a job center based in Kansas City, Missouri. “It will pay for them to go start their career,” she said. “Any underserved individuals are helped through that. We’re trying to work on some programs that employers have need for...so we can offer certificates to fill those needs.”
Photo courtesy of Rick Smetana Certified nursing associate graduates hold their certificates on Feb. 21 at the MIC campus in Lee’s Summit. Dir said the program gets many students a job and sometimes the employers offer to pay for the schooling.
“I really enjoy working with the students because you are getting ready to start out and go toward your dream. It’s a fun time in your life.”
-Clarinda Dir
“The most recent (graduation) that we just did...Children’s Mercy had actually hired eight students and paid for their time at school, and FEC provided scholarships for them to get in,” she said. “All eight of them are going in with a job. When they
graduated, they had a job. They had a job when they were going to school.” Dir has been working for MIC full time for about four years. She said her favorite aspect of the job is engaging with students. “I really enjoy working with the students because you are getting ready to start out and go toward your dream. It’s a fun time in your life,” she said. “I actually left UCM for about a year and I really missed interactions with the students — being able to help them and develop relationships and watch them grow. Really that’s my favorite part is being able to help them kick off their careers.” Rick Smetana, operations manager at MIC, said the Workforce Development Program is for students who don’t want or need to get a traditional degree. “So essentially, as you know, UCM is a traditional four-year institution that does graduate and undergraduate work. Our
unit, Extended Studies, goes out and tries to assist in the education of people who don’t fit that normal four-year or graduate school track,” Smetana said. “That’s where our Workforce Development unit comes in.” CERTIFICATIONS, continued on Page 6
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