SCC inspires Western Piedmont Community College with tours, networking

Southeastern Community College welcomed Western Piedmont Community College administration and staff members to campus for tours, networking and lunch on Feb. 4. When Dr. Joel Welch, WPCC President, heard about the growth and success of SCC at a recent community college president association meeting, he made arrangements with Dr. Chris English, SCC President, to set up a visit.  

“When you can take and collaborate with other colleges and learn from one another, you can provide your best,” English said. “We are all here to serve our communities, and how you go about that is very unique, diverse and specific to the community you serve.” 

English explained that when colleges can learn from each other, take away the good things and establish those “best practices,” it benefits everyone, especially the students.  

Welch said that figuring out the needs of the people a community college serves will promote economic growth. He said that careers in automotive, agribusiness and healthcare were in high demand, and community colleges need programs to support those areas of study.  

Welch quoted Dr. Dallas Herring’s motto of “meeting students where they are and taking them as far as they want to go.” He emphasized the importance of taking education off campus with mobile labs and teaching college transfer courses in high school classrooms. Welch was impressed with SCC’s ability to teach outside of SCC’s campus boundaries.  

“It’s a been a great day of collaborating with colleagues, talking about things that we as community college people – our tribe, so to speak – care about and charges us up,” Welch said. “It’s awesome to see the great things that other people do, and we like to see other colleges that care about their community just as much as we do.” 

WPCC’s visit to SCC started with a welcome and introduction in the auditorium followed by tours of workforce development classrooms, mobile labs, the greenhouse and future site of the lineman program. After the tours, WPCC staff met with their SCC staff counterpart for an in-depth roundtable discussion on the second floor of Nesmith Student Center.  

Dr. Sylvia Cox, SCC Executive Vice President, explained that engaging with people from other institutions benefits SCC as well as the North Carolina Community College System. While surrounded by like-minded people who want to improve the lives of students, Cox said it calls for everyone else to improve.   

“Today was a really great opportunity for us to meet with folks from a sister college,” Cox said. “It’s really important to connect with other colleges and people at those colleges who have a similar role as you do. We’re learning so much and building a network, and that’s what we did today as we built more friends within our community college system.” 

Dr. Cindy Davies, WPCC Vice President of Academic Affairs and Workforce Development, toured the campus with Dr. Cox and visited the nursing sim lab, health and human services building, nursing building and the workforce development and welding mobile labs. She was impressed with the mobile labs visiting local high schools to teach electrical engineering, hydraulics, HVAC and welding courses. 

Davies praised SCC’s one college model and said it is something WPCC is aspiring to do. She said the one college model “just makes sense” for workforce development training “in this day and age.”  

“This was just a great opportunity to see great things happening across our state and sister college,” Davies said. “We’re learning a lot, but we’ve been able to share our strengths. We’re looking forward to continuing this relationship.” 

After tours and meetings ended, the visit concluded with lunch in Nesmith Student Center provided by Pizza Village. Ready to get started at SCC and dive into your dream career? Click here to get started. 

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