SCC shares ‘best practices’ with Rockingham Community College on high school summer camps with visit and tour
It was a day of academic collaboration among five institutions when Southeastern Community College, Rockingham Community College, Rockingham County Schools, Columbus County Schools and Whiteville City Schools came together to talk career and technical education centered around SCC’s high school summer camps program. Dr. Sylvia Cox, President of RCC and former SCC Executive Vice President, traveled with her leadership team along with representatives of RCS to SCC on July 21.
“It’s always a great day when we can welcome back a former employee of Southeastern Community College, and Dr. Cox has always been a source of inspiration for us here,” said Dr. Chris English, SCC President. “Today’s visit was mainly for them to learn some best practices, as we do that across our 58 community colleges, about how our high school summer camps are doing and how successful they are.”
Cox explained that the goal of the visit was to expose her leadership team to the details of how SCC operates its high school summer camps program. Through discussion and campus tours, RCC gained insight on how to implement high school summer camps at their institution. Cox said it was a day of networking and learning from each other with three school systems and two community colleges involved.
“Just having the opportunity to see how it was created, what the details were, the partnerships and how it benefited students,” Cox said. “It’s really great to connect with someone from another community college that you can bounce ideas off of. That alone was a great thing for people see it, hear about it, see the structures, see the students in action and connect with another person from another community college or school system.”
It was a “conversion of my two worlds coming together” for Cox as she described the visit as a fun day and feeling like coming home. She said that creating more powerful partnerships between school systems and community colleges made her heart happy seeing RCC, SCC, RCS, CCS and WCS together in the same room.
“What we come up with in Rockingham County will look a little bit different for sure, but it will have a great framework from being able to see what’s happening here at SCC,” Cox said. “Then it really accelerates your learning really quickly when you can see a model, but I know there will be a lot of similarities between RCC and SCC’s summer camps.”
SCC Associate Vice President for Education and Training Angie Ransom said that Cox was “very familiar” with SCC’s high school summer camp model since its inception in 2022.
“She sees it as a way for us to give students some opportunities in the summer, and they get to come to the college and experience some things that they may not be able to during a traditional high school year,” Ransom said. “And while they’re here, they earn success through gaining industry recognized credentials, meeting with industry partners, seeing things that they may not have experienced before and gaining college or high school credits.”
Ransom was impressed with RCC’s interest in seeing the pathways students can take while at summer camp and the questions they asked about credentials and grants. During the tour through the summer camp classes, Ransom engaged with RCC employees and gained knowledge about possible continuing education offerings at SCC.
“It’s really good to know who your counterpart is at another school,” Ransom said. “Because you know, we’ve got people we can reach out to and ask for additional guidance and insights. We’ve built this concept that it is appropriate to share amongst us, and that community of knowledge is always very important.”
High school summer camp is winding down at SCC and will conclude with a graduation ceremony on July 30 at 3 p.m. in the SCC auditorium. Fall semester registration is open now, so be sure to sign up before Aug. 13 for a chance to win a $500 Visa gift card.
