Nash Community College President Lew Hunnicutt told Rocky Mount Rotarians last week that he and his team have a mantra: “If you stay local and study local, you will succeed locally.”
One of the community college’s commitments, Hunnicutt said, is finding ways to keep young people in the area to fill the local workforce needs “because let’s face it, I’m looking out at the crowd. We’re not getting any younger.”
Hunnicutt was commenting on local workforce issues as part of an extensive annual presentation about the community college at the club’s weekly luncheon meeting, which is held Tuesdays at Benvenue Country Club.
Earlier in the presentation Hunnicutt showed data about NCC before showing the audience some facts they may not know.
The first fact, Hunnicutt said, is that Nash County has a 20.4 percent childhood poverty rate.
“That’s too high,” Hunnicutt said. “It’s lower than many of our surrounding counties, but in my opinion that’s too high.”
The second fact, Hunnicutt said, is that 2,309 people in Nash County referred to as opportunity youth, that is, 16-year-olds to 24-year-olds, are not in school and not at work.
“If you’re 16 to 24 and you’re not in school and you’re not at work, you’re either doing nothing or you’re doing what? Something you shouldn’t be doing,” Hunnicutt said. “That, to me, is a critical population for us.”
The third fact, Hunnicutt said, is that of 22,000 people in Nash County referred to as adult learners, that is, 25-year-olds to 44-year-olds, 14,000 have not earned a certificate or a degree.
Hunnicutt pointed out that the statewide commission myFutureNC is seeking to make sure that by 2030, two million North Carolinians have a high-quality credential or postsecondary education.
“We know already we’re running right now to be about 300,000 short,” Hunnicutt said.
He noted he does not know whether there is a lot of teeth to the mandate if the number is short by 2030.
“But certainly, we need to be better,” he said. “I will tell you in our county we’re at 67 percent — and we are well on track to meet our goal for the 2030 number.”
Hunnicutt spoke of NCC having a partnership with Nash County Public Schools.
All area high schools are in the Career and College Promise dual enrollment program which allows high school students who are eligible to take college classes.
An early college, which is on the NCC campus, enables high school students to earn a high school diploma and a two-year associate degree simultaneously. Those college credits can also transfer to a four-year degree for students who want to further their education after graduating.
Hunnicutt also spoke about CITI High School, which will soon be housed on the community college campus starting this fall. CITI stands for the Center for Industry, Technology & Innovation. The high school is for students who do not intend to go to a university but who want to learn a skill for a job.
Hunnicutt also spoke about the WIN Academy, which was set up in the summer of 2023 and stands for Work In Nash. The WIN Academy provides short-term workforce training for high school students who do not know what they want to do next in life.
Hunnicutt said that representatives of 16 businesses interview the students who go through the program.
Hunnicutt said that he and his team are now trying to set the program up as a workplace track in the schools system in the daytime so that when a student graduates from high school, he or she can, with a certificate in hand, go to work at a job.
He also spoke of N.C. Wesleyan University and NCC teaming up to start the Nash County Education Network.
He said that the program, which is in partnership with Nash County Public Schools, is about to be rolled out and that visits are going to be made to the parents of 10th-graders.
He said that if those students need a four-year degree in route to eventually seeking a career as an attorney, a doctor or a teacher, then they can start on that path by taking College and Career Promise classes, earning an associate degree from NCC and earning a bachelor’s degree from N.C. Wesleyan.
And he said that such an education in Nash County would be capped at a cost of $20,000.
Among many other programs Hunnicutt spoke about, one of them is called the REACH Initiative, which offers workplace skills-related education for free to the underemployed or unemployed.
Hunnicutt also noted that NCC has long had an apprenticeship program with the Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant and that the power-train giant consistently hires the apprentices who completes that program.
Hunnicutt also spoke about an agricultural certificate program planned at NCC.
Hunnicutt said that one of the concerns he has heard was the next generation is not staying on the farm and is doing something else, but he said that there are some who want to stay on the farm.
“They just need some training,” Hunnciutt said.
Hunnicutt has previously said that the plan is to begin offering the ag program this fall.
Most Popular
Comments / 0