(Pictured from left to right are Southern President Dr. Pamela Alderman and Marshall University President Brad Smith.) Officials fromS outhern West Virginia Community and Technical College and Marshall University signed a new affiliation agreement for a Bachelor of Applied Science degree.
LOGAN Southern West Virginia Community & Technical College is now an affiliate of Marshall University.
Representatives from both Southern and Marshall met Wednesday morning on Southern’s Logan campus to sign a new affiliation agreement. The move is meant to establish a clear path for students at Southern to more easily continue their higher education at Marshall University.
Part of that agreement establishes a new program offered at Marshall University. The Bachelor of Applied Science degree serves to expand Southern’s Associate of Applied Science program, which is a two-year degree that focuses on technical skills and applied sciences. A-A-S programs are designed to prepare students to enter into specific fields within the workforce, such as accounting, computer networking or childcare. The technology and methods within those fields, however, are constantly changing.
Brandon Dennison is Vice President for Economic and Workforce Development at Marshall. Many of the jobs students prepare for under A-A-S programs, according to Dennison, are increasingly more likely to leave their community college unprepared, as advancements in the workforce rapidly render their education obsolete. The purpose of the B-A-S program at Marshall, he says is to continue that education to include preparing students to know how to keep up with a working environment that is constantly changing.
“It’s a new opportunity at Marshall we call two-plus-two,” Dennison said. “So, if you’ve earned an Associate’s of Applied Science here at Southern, what this agreement is says is that all sixty of those credits will transfer to Marshall, and you can do sixty more credits towards a Bachelor of Applied Science. Before this agreement, that could be a little clunky. Sometimes, students could be very frustrated that they had a full associate’s degree, but not all sixty of those credits would transfer. With the B-A-S program, all sixty of those credits will transfer.”
Doctor Pamela Alderman is President at Southern. In an interview with WVOW News, she said that the college was started in around 1960 as a branch of Marshall University. This agreement, according to Doctor Alderman, serves not only to strengthen the bond between the two schools, but it provides a chance for students in every program at Southern to continue their education at Marshall without all of the complications that can often accompany transferring schools.
“This gives our students an opportunity,” she said.
“Many of our students who graduate with the AAS degree don’t have a pathway to continue their education unless they change fields. So, with our Allied Health students, mainly in our medical laboratory technology, our surgical technology, our cosmetology and those types of things, they can go on to Marshall now and get their Bachelor’s degree seamlessly leaving here, which is wonderful.”
According to Doctor Alderman, the affiliation will serve to benefit every student in every department at Southern Community & Technical College.
The Bachelor of Applied Science program at Marshall serves as a sort of interdisciplinary degree, allowing students to customize and focus their major to best suit the career they plan to pursue. A release from Southern says the program is designed so that students can complete it in person, online or both.
Doctor Brad Smith is President at Marshall University. With both he and Doctor Alderman having been in regular meetings for more than a year, he said this affiliation agreement was something that only made sense as his college attempts to grow and develop a constantly learning workforce. He told WVOW News that the issue of adapting to constant changes is something every University in the Mountain State is trying to address.
“So, we all recognize that, as a state, two things are a reality: one is, today, sixty-five percent of all third-graders will work in a job that does not exist when they graduate,” said Smith.
“And the second is, we need to get our college or our learning participation rate up in this state so we become continuous learners, so every president in the state has been working together to say, ‘how do we make sure that every student, no matter what path they choose – into the workforce, into a community college or into a four-year college – has a frictionless pathway?’”
A native of Wayne County, Doctor Smith is the first Marshall graduate to ever serve as the college’s president.
PHOTO | R J Fields